A sequence of elements of a finite group G is called a zero-sum sequence if it sums to the identity of G. The study of zero-sum sequences has a long history with many important applications in number theory and group theory. In 1989 Kleitman and Lemke, and independently Chung, proved a strengthening of a number theoretic conjecture of Erdos and Lemke. Kleitman and Lemke then made more general conjectures for finite groups, strengthening the requirements of zero-sum sequences. In this paper we prove their conjecture in the case of abelian groups. Namely, we use graph pebbling to prove that for every sequence (g_k)_{k=1}^{|G|} of |G| elements of a finite abelian group G there is a nonempty subsequence (g_k)_{k in K} such that sum_{k in K}g_k=0_G and sum_{k in K}1/|g_k|\le 1, where |g| is the order of the element g in G.
In this paper we discuss some of the key properties of sum-free subsets of abelian groups. Our discussion has been designed with a broader readership in mind, and is hence not overly technical. We consider answers to questions like: how many sum-free subsets are there in a given abelian group $G$? what are its sum-free subsets of maximum cardinality? what is the maximum cardinality of these sum-free subsets? what does a typical sum-free subset of $G$ looks like? among others.
A subset $D$ of an Abelian group is $decomposable$ if $\emptyset\ne D\subset D+D$. In the paper we give partial answer to an open problem asking whether every finite decomposable subset $D$ of an Abelian group contains a non-empty subset $Z\subset D$ with $\sum Z=0$. For every $n\in\mathbb N$ we present a decomposable subset $D$ of cardinality $|D|=n$ in the cyclic group of order $2^n-1$ such that $\sum D=0$, but $\sum T\ne 0$ for any proper non-empty subset $T\subset D$. On the other hand, we prove that every decomposable subset $D\subset\mathbb R$ of cardinality $|D|\le 7$ contains a non-emp…
Balogh, Liu, Sharifzadeh and Treglown [Journal of the European Mathematical Society, 2018] recently gave a sharp count on the number of maximal sum-free subsets of $\{1, \dots, n\}$, thereby answering a question of Cameron and Erdős. In contrast, not as much is know about the analogous problem for finite abelian groups. In this paper we give the first sharp results in this direction, determining asymptotically the number of maximal sum-free sets in both the binary and ternary spaces $\mathbb Z^k_2$ and $\mathbb Z^k_3$. We also make progress on a conjecture of Balogh, Liu, Sharifzadeh and Tregl…
We study pairs of subsets $A, B$ of a compact abelian group $G$ where the sumset $A+B:=\{a+b: a\in A, b\in B\}$ is small. Let $m$ and $m_{*}$ be Haar measure and inner Haar measure on $G$, respectively. Given $\varepsilon>0$, we classify all pairs $A,B$ of Haar measurable subsets of $G$ satisfying $m(A), m(B)>\varepsilon$ and $m_{*}(A+B)\leq m(A)+m(B)+δ$ where $δ=δ(\varepsilon)>0$ is small. We also study the case where the $δ$-popular sumset $A+_δB:=\{t\in G: m(A\cap (t-B))>δ\}$ is small. We prove that for all $\varepsilon>0$, there is a $δ>0$ such that if $A$ and $B$ are subsets of a compact …
In this paper, we study the minimal number of elements of maximal order within a zero-sumfree sequence in a finite Abelian p-group. For this purpose, in the general context of finite Abelian groups, we introduce a new number, for which lower and upper bounds are proved in the case of finite Abelian p-groups. Among other consequences, the method that we use here enables us to show that, if we denote by exp(G) the exponent of the finite Abelian p-group G which is considered, then a zero-sumfree sequence S with maximal possible length in G must contain at least exp(G)-1 elements of maximal order,…
We characterize the structure of maximum-size sum-free subsets of a random subset of an Abelian group $G$. In particular, we determine the threshold $p_c \approx \sqrt{\log n / n}$ above which, with high probability as $|G| \to \infty$, each such subset is contained in a maximum-size sum-free subset of $G$, whenever $q$ divides $|G|$ for some (fixed) prime $q$ with $q \equiv 2 \pmod 3$. Moreover, in the special case $G = \ZZ_{2n}$, we determine a sharp threshold for the above property. The proof uses recent 'transference' theorems of Conlon and Gowers, together with stability theorems for sum-…
Let G be a finite abelian group. For g in G and i an integer we define N(i,g) to be the number of subsets of G of size i which sum up to g. We will give a short proof, using character theory, of a formula for these N(i,g) due to Li and Wan. We also give a formula for N(i,g)*, the number of subsets of G not containing 0 of size i which sum up to g. This generalizes another result of Wan.
