On weighted zero-sum sequences (Q413569)

In zero-sum theory, the constant \(s(G)\) is defined to be the smallest positive integer \(t\) such that any sequence over a finite abelian group \(G\) of length \(t\) contains a zero-sum subsequence of length \(\exp(G)\) (the exponent of \(G\)). The famous Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv Theorem implies \(s(\mathbb{Z}_n)=2n-1\) and the Kemnitz-Reiher Theorem states that \(s(\mathbb{Z}_n^2)=4n-3\). The generalized constant \(s_A(G)\) is defined as the least positive integer \(t\) such that any sequence \(S\) in \(G\) with length \(|S|\geq t\) has an \(A\)-weighted zero-sum subsequence of length \(\text{exp}(G)\), where \(A\) is a nonempty subset of \({1,\ldots, \exp(G)-1}\). In this paper, the authors derive an upper bound of \(s_A(G)\) when \(G\) is an abelian \(p\)-group, \(A\) contains no multiples of \(p\) and any two distinct elements of \(A\) are incongruent modulo \(p\). In addition, they determined the asymptotic behavior of \(s_{\pm 1}(G)\) when \(\exp(G)\) is even.