A stronger connection between the Erdős-Burgess and Davenport constants

Abstract

The Erdős-Burgess constant of a semigroup $S$ is the smallest positive integer $k$ such that any sequence over $S$ of length $k$ contains a nonempty subsequence whose elements multiply to an idempotent element of $S$. In the case where $S$ is the multiplicative semigroup of $\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}$, we confirm a conjecture connecting the Erdős-Burgess constant of $S$ and the Davenport constant of $(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}{)}^{\times }$ for $n$ with at most two prime factors. We also discuss the extension of our techniques to other rings.