Davenport constant for semigroups. (Q2481326)

Let \(G\) be a finite commutative semigroup. The Davenport constant \(D(G)\) of \(G\) is the smallest integer \(d\) such that every sequence \(S\) of \(d\) elements in \(G\) contains a subsequence \(T(\neq S)\) with the same product. Let \(R^\times\) be the multiplicative semigroup of the ring \(R=\mathbb{Z}_{n_1}\oplus\cdots\oplus\mathbb{Z}_{n_r}\). The authors show various properties of this semigroup, in particular they determine \(D(R^\times)-D(U(R))\), where \(U(R)\) is the unit group of \(R\).