A subset $A$ of a finite abelian group is called $(k,\ell)$-sum-free if $kA \cap \ell A=\emptyset.$ In this paper, we extend this concept to compact abelian groups and study the question of how large a measurable $(k,\ell)$-sum-free set can be. For integers $1 \leq k <\ell$ and a compact abelian group $G$, let $$λ_{k,\ell}(G)=\sup\{ μ(A): kA \cap \ell A =\emptyset \}$$ be the maximum possible size of a $(k,\ell)$-sum-free subset of $G$. We prove that if $G=\mathbb{I} \times M$, where $\mathbb{I}$ is the identity component of $G$, then $$λ_{k, \ell}(G)=\max \left\{ λ_{k, \ell}(M), λ_{k, \ell}(\…
We study sum-free sets in sparse random subsets of even order abelian groups. In particular, we determine the sharp threshold for the following property: the largest such set is contained in some maximum-size sum-free subset of the group. This theorem extends recent work of Balogh, Morris and Samotij, who resolved the case G = Z_{2n}, and who obtained a weaker threshold (up to a constant factor) in general.
Let $G$ be a group and $S$ an inverse closed subset of $G\setminus \{1\}$. By a Cayley graph $Cay(G,S)$ we mean the graph whose vertex set is the set of elements of $G$ and two vertices $x$ and $y$ are adjacent if $x^{-1}y\in S$. A group $G$ is called a CI-group if $Cay(G,S)\cong Cay(G,T)$ for some inverse closed subsets $S$ and $T$ of $G\setminus \{1\}$, then $S^α=T$ for some automorphism $α$ of $G$. A finite group $G$ is called a BI-group if $Cay(G,S)\cong Cay(G,T)$ for some inverse closed subsets $S$ and $T$ of $G\setminus \{1\}$, then $M_ν^S=M_ν^T$ for all positive integers $ν$, where $M_ν…
In this paper we propose a conjecture concerning partial sums of an arbitrary finite subset of an abelian group, that naturally arises investigating simple Heffter systems. Then, we show its connection with related open problems and we present some results about the validity of these conjectures.
Let $G$ be an additive abelian group and $S\subset G$ a subset. Let $Σ(S)$ denote the set of group elements which can be expressed as a sum of a nonempty subset of $S$. We say $S$ is zero-sum free if $0 \not\in Σ(S)$. It was conjectured by R.B.~Eggleton and P.~Erdös in 1972 and proved by W.~Gao et. al. in 2008 that $|Σ(S)|\geq 19$ provided that $S$ is a zero-sum free subset of an abelian group $G$ with $|S|=6$. In this paper, we determined the structure of zero-sum free set $S$ where $|S|=6$ and $|Σ(S)|=19$.
The distribution of cardinalities of zero-sum sets in abelian groups is completely determined. A complex summation involving the Möbius function is given for the general abelian group, while in many special cases, including the case of elementary abelian groups, solved earlier by Li and Wan, it has a compact form. The proof involves two different Möbius transforms, on positive integers and on set partitions.
Denoting by Sigma(S) the set of subset sums of a subset S of a finite abelian group G, we prove that |Sigma(S)| >= |S|(|S|+2)/4-1 whenever S is symmetric, |G| is odd and Sigma(S) is aperiodic. Up to an additive constant of 2 this result is best possible, and we obtain the stronger (exact best possible) bound in almost all cases. We prove similar results in the case |G| is even. Our proof requires us to extend a theorem of Olson on the number of subset sums of anti-symmetric subsets S from the case of Z_p to the case of a general finite abelian group. To do so, we adapt Olson's method using a g…
Given a finite subset A of an abelian group G, we study the set k \wedge A of all sums of k distinct elements of A. In this paper, we prove that |k \wedge A| >= |A| for all k in {2,...,|A|-2}, unless k is in {2,|A|-2} and A is a coset of an elementary 2-subgroup of G. Furthermore, we characterize those finite subsets A of G for which |k \wedge A| = |A| for some k in {2,...,|A|-2}. This result answers a question of Diderrich. Our proof relies on an elementary property of proper edge-colourings of the complete graph.
