We consider the question of approximating any real number $α$ by sums of $n$ rational numbers $\frac{a_1}{q_1} + \frac{a_2}{q_2} + ... + \frac{a_n}{q_n}$ with denominators $1 \leq q_1, q_2, ..., q_n \leq N$. This leads to an inquiry on approximating a real number by rational numbers with a prescribed number of prime factors in the denominator.
The authors review results implicit in their recent paper [2] on the product/quotient representation of rationals by rationals of the type $( an + b )/ ( An+ B )$ and give a detailed account of a particular related non-intuitive simultaneous ( i.e. two dimensional ) representation of pairs of rationals.
We prove that $164634913$ is the smallest positive integer that is a sum of two rational sixth powers but not a sum of two integer sixth powers. If $C_{k}$ is the curve $x^{6} + y^{6} = k$, we use the existence of morphisms from $C_{k}$ to elliptic curves, together with the Mordell-Weil sieve, to rule out the existence of rational points on $C_{k}$ for various $k$.
In this paper we consider error sums of the form \[\sum_{m=0}^{\infty} \varepsilon_m\Big( \,b_mα- \frac{a_m}{c_m}\,\Big) \,,\] where $α$ is a real number, $a_m$, $b_m$, $c_m$ are integers, and $\varepsilon_m=1$ or $\varepsilon_m ={(-1)}^m$. In particular, we investigate such sums for \[α\in \big\{ π, e,e^{1/2},e^{1/3},\dots, \log (1+t), ζ(2), ζ(3) \big\} \] and exhibit some connections between rational coefficients occurring in error sums for Apéry's continued fraction for $ζ(2)$ and well-known integer sequences. The concept of the paper generalizes the theory of ordinary error sums, which are…
In this paper we mainly study sums of four rational squares with certain restrictions. Let $\mathbb Q_{\ge0}$ be the set of nonnegative rational numbers. We establish the following four-square theorem for rational numbers: For any $a,b,c,d\in\mathbb Q_{\ge0}$, each $r\in\mathbb Q_{\ge0}$ can be written as $x^2+y^2+z^2+w^2$ with $x,y,z,w\in\mathbb Q_{\ge0}$ such that $ax+by+cz+dw$ is a rational square (or a rational cube). This paper also contains many conjectures; for example, for any positive integers $a$ and $b$ with $\gcd(a,b)=1$, we conjecture that each $r\in\mathbb Q_{\ge0}$ can be writte…
Counting functions are constructed for sums of integers raised to a fixed positive rational power. That is, given values formed by $u_1^{j/k} + u_2^{j/k} + ... + u_l^{j/k}$, $u_i \in \mathbb{Z}^+$, the number of values less than or equal to a given $w>0$ is determined. The counting functions developed are framed in terms of convolution exponentials, and are closely related to the Riemann zeta function. At the conclusion, several estimates are derived, with special emphasis on the case of sums of square roots, i.e. $j=1$, $k=2$.
Cotangent sums play a significant role in the Nyman-Beurling criterion for the Riemann Hypothesis. Here we investigate the maximum of the values of these cotangent sums over various sets of rational numbers in short intervals.
In this paper, by using the method of Contour Integral Representations and the Theorem of Residues and integral representations of series, we discuss the analytic representa- tions of parametric Euler sums that involve harmonic numbers through zeta values and rational function series, either linearly or nonlinearly. Furthermore, we give explicit formulae for several parametric quadratic and cubic sums in terms of zeta values and rational series. Moreover, some interesting new consequences and illustrative examples are considered.
Given a smooth projective variety $X$ over a number field $k$ and $P\in X(k)$, the first author conjectured that in a precise sense, any sequence that approximates $P$ sufficiently well must lie on a rational curve. We prove this conjecture for smooth split toric surfaces conditional on Vojta's conjecture. More generally, we show that if $X$ is a $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial terminal split toric variety of arbitrary dimension, then $P$ is better approximated by points on a rational curve than by any Zariski dense sequence.
We prove an upper bound on the log canonical threshold of a hypersurface that satisfies a certain power condition and use it to prove several generalizations of Igusa's conjecture on exponential sums, with the log-canonical threshold in the exponent of the estimates. We show that this covers optimally all situations of the conjectures for non-rational singularities, by comparing the log canonical threshold with a local notion of the motivic oscillation index.
Let $C$ be the middle third Cantor set and $μ$ be the $\frac{\log 2}{\log 3}$-dimensional Hausdorff measure restricted to $C$. In this paper we study approximations of elements of $C$ by dyadic rationals. Our main result implies that for $μ$ almost every $x\in C$ we have $$\#\left\{1\leq n\leq N:\left|x-\frac{p}{2^n}\right| \leq \frac{1}{n^{0.01}\cdot 2^{n}}\textrm{ for some }p\in\mathbb{N}\right\}\sim 2\sum_{n=1}^{N}n^{-0.01}.$$ This improves upon a recent result of Allen, Chow, and Yu which gives a sub-logarithmic improvement over the trivial approximation rate.
We consider large values of long linear exponential sums involving Fourier coefficients of holomorphic cusp forms. The sums we consider involve rational linear twists $e(nh/k)$ with sufficiently small denominators. We prove both pointