English

On Perfect Bases in Finite Abelian Groups

Number Theory 2022-11-28 v1

Abstract

Let GG be a finite abelian group and ss be a positive integer. A subset AA of GG is called a {\em perfect ss-basis of GG} if each element of GG can be written uniquely as the sum of at most ss (not-necessarily-distinct) elements of AA; similarly, we say that AA is a {\em perfect restricted ss-basis of GG} if each element of GG can be written uniquely as the sum of at most ss distinct elements of AA. We prove that perfect ss-bases exist only in the trivial cases of s=1s=1 or A=1|A|=1. The situation is different with restricted addition where perfection is more frequent; here we treat the case of s=2s=2 and prove that GG has a perfect restricted 22-basis if, and only if, it is isomorphic to Z2\mathbb{Z}_2, Z4\mathbb{Z}_4, Z7\mathbb{Z}_7, Z22\mathbb{Z}_2^2, Z24\mathbb{Z}_2^4, or Z22×Z4\mathbb{Z}_2^2 \times \mathbb{Z}_4.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2211.13675,
  title  = {On Perfect Bases in Finite Abelian Groups},
  author = {Bela Bajnok and Connor Berson and Hoang Anh Just},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.13675},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

To appear in Involve

R2 v1 2026-06-28T07:11:43.153Z