Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv constants by avoiding three-term arithmetic progressions (Q1753088)

Summary: For a finite abelian group \(G\), The Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv constant \(\mathfrak{s}(G)\) is the smallest \(s\) such that every sequence of \(s\) (not necessarily distinct) elements of \(G\) has a zero-sum subsequence of length \(\operatorname{exp}(G)\). For a prime \(p\), let \(r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)\) denote the size of the largest subset of \(\mathbb{F}_p^n\) without a three-term arithmetic progression. Although similar methods have been used to study \(\mathfrak{s}(G)\) and \(r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)\), no direct connection between these quantities has previously been established. We give an upper bound for \(\mathfrak{s}(G)\) in terms of \(r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)\) for the prime divisors \(p\) of \(\operatorname{exp}(G)\). For the special case \(G=\mathbb{F}_p^n\), we prove \(\mathfrak{s}(\mathbb{F}_p^n)\leq 2p\cdot r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)\). Using the upper bounds for \(r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)\) of \textit{J. S. Ellenberg} and \textit{D. Gijswijt} [Ann. Math. (2) 185, No. 1, 339--343 (2017; Zbl 1425.11020)], this result improves the previously best known upper bounds for \(\mathfrak{s}(\mathbb{F}_p^n)\) given by \textit{E. Naslund} [``Exponential bounds for the Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv constant'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1701.04942}].