Waring numbers over finite commutative local rings

TL;DR

This paper investigates Waring numbers over finite commutative local rings by relating them to Cayley graph diameters and reducing the problem to finite fields, providing explicit results based on known finite field Waring numbers.

Contribution

It establishes a connection between Waring numbers over local rings and Cayley graph diameters, reducing the problem to finite field cases, and derives explicit results using known finite field Waring numbers.

Findings

Waring numbers relate to Cayley graph diameters.

Graph structures are blow-ups of finite field graphs.

Explicit Waring number results over local rings are obtained.

Abstract

In this paper we study Waring numbers $g_R(k)$ for $(R,\frak m)$ a finite commutative local ring with identity and $k \in \mathbb{N}$ with $(k,|R|)=1$. We first relate the Waring number $g_R(k)$ with the diameter of the Cayley graphs $G_R(k)=Cay(R,U_R(k))$ and $W_R(k)=Cay(R,S_R(k))$ with $U_R(k) = \{ x^k : x\in R^*\}$ and $S_R(k)=\{x^k : x\in R^\times\}$, distinguishing the cases where the graphs are directed or undirected. We show that in both cases (directed or undirected), the graph $G_R(k)$ can be obtained by blowing-up the vertices of $G_{\mathbb{F}_q}(k)$ a number $|\frak{m}|$ of times, with independence sets the cosets of $\frak{m}$, where $q$ is the size of the residue field $R/\frak m$. Then, by using the above blowing-up, we reduce the study of the Waring number $g_R(k)$ over the local ring $R$ to the computation of the Waring number $g(k,q)$ over the finite residue field $R/\frak m \simeq \mathbb{F}_q$. In this way, using known results for Waring numbers over finite fields, we obtain several explicit results for Waring numbers over finite commutative local rings with identity.