Subsums of a zero-sum free subset of an abelian group (Q1010850)

Summary: Let \(G\) be an additive finite abelian group and \(S \subset G\) a subset. Let \(f(S)\) denote the number of nonzero group elements which can be expressed as a sum of a nonempty subset of \(S\). It is proved that if \(|S|=6\) and there are no subsets of \(S\) with sum zero, then \(f(S)\geq 19\). Obviously, this lower bound is best possible, and thus this result gives a positive answer to an open problem proposed by R. B. Eggleton and P. Erdős in 1972. As a consequence, we prove that any zero-sum free sequence \(S\) over a cyclic group \(G\) of length \(|S| \geq \frac{6|G|+28}{19}\) contains some element with multiplicity at least \(\frac{6|S|-|G|+1}{17}\).