In this article, we study the maximal cross number of long zero-sumfree sequences in a finite Abelian group. Regarding this inverse-type problem, we formulate a general conjecture and prove, among other results, that this conjecture holds true for finite cyclic groups, finite Abelian p-groups and for finite Abelian groups of rank two. Also, the results obtained here enable us to improve, via the resolution of a linear integer program, a result of W. Gao and A. Geroldinger concerning the minimal number of elements with maximal order in a long zero-sumfree sequence of a finite Abelian group of r…
We classify the pairs of subsets (A,B) of a locally compact abelian group satisfying m(A+B)=m(A)+m(B), where m is Haar measure. This generalizes a result of M. Kneser classifying such pairs under the additional assumption that G is compact and connected. Our proof combines Kneser's proof with arguments of D. Grynkiewicz, who classified the pairs of subsets (A,B) of abelian groups satisfying |A+B|=|A|+|B|, where |A| is the cardinality of A.
We extend the concepts of sum-free sets and Sidon-sets of combinatorial number theory with the aim to provide explicit constructions for spherical designs. We call a subset $S$ of the (additive) abelian group $G$ {\it $t$-free} if for all non-negative integers $k$ and $l$ with $k+l \leq t$, the sum of $k$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $S$ does not equal the sum of $l$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $S$ unless $k=l$ and the two sums contain the same terms. Here we shall give asymptotic bounds for the size of a largest $t$-free set in ${\bf Z}_n$, and for $t \leq 3$ discuss how …
Tarnauceanu [Archiv der Mathematik, 102 (1), (2014), 11--14] gave a characterisation of elementary abelian $2$-groups in terms of their maximal sum-free sets. His theorem states that a finite group $G$ is an elementary abelian $2$-group if and only if the set of maximal sum-free sets coincides with the set of complements of the maximal subgroups. A corollary is that the number of maximal sum-free sets in an elementary abelian $2$-group of finite rank $n$ is $2^n-1$. Regretfully, we show here that the theorem is wrong. We then prove a correct version of the theorem from which the desired coroll…
In this note, we give the explicit formula for the number of multisubsets of a finite abelian group $G$ with any given size such that the sum is equal to a given element $g\in G$. This also gives the number of partitions of $g$ into a given number of parts over a finite abelian group. An inclusion-exclusion formula for the number of multisubsets of a subset of $G$ with a given size and a given sum is also obtained.
Let A and B be subsets of an elementary abelian 2-group G, none of which are contained in a coset of a proper subgroup. Extending onto potentially distinct summands a result of Hennecart and Plagne, we show that if |A+B|<|A|+|B|, then either A+B=G, or the complement of A+B in G is contained in a coset of a subgroup of index at least 8, whence |A+B| is at least 7/8 |G|. We indicate conditions for the containment to be strict, and establish a refinement in the case where the sizes of A and B differ significantly.
Let $G$ be a finite abelian group. For any positive integers $d$ and $m$, let $φ_G(d)$ be the number of elements in $G$ of order $d$ and $\mathsf M(G,m)$ be the set of all zero-sum sequences of length $m$. In this paper, for any finite abelian group $H$, we prove that $$|\mathsf M(G,|H|)|=|\mathsf M(H,|G|)|$$ if and only if $φ_G(d)=φ_H(d)$ for any $d|(|G|,|H|)$. We also consider an extension of this result to non-abelian groups in terms of invariant theory.
The purpose of the article is to provide an unified way to formulate zero-sum invariants. Let $G$ be a finite additive abelian group. Let $B(G)$ denote the set consisting of all nonempty zero-sum sequences over G. For $Ω\subset B(G$), let $d_Ω(G)$ be the smallest integer $t$ such that every sequence $S$ over $G$ of length $|S|\geq t$ has a subsequence in $Ω$.We provide some first results and open problems on $d_Ω(G)$.
An $r$-coloring of a subset $A$ of a finite abelian group $G$ is called sum-free if it does not induce a monochromatic Schur triple, i.e., a triple of elements $a,b,c\in A$ with $a+b=c$. We investigate $κ_{r,G}$, the maximum number of sum-free $r$-colorings admitted by subsets of $G$, and our results show a close relationship between $κ_{r,G}$ and largest sum-free sets of $G$. Given a sufficiently large abelian group $G$ of type $I$, i.e., $|G|$ has a prime divisor $q$ with $q\equiv 2\pmod 3$. For $r=2,3$ we show that a subset $A\subset G$ achieves $κ_{r,G}$ if and only if $A$ is a largest sum…
If X is any connected Cayley graph on any finite abelian group, we determine precisely which flows on X can be written as a sum of hamiltonian cycles. (This answers a question of Brian Alspach.) In particular, if the degree of X is at least 5, and X has an even number of vertices, then the flows that can be so written are precisely the even flows, that is, the flows f, such that the sum of the edge-flows of f is divisible by 2. On the other hand, there are examples of degree 4 in which not all even flows can be written as a sum of hamiltonian cycles. Analogous results were already known, from …
Let $G$ be a finite abelian group with exponent $n$. Let $η(G)$ denote the smallest integer $\ell$ such that every sequence over $G$ of length at least $\ell$ has a zero-sum subsequence of length at most $n$. We determine the precise value of $η(G)$ when $G$ is a $p$-group whose Davenport constant is at most $2n-1$. This confirms one of the equalities in a conjecture by Schmid and Zhuang from 2010.
