Arithmetical interpretation of weighted Davenport constants. (Q461385)

Let \(G\) be a finite Abelian group and let \(\Gamma\) be a set of non-zero endomorphisms of \(G\). The author considers the weighted Davenport constant \(D_\Gamma(G)\), defined as the smallest positive integer \(n\) such that for every sequence \(g_1,g_2,\ldots,g_n\in G\) there is a non-empty subset \(I\subset[1,n]\) and \(\sigma_i\in\Gamma\) (\(i\in I\)) such that \(\sum_{i\in I}\sigma_ig_i=0\). If \(K\) is a Galois number field, then its Galois group \(\Gamma\) operates on the class-group \(H(K)\) of \(K\), and it is shown (Theorem 2.2) that \(D_\Gamma(H(K))\) is the smallest integer \(n\) with the following property: If \(q_1,\ldots,q_n\) are pairwise co-prime positive integers whose product \(q\) is the norm of an ideal of \(K\), then some divisor \(\neq 1\) of \(q\) is the norm of a principal ideal. Theorem 3.1 gives an interpretation of \(D_\Gamma(G)\) in the case when \(G\) is the class group of binary quadratic forms of given discriminant and \(\Gamma=\{1,-1\}\), and Theorem 2.1 provides an interpretation of the usual Davenport constant.