Inverse results for weighted Harborth constants

For a finite abelian group $(G,+)$ the Harborth constant is defined as the smallest integer $\ell$ such that each squarefree sequence over $G$ of length $\ell$ has a subsequence of length equal to the exponent of $G$ whose terms sum to $0$. The plus-minus weighted Harborth constant is defined in the same way except that the existence of a plus-minus weighted subsum equaling $0$ is required, that is, when forming the sum one can chose a sign for each term. The inverse problem associated to these constants is the problem of determining the structure of squarefree sequences of maximal length that do not yet have such a zero-subsum. We solve the inverse problems associated to these constant for certain groups, in particular for groups that are the direct sum of a cyclic group and a group of order two. Moreover, we obtain some results for the plus-minus weighted Erd\H{o}s--Ginzburg--Ziv constant

On weighted zero-sum sequences

Let G be a finite additive abelian group with exponent exp(G)=n>1 and let A be a nonempty subset of {1,...,n-1}. In this paper, we investigate the smallest positive integer $m$, denoted by s_A(G), such that any sequence {c_i}_{i=1}^m with terms from G has a length n=exp(G) subsequence {c_{i_j}}_{j=1}^n for which there are a_1,...,a_n in A such that sum_{j=1}^na_ic_{i_j}=0. When G is a p-group, A contains no multiples of p and any two distinct elements of A are incongruent mod p, we show that s_A(G) is at most $\lceil D(G)/|A|\rceil+exp(G)-1$ if |A| is at least (D(G)-1)/(exp(G)-1), where D(G) is the Davenport constant of G and this upper bound for s_A(G)in terms of |A| is essentially best possible. In the case A={1,-1}, we determine the asymptotic behavior of s_{{1,-1}}(G) when exp(G) is even, showing that, for finite abelian groups of even exponent and fixed rank, s_{{1,-1}}(G)=exp(G)+log_2|G|+O(log_2log_2|G|) as exp(G) tends to the infinity. Combined with a lower bound of $exp(G)+sum{i=1}{r}\lfloor\log_2 n_i\rfloor$, where $G=\Z_{n_1}\oplus...\oplus \Z_{n_r}$ with 1<n_1|... |n_r, this determines s_{{1,-1}}(G), for even exponent groups, up to a small order error term. Our method makes use of the theory of L-intersecting set systems. Some additional more specific values and results related to s_{{1,-1}}(G) are also computed.Comment: 24 pages. Accepted version for publication in Adv. in Appl. Mat

On products of k atoms II

Let $H$ be a Krull monoid with class group $G$ such that every class contains a prime divisor (for example, rings of integers in algebraic number fields or holomorphy rings in algebraic function fields). For $k \in \mathbb N$, let $\mathcal U_k (H)$ denote the set of all $m \in \mathbb N$ with the following property: There exist atoms $u_1, ..., u_k, v_1, ..., v_m \in H$ such that $u_1 \cdot ... \cdot u_k = v_1 \cdot ...\cdot v_m$. Furthermore, let $\lambda_k (H) = \min \mathcal U_k (H)$ and $\rho_k (H) = \sup \mathcal U_k (H)$. The sets $\mathcal U_k (H) \subset \mathbb N$ are intervals which are finite if and only if $G$ is finite. Their minima $\lambda_k (H)$ can be expressed in terms of $\rho_k (H)$. The invariants $\rho_k (H)$ depend only on the class group $G$, and in the present paper they are studied with new methods from Additive Combinatorics