English

Zero-sum subsequences in bounded-sum $\{-r,s\}$-sequences

Combinatorics 2022-01-13 v3

Abstract

We study the problem of finding zero-sum blocks in bounded-sum sequences, which was introduced by Caro, Hansberg, and Montejano. Caro et al. determine the minimum {1,1}\{-1,1\}-sequence length for when there exist kk consecutive terms that sum to zero. We determine the corresponding minimum sequence length when the set {1,1}\{-1,1\} is replaced by {r,s}\{-r,s\} for arbitrary positive integers rr and s.s. This confirms a conjecture of theirs. We also construct {1,1}\{-1,1\}-sequences of length quadratic in kk that avoid kk terms indexed by an arithmetic progression that sum to zero. This solves a second conjecture of theirs in the case of {1,1}\{-1,1\}-sequences on zero-sum arithmetic subsequences. Finally, we give a superlinear lower bound on the minimum sequence length to find a zero-sum arithmetic progression for general {r,s}\{-r,s\}-sequences.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1907.06623,
  title  = {Zero-sum subsequences in bounded-sum $\{-r,s\}$-sequences},
  author = {Alec Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.06623},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

24 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:21:26.775Z