Let $G$ be a finite abelian group, written additively, and $H$ a subgroup of~$G$. The \emph{subgroup sum graph} $Γ_{G,H}$ is the graph with vertex set $G$, in which two distinct vertices $x$ and $y$ are joined if $x+y\in H\setminus\{0\}$. These graphs form a fairly large class of Cayley sum graphs. Among cases which have been considered previously are the \emph{prime sum graphs}, in the case where $H=pG$ for some prime number $p$. In this paper we present their structure and a detailed analysis of their properties. We also consider the simpler graph $Γ^+_{G,H}$, which we refer to as the \emph{…
Let $G$ be an additive finite abelian group and let $k\in [\exp(G),\mathsf{D}(G)-1]$ be a positive integer. Denote by $\mathsf{s}_{\leq k}(G)$ the smallest positive integer $l\in \mathbb{N}\cup \{+\infty\}$ such that each sequence of length $l$ over $G$ has a non-empty zero-sum subsequence of length at most $k$. Let $k_G\in [\exp(G),\mathsf{D}(G)-1]$ be the smallest positive integer such that $\mathsf{s}_{\leq \mathsf{D}(G)-d}(G)\leq \mathsf{D}(G)+d$ for $\mathsf{D}(G)-d\geq k_G$. We conjecture that $k_G=\frac{\mathsf{D}(G)+1}{2}$ for finite abelian groups $G$ with $r(G)\geq 2$ and $\mathsf{D}…
Let A be a subset of an abelian group G. We say that A is sum-free if there do not exist x,y and z in A satisfying x + y = z. We determine, for any G, the cardinality of the largest sum-free subset of G. This equals c(G)|G| where c(G) is a constant depending on G and lying in the interval [2/7,1/2]. We also estimate the number of sum-free subsets of G. It turns out that log_2 of this number is c(G)|G| + o(|G|), which is tight up to the o-term. For certain abelian groups, those whose order is divisible by a small prime of the form 3k + 2, we can obtain an asymptotic for the number of sum-free s…
In this paper we study sum-free sets of order $m$ in finite Abelian groups. We prove a general theorem on 3-uniform hypergraphs, which allows us to deduce structural results in the sparse setting from stability results in the dense setting. As a consequence, we determine the typical structure and asymptotic number of sum-free sets of order $m$ in Abelian groups $G$ whose order is divisible by a prime $q$ with $q \equiv 2 \pmod 3$, for every $m \ge C(q) \sqrt{n \log n}$, thus extending and refining a theorem of Green and Ruzsa. In particular, we prove that almost all sum-free subsets of size $m…
A subset $A$ of a given finite abelian group $G$ is called $(k,l)$-sum-free if the sum of $k$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $A$ does not equal the sum of $l$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $A$. We are interested in finding the maximum size $λ_{k,l}(G)$ of a $(k,l)$-sum-free subset in $G$. A $(2,1)$-sum-free set is simply called a sum-free set. The maximum size of a sum-free set in the cyclic group $\mathbb{Z}_n$ was found almost forty years ago by Diamanda and Yap; the general case for arbitrary finite abelian groups was recently settled by Green and Ruzsa. Here we find the va…
Let $A$ be a multiset with elements in an abelian group. Let $FS(A)$ be the multiset containing the $2^{|A|}$ sums of all subsets of $A$. We study the reconstruction problem ``Given $FS(A)$, is it possible to identify $A$?'', and we give a satisfactory answer for all abelian groups. We prove that, up to identifying multisets through a natural equivalence relation, the function $A \mapsto FS(A)$ is injective (and thus the reconstruction problem is solvable) if and only if every order $n$ of a torsion element of the abelian group satisfies a certain number-theoretical property linked to the mult…
Suppose that $A$, $B$ and $S$ are non-empty subsets of a finite abelian group $G$. Then the generalized restricted sumset $$ A\stackrel{S}+B:=\{a+b:\,a\in A,\ b\in B,\ a-b\not\in S\} $$ contains at least $$ \min\{|A|+|B|-3|S|,p(G)\} $$ elements, where $p(G)$ is the least prime factor of $|G|$. Further, we also have $$ |A\stackrel{S}+B|\geq \min\{|A|+|B|-|S|-2,p(G)\}, $$ provided that both $|A|$ and $|B|$ are large with respect to $|S|$.
