The spanning number and the independence number of a subset of an abelian group

Abstract: Let $A={a_1,a_2,\dots, a_m}$ be a subset of a finite abelian group $G$. We call $A$ {\it $t$-independent} in $G$, if whenever $\lambda_1a_1+\lambda_2a_2+\cdots +\lambda_m a_m=0$ for some integers $\lambda_1, \lambda_2, \dots , \lambda_m$ with $$|\lambda_1|+|\lambda_2|+\cdots +|\lambda_m| \leq t,$$ we have $\lambda_1=\lambda_2= \cdots = \lambda_m=0$, and we say that $A$ is {\it $s$-spanning} in $G$, if every element $g$ of $G$ can be written as $g=\lambda_1a_1+\lambda_2a_2+\cdots +\lambda_m a_m$ for some integers $\lambda_1, \lambda_2, \dots , \lambda_m$ with $$|\lambda_1|+|\lambda_2|+\cdots +|\lambda_m| \leq s.$$ In this paper we give an upper bound for the size of a $t$-independent set and a lower bound for the size of an $s$-spanning set in $G$, and determine some cases when this extremal size occurs. We also discuss an interesting connection to spherical combinatorics.