Generalizations of some zero sum theorems

Abstract

Given an abelian group G of order n, and a finite non-empty subset A of integers, the Davenport constant of G with weightA, denoted by DA(G), is defined to be the least positive integer t such that, for every sequence (x1,..., xt) with xi ∈ G, there exists a non-empty subsequence \((x_{j_1},\ldots, x_{j_l})\) and ai ∈ A such that \(\sum_{i=1}^{l}a_ix_{j_i} = 0\). Similarly, for an abelian group G of order n, EA(G) is defined to be the least positive integer t such that every sequence over G of length t contains a subsequence \((x_{j_1} ,\ldots, x_{j_n})\) such that \(\sum_{i=1}^{n}a_ix_{j_i} = 0\), for some ai ∈ A. When G is of order n, one considers A to be a non-empty subset of {1,..., n − 1 }. If G is the cyclic group \({\Bbb Z}/n{\Bbb Z}\), we denote EA(G) and DA(G) by EA(n) and DA(n) respectively.