Harborth constants for certain classes of metacyclic groups (Q1732785)

Let \(G\) be a finite group, and let \(\exp(G)\) be the least common multiple of the orders of the elements of \(G\). The Harborth constant of \(G\) is the smallest integer \(k\geq \exp(G)\) such that any subset of \(G\) of size \(k\) contains \(\exp(G)\) distinct elements whose product is the identity \(1\). The computation of Harborth constants falls under the category of zero-sum problems. Like some other classical invariants for zero-sum problems, to determine the exact values of the Harborth constants are hard. By now only a few results were obtained for some special class of finite groups on this invariant. In this paper, by generalizing previous work on the Harborth constants of dihedral groups, the author computed the Harborth constants for the metacyclic groups of the form \(H_{n,m}=\langle x, y| x^n = 1, y^2 = x^m, yx = x^{-1}y \rangle\). He also solved the `inverse' problem of characterizing all smaller subsets that do not contain \(\exp(H_{n,m})\) distinct elements whose product is \(1\). In the final section the paper, the author suggested topics for future inquiry related to Harborth constants.