Sequences with small subsum sets (Q1011654)

Let \((G,+)\) be a finite abelian group. Let \(X=(x_i)_{i=1}^n\) be a finite sequence of elements of \(G,\) repetition allowed; that is, \(X\in G^n.\) The \textit{length} of \(X\) is denoted by \(|X|=n.\) Otherwise, \(|S|\) denotes the cardinality of the finite set \(S.\) Denote by \(\sigma(X)\) the set of the subsums of elements of \(X\), that is \[ \sigma(X)=\left\{\sum_{i\in I}x_i;\,\emptyset\neq I\subseteq\{1,\dots,n\}\right\}. \] We say that the sequence \(X\) is \textit{zero-sum-free} if and only if \(0\not\in\sigma(X)\). Let \(\langle X\rangle\) denote the subgroup of \(G\) generated by the set of elements appearing in \(X\). Extending results of Fang Sun, Weidong Gao, I. Leader, J. E. Olson and E. T. White, the author proves the following two results. Theorem 1.6. Let \(k\) be a nonnegative integer. There exists a positive integer \(C_k\) such that if \(G\) is a finite abelian group and \(X\in G^n\) is a zero-sum-free sequence of length \(n\) generating a subgroup \(\langle X\rangle\) of \(G\), of rank greater than \(k\), then \(|\sigma(X)|\geq 2^kn-C_k\). Theorem 1.7. Let \(G\) be a finite abelian group and \(X\in G^n\) a zero-sum-free sequence of length \(n\) generating a subgroup \(\langle X\rangle\) of \(G,\) of rank greater than 2. Then \(|\sigma(X)|\geq 4n-5\). In the proof the author uses the following result of O. Ordaz and D. Quiroz: If the abelian group \(G\) is not cyclic, then its Davenport constant \[ D(G):=1+\max_{0\not\in\sigma(X)}|X| \] is less than or equal to \(1+{{|G|}\over{2}}\).