On the structure of \(p\)-zero-sum free sequences and its application to a variant of Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv theorem (Q1770020)

Given a positive integer \(n\) and a finite sequence of integers \(F\) we call \(n-\)sum any integer \(r\) of the form \(r=\sum_{j \in G} j\) where \(G\) is a subsequence of length \(n\) of \(F.\) Given positive integers \(n,k\) with \(k \leq n\) we denote by \(0 < g=f(n,k)\) the smallest positive integer \(g\) such that any sequence of integers of length \(g\) that reduced modulo \(n\) has \(k\) distinct values is forced to hold an \(n-\)sum divisible by \(n.\) It is of some interest to know exactly the value of this function. The main result of the paper is an upper bound for \(f(n,k)\) when \(n=p\) is an odd prime number: Namely, \[ f(p,k) \leq 2p -r, \] where \[ r= \min( [\frac{p+1}{3}]+1,\frac{k^{2}}{8}+2). \] Reviewer's remark: In reference [9] replace incorrect ``Baha'' by correct ``Bahía''.