English

On a permutation problem for finite abelian groups

Number Theory 2017-12-12 v3 Combinatorics Group Theory

Abstract

Let GG be a finite additive abelian group with exponent n>1n>1, and let a1,,an1Ga_1,\ldots,a_{n-1}\in G. We show that there is a permutation σSn1\sigma\in S_{n-1} such that all the elements saσ(s) (s=1,,n1)sa_{\sigma(s)}\ (s=1,\ldots,n-1) are nonzero if and only if {1s<n: ndas0}d1   for every positive divisor  d  of  n.\left|\left\{1\le s<n:\ \frac{n}{d}a_s\ne 0\right\}\right|\ge d-1\ \ \textrm{ for every positive divisor }\ d\ \textrm{ of }\ n. When GG is the cyclic group Z/nZ\mathbb Z/n\mathbb Z, this confirms a conjecture of Z.-W. Sun.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1601.04988,
  title  = {On a permutation problem for finite abelian groups},
  author = {Fan Ge and Zhi-Wei Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1601.04988},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

7 pages, final published version

R2 v1 2026-06-22T12:32:45.491Z