A characterization of incomplete sequences in vector spaces

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Abstract: A sequence A of elements an additive group G is {it incomplete} if there exists a group element that {it can not} be expressed as a sum of elements from A. The study of incomplete sequences is a popular topic in combinatorial number theory. However, the structure of incomplete sequences is still far from being understood, even in basic groups. The main goal of this paper is to give a characterization of incomplete sequences in the vector space Fpd, where d is a fixed integer and p is a large prime. As an application, we give a new proof for a recent result by Gao-Ruzsa-Thangadurai on the Olson's constant of Fp2 and partially answer their conjecture concerning Fp3.


A sequence of elements in an abelian group is incomplete if there exists a group element which cannot be expressed as a sum of elements of \(A\). The paper characterizes incomplete sums in \(\mathbb{F }_p^d\). Theorem 1.2: For any positive integer \(d\) and positive constants \(\alpha, \beta\) there is a positive \(\varepsilon\) such that the following holds for every sequences \(A\) in \(\mathbb{F }_p^d\), where \(p\) is a sufficiently large prime. Either there is an \(m \leq \beta p\) such that \[ m^*A := \left\{ \sum_{x \in B}x: \;B \subset A, |B|=m \right\}= \mathbb{F }_p^d \] or \(A\) can be partitioned into disjoint subsequences \(A_0, \ldots , A_l\) such that 1) \(|A_0|\leq \alpha p\), 2) \(|A_i|= \lfloor \varepsilon p \rfloor, i \geq 1\), 3) there is a subspace \(H\) such that \(A_i\) \((1\leq i\leq l)\) is contained in a translate of \(H\), and \(m^* A_0\) contains a translate of \(H\) for some \(1 \leq m \leq |A_0|\). The proof makes use of ideas on sumset growth similar to those in \textit{N. Alon} and \textit{M. Dubiner} [Combinatorica 15, No. 3, 301--309 (1995; Zbl 0838.11020)] and the authors [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 116, No. 4, 936--959 (2009; Zbl 1196.11048)]. The result is applied to a new estimate on the Olson constant in \(\mathbb{F}_p^3\). For an abelian group \(G\), the Olson constant \(\text{OL}(G)\) is the smallest integer such that no subset of \(G\) of cardinality \(\text{OL}(G)\) is zero-sum free. It is known that \(\text{OL}(\mathbb{F }_p)\leq \lceil \sqrt{2 p}+5 \log p\rceil\) and \(\text{OL}(\mathbb{F }_p^2)=p +\text{OL}(\mathbb{F }_p)-1\), see \textit{W. D. Gao, I. Z. Ruzsa} and \textit{R. Thangadurai} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 107, No. 1, 49--67 (2004; Zbl 1107.11014)]. In Theorem 1.3 the authors solve the inverse problem, i.e. they characterize zero-sum free sets of size \(p+\text{OL}(\mathbb{F }_p)-2\). For higher dimension \(d\), Gao, Ruzsa and Thangadurai conjectured that \(\text{OL}(\mathbb{F }_p^d)=p +\text{OL}(\mathbb{F }_p^{d-1})-1\). This implies that for every \(\gamma>0\) and sufficiently large \(p\) the following upper bound holds: \[ \text{OL}(\mathbb{F }_p^d)\leq (d-1+\gamma)p. \] The authors prove the latter in the case \(d=3\).











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