Zero-sum Partitions of Abelian Groups

Sylwia Cichacz, Karol Suchan

Published 2022-03-17Version 1

The following problem has been known since the 80's. Let $\Gamma$ be an Abelian group of order $m$ (denoted $|\Gamma|=m$), and let $t$ and $\{m_i\}_{i=1}^{t}$, be positive integers such that $\sum_{i=1}^t m_i=m-1$. Determine when $\Gamma^*=\Gamma\setminus\{0\}$, the set of non-zero elements of $\Gamma$, can be partitioned into disjoint subsets $\{S_i\}_{i=1}^{t}$ such that $|S_i|=m_i$ and $\sum_{s\in S_i}s=0$ for all $i$, $1 \leq i \leq t$. Such subset partitions are called \textit{zero-sum partitions}. $|I(\Gamma)|\neq 1$, where $I(\Gamma)$ is the set of involutions of $\Gamma$, is a necessary condition for the existence of zero-sum partitions. In this paper we show that the condition: $m_i\geq 4$ for all $i$, $1 \leq i \leq t$, is sufficient. Moreover, we present some applications of zero-sum partitions to irregular, magic- and anti-magic-type labelings of graphs.