Equal Sums of Like Powers with Minimum Number of Terms

This paper is concerned with the diophantine system, $\sum_{i=1}^{s_1} x_i^r=\sum_{i=1}^{s_2} y_i^r,\, r=1,\,2,\,\ldots,\,k,$ where $s_1$ and $s_2$ are integers such that the total number of terms on both sides, that is, $s_1+s_2,$ is as small as possible. We define $β(k)$ to be the minimum value of $s_1+s_2$ for which there exists a nontrivial solution of this diophantine system. We find nontrivial integer solutions of this diophantine system when $k < 6$, and thereby show that $β(2) =4,\;\, β(3) = 6,\;\, 7 \leq β(4) \leq 8$ and $8 \leq β(5) \leq 10$.

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