Permutations with Low Discrepancy Consecutive k-sums

Consider the permutation π=(π1,…, πn) of 1,2,…, n as being placed on a circle with indices taken modulo n. For given k⩽n there are n sums of k consecutive entries. We say the maximum difference of any consecutive k-sum from the average k-sum is the discrepancy of the permutation. We seek a permutation of minimum discrepancy. We find that in general the discrepancy is small, never more than k+6, independent of n. For g= gcd(n,k)>1, we show that the discrepancy is ⩽72. For g=1 it is more complicated. Our constructions show that the discrepancy never exceeds k/2 by more than 9 for large n, while it is at least k/2 for infinitely many n. o give an analysis for the easier case of linear permutations, where we view the permutation as written on a line. The analogous discrepancy is at most 2 for all n,k.