Motivated by a problem in additive Ramsey theory, we extend Todorcevic's partitions of three-dimensional combinatorial cubes to handle additional three-dimensional objects. As a corollary, we get that if the continuum hypothesis fails, then for every Abelian group $G$ of size $\aleph_2$, there exists a coloring $c:G\rightarrow\mathbb Z$ such that for every uncountable $X\subseteq G$ and every integer $k$, there are three distinct elements $x,y,z$ of $X$ such that $c(x+y+z)=k$.
In this paper, we present a reciprocity on finite abelian groups involving zero-sum sequences. Let $G$ and $H$ be finite abelian groups with $(|G|,|H|)=1$. For any positive integer $m$, let $\mathsf M(G,m)$ denote the set of all zero-sum sequences over $G$ of length $m$. We have the following reciprocity $$|\mathsf M(G,|H|)|=|\mathsf M(H,|G|)|.$$ Moreover, we provide a combinatorial interpretation of the above reciprocity using ideas from rational Catalan combinatorics. We also present and explain some other symmetric relationships on finite abelian groups with methods from invariant theory. A…
Suppose $G$ is a finite abelian group and $S$ is a sequence of elements in $G$. For any element $g$ of $G$, let $N_g(S)$ denote the number of subsequences of $S$ with sum $g$. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the lower bound for $N_g(S)$. In particular, we prove that either $N_g(S)=0$ or $N_g(S) \ge 2^{|S|-D(G)+1}$, where $D(G)$ is the smallest positive integer $\ell$ such that every sequence over $G$ of length at least $\ell$ has a nonempty zero-sum subsequence. We also characterize the structures of the extremal sequences for which the equality holds for some groups.
We address the "sums of dilates problem" by looking for non-trivial lower bounds on sumsets of the form $k \cdot X + l \cdot X$, where $k$ and $l$ are non-zero integers and $X$ is a subset of a possibly non-abelian group $G$ (written additively). In particular, we investigate the extension of some results so far known only for the integers to the context of torsion-free or linearly orderable groups, either abelian or not.
Zero-sum problems for abelian groups and covers of the integers by residue classes, are two different active topics initiated by P. Erdos more than 40 years ago and investigated by many researchers separately since then. In an earlier announcement [Electron. Res. Announc. Amer. Math. Soc. 9(2003), 51-60], the author claimed some surprising connections among these seemingly unrelated fascinating areas. In this paper we establish further connections between zero-sum problems for abelian p-groups and covers of the integers. For example, we extend the famous Erdos-Ginzburg-Ziv theorem in the follo…
Let $A$ be a finite, nonempty subset of an abelian group. We show that if every element of $A$ is a sum of two other elements, then $A$ has a nonempty zero-sum subset. That is, a (finite, nonempty) sum-full subset of an abelian group is not zero-sum-free.
Let $\overrightarrow{G}$ be a directed graph of order $n$ with no component of order less than $4$, and let $Γ$ be a finite Abelian group such that $|Γ|\geq n+6$. We show that there exists a mapping $ψ$ from the arc set $E(\overrightarrow{G})$ of $\overrightarrow{G}$ to an Abelian group $Γ$ such that if we define a mapping $φ_ψ$ from the vertex set $V(\overrightarrow{G})$ of $\overrightarrow{G}$ to $Γ$ by $$φ_ψ(x)=\sum_{y\in N^+(x)}ψ(xy)-\sum_{y\in N^-(x)}ψ(yx),\;\;\;(x\in V(\overrightarrow{G})),$$ then $φ_ψ$ is injective. Such a labeling $ψ$ is called \textit{irregular}.
Let $(G, +)$ be an abelian group. In 2004, Eliahou and Kervaire found an explicit formula for the smallest possible cardinality of the sumset $A+A$, where $A \subseteq G$ has fixed cardinality $r$. We consider instead the smallest possible cardinality of the difference set $A-A$, which is always greater than or equal to the smallest possible cardinality of $A+A$ and can be strictly greater. We conjecture a formula for this quantity and prove the conjecture in the case that $G$ is a cyclic group or a vector space over a finite field. This resolves a conjecture of Bajnok and Matzke on signed sum…
