Erd\H{o}s-Ginzburg-Ziv constants by avoiding three-term arithmetic progressions

TL;DR

This paper establishes a new upper bound for the Erd ext{o}s-Ginzburg-Ziv constant of finite abelian groups by relating it to the size of large progression-free subsets in finite fields, improving previous bounds.

Contribution

It introduces a novel connection between Erd ext{o}s-Ginzburg-Ziv constants and progression-free sets, providing sharper bounds for groups of the form _p^n.

Findings

Derived an upper bound for (G) in terms of progression-free set sizes

Proved (_p^n) \u2264 2p (_p^n) for prime p

Improved previous bounds for (_p^n) using Ellenberg-Gijswijt bounds

Abstract

For a finite abelian group $G$, the Erd\H{o}s-Ginzburg-Ziv constant $\mathfrak{s}(G)$ is the smallest $s$ such that every sequence of $s$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $G$ has a zero-sum subsequence of length $\operatorname{exp}(G)$. For a prime $p$, let $r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)$ denote the size of the largest subset of $\mathbb{F}_p^n$ without a three-term arithmetic progression. Although similar methods have been used to study $\mathfrak{s}(G)$ and $r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)$, no direct connection between these quantities has previously been established. We give an upper bound for $\mathfrak{s}(G)$ in terms of $r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)$ for the prime divisors $p$ of $\operatorname{exp}(G)$. For the special case $G=\mathbb{F}_p^n$, we prove $\mathfrak{s}(\mathbb{F}_p^n)\leq 2p\cdot r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)$. Using the upper bounds for $r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)$ of Ellenberg and Gijswijt, this result improves the previously best known upper bounds for $\mathfrak{s}(\mathbb{F}_p^n)$ given by Naslund.