On Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv inverse theorems for dihedral and dicyclic groups (Q2200056): Difference between revisions

Let \(G\) be a finite group and let \(S\) be a finite unordered sequence of terms from \(G\), where repetition is allowed. Then \(S\) is called a product-one sequence if the terms of \(S\) can be ordered such that their product equals the identity of \(G\). Let \(\mathbf{s}(G)\) be the smallest non-negative integer \(t\) such that every sequence of at least \(t\) elements from \(G\) contains a product-one subsequence of length \text{exp}(G), where \text{exp}(G) is the exponent of \(G\). Moreover, let \(\mathbf{E}(G)\) be the smallest non-negative integer \(t\) such that every sequence of at least \(t\) elements from \(G\) contains a product-one subsequence of length \(|G|\), where \(|G|\) denotes the cardinality of \(G\). In this paper the authors compute \(\mathbf{s}(G)\) in the cases when \(G\) is the dihedral group of order \(2n\) for \(n\ge 3\), and \(G\) is a dicyclic group of order \(4n\) for \(n \ge 2\). Namely, they prove that \(\mathbf{s}(G) = 3n\) if \(n\) is odd and \(\mathbf{s}(G) = 2n\) if \(n\) is even, where \(G\) is the dihedral group of order \(2n\) for \(n\ge 3\). Furthermore, they show that \(\mathbf{s}(G) = 6n\) if \(n\) is odd and \(\mathbf{s}(G) = 4n\) if \(n\) is even, where \(G\) is a dicyclic group of order \(4n\) for \(n \ge 2\). On the other hand, they characterize the sequences of size \(|S| = \mathbf{s}(G) - 1\) which have no product-one subsequence of length \text{exp}(G) both for the dihedral group of order \(2n\) and the dicyclic group of order \(4n\). They also describe the structure of the sequences of size \(|S| = \mathbf{E}(G) - 1\) which has no product-one subsequence of length \(|G|\) for the two above mentioned groups.