Generalized Erdős--Ginzburg--Ziv Constants for finite abelian groups of rank three

Abstract

Let $G$ be a finite abelian group with exponent $\exp (G)$. For positive integer $k$, the generalized Erdős--Ginzburg--Ziv constant, denoted by ${\mathsf{s}}_{k\exp (G)}(G)$ is the least integer $\ell$ such that every sequence of length at least $\ell$ over $G$ has a zero-sum subsequence of length $k\exp (G)$. In this paper, we prove that, for any $n\ge 1$, \[\mathsf s_{3\cdot 2^n}(C_{2^n}^3)=6\cdot 2^n-3 \quad\text{and}\quad \mathsf s_{4\cdot 3^n}(C_{3^n}^3)=7\cdot 3^n-3. \] This completes all the remaining cases in the study of ${\mathsf{s}}_{kq}(C_q^3)$, where $q$ is a prime power and $k\ge 3$. As a consequence, for every $k\ge 3$, we have \[ \mathsf s_{kn}(C_n^3)=(k+3)n+O(\frac{n}{\log n}). \] This verifies a conjecture of Kubertin asymptotically. Our approach combines the previous group ring techniques and a recent powerful generalization of the Chevalley-Warning and Ax-Katz theorems introduced by Grynkiewicz