Directed cycles with zero weight in $\mathbb{Z}_p^k$

Abstract

For a finite abelian group $A$, define $f(A)$ to be the minimum integer such that for every complete digraph $\Gamma$ on $f$ vertices and every map $w:E(\Gamma) \rightarrow A$, there exists a directed cycle $C$ in $\Gamma$ such that $\sum_{e \in E(C)}w(e) = 0$. The study of $f(A)$ was initiated by Alon and Krivelevich (2021). In this article, we prove that $f(\mathbb{Z}_p^k) = O(pk (\log k)^2)$, where $p$ is prime, with an improved bound of $O(k \log k)$ when $p = 2$. These bounds are tight up to a factor which is polylogarithmic in $k$.