On the Existence and Nonexistence of Splitter Sets

Abstract: In this paper, the existence of perfect and quasi-perfect splitter sets in finite abelian groups is studied, motivated by their application in coding theory for flash memory storage. For perfect splitter sets we view them as splittings of $\mathbb{Z}_n$, and using cyclotomic polynomials we derive a general condition for the existence of such splittings under certain circumstances. We further establish a relation between $B-k, k$ and $B-(k-1), k+1$ splitter sets, and give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of perfect $B-1, 5$ splitter sets. Finally, two nonexistence results for quasi-perfect splitter sets are presented.