The Lind-Lehmer constant for \(\mathbb{Z}_2^r\times\mathbb{Z}_4^s\) (Q2420495)

For a finite abelian group \(G=\mathbb{Z}_{n_{1}}\times \cdots \times \mathbb{Z}_{n_{k}}\), where \(\mathbb{Z}_{n_{j}}\) \((1\leq j\leq k)\) denotes the cyclic group with order \(n_{j}\), define \[ \lambda (G)=\min \left( \left\{ \prod_{j_{1}=1}^{n_{1}}\dots\prod_{j_{k}=1}^{n_{k}}\left\vert F(e^{i2\pi j_{1}/n_{1}},\dots,e^{i2\pi j_{k}/n_{k}})\right\vert \mid F\in \mathbb{Z}[x_{1},\dots,x_{k}]\right\} \cap \lbrack 2,\infty )\right) . \] According to [\textit{D. Lind} et al., Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 133, No. 5, 1411--1416 (2005; Zbl 1056.43005); \textit{D. Desilva} and \textit{C. Pinner}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 142, No. 6, 1935--1941 (2014; Zbl 1294.11185)], if \(G\neq \mathbb{Z}_{2}\), then \[ \lambda (G)\leq \operatorname{card}(G)-1, \tag{*} \] \((\lambda (\mathbb{Z}_{p^{n}}),\lambda (\mathbb{Z}_{2^{n}}))=(2,3)\) for any natural number \(n\) and any odd prime \(p\), and (*) is sharp when \(G=\mathbb{Z}_{3}^{n}\), or when \(G=\mathbb{Z}_{2}^{n}\) and \(n\geq 2\). In the paper under review, the authors continue to investigate the values of \(\lambda (G)\) for \(G\) running through certain families of \(p\)-groups, where \(p\in \{2,3\}\). Mainly, they show that \(\lambda (\mathbb{Z}_{3}\times \mathbb{Z}_{3^{n}})=8\), \(n\geq 3\Rightarrow \lambda (\mathbb{Z}_{2}\times \mathbb{Z}_{2^{n}})=9\), and equality occurs (again) in (*) whenever \(G\neq \mathbb{Z}_{2}\) and the factors of \(G\) are all \(\mathbb{Z}_{2}\) or \(\mathbb{Z}_{4}\). The proofs of these results are based on a generalization of Lemma 2.1 of the last mentioned reference about a congruence satisfied by the rational integers defining \(\lambda (G)\), when \(G\) is a \(p\)-group.