In number theory, zero-sum problems are certain kinds of combinatorial problems about the structure of a finite abelian group. Concretely, given a finite abelian group G and a positive integer n, one asks for the smallest value of k such that every sequence of elements of G of size k contains n terms that sum to 0.

The classic result in this area is the 1961 theorem of Paul Erdős, Abraham Ginzburg, and Abraham Ziv.[1] They proved that for the group of integers modulo n,

Explicitly this says that any multiset of 2n − 1 integers has a subset of size n the sum of whose elements is a multiple of n, but that the same is not true of multisets of size 2n − 2. (Indeed, the lower bound is easy to see: the multiset containing n − 1 copies of 0 and n − 1 copies of 1 contains no n-subset summing to a multiple of n.) This result is known as the Erdős–Ginzburg–Ziv theorem after its discoverers. It may also be deduced from the Cauchy–Davenport theorem.[2]

More general results than this theorem exist, such as Olson's theorem, Kemnitz's conjecture (proved by Christian Reiher in 2003[3]), and the weighted EGZ theorem (proved by David J. Grynkiewicz in 2005[4]).

See also

References

  1. ↑ Erdős, Paul; Ginzburg, A.; Ziv, A. (1961). "Theorem in the additive number theory". Bull. Res. Council Israel. 10F: 41–43. Zbl 0063.00009.
  2. ↑ Nathanson (1996) p.48
  3. ↑ Reiher, Christian (2007), "On Kemnitz' conjecture concerning lattice-points in the plane", The Ramanujan Journal, 13 (1–3): 333–337, arXiv:1603.06161, doi:10.1007/s11139-006-0256-y, S2CID 119600313, Zbl 1126.11011.
  4. ↑ Grynkiewicz, D. J. (2006), "A Weighted Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv Theorem" (PDF), Combinatorica, 26 (4): 445–453, doi:10.1007/s00493-006-0025-y, S2CID 33448594, Zbl 1121.11018.

Further reading

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