English

Zero-sum subsets of decomposable sets in Abelian groups

Group Theory 2019-05-03 v3 Combinatorics

Abstract

A subset DD of an Abelian group is decomposabledecomposable if DD+D\emptyset\ne D\subset D+D. In the paper we give partial answer to an open problem asking whether every finite decomposable subset DD of an Abelian group contains a non-empty subset ZDZ\subset D with Z=0\sum Z=0. For every nNn\in\mathbb N we present a decomposable subset DD of cardinality D=n|D|=n in the cyclic group of order 2n12^n-1 such that D=0\sum D=0, but T0\sum T\ne 0 for any proper non-empty subset TDT\subset D. On the other hand, we prove that every decomposable subset DRD\subset\mathbb R of cardinality D7|D|\le 7 contains a non-empty subset ZDZ\subset D of cardinality Z12D|Z|\le\frac12|D| with Z=0\sum Z=0. For every nNn\in\mathbb N we present a subset DZD\subset\mathbb Z of cardinality D=2n|D|=2n such that Z=0\sum Z=0 for some subset ZDZ\subset D of cardinality Z=n|Z|=n and T0\sum T\ne 0 for any non-empty subset TDT\subset D of cardinality T<n=12D|T|<n=\frac12|D|. Also we prove that every finite decomposable subset DD of an Abelian group contains two non-empty subsets A,BA,B such that A+B=0\sum A+\sum B=0.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1903.03577,
  title  = {Zero-sum subsets of decomposable sets in Abelian groups},
  author = {Taras Banakh and Alex Ravsky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.03577},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

8 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T08:02:32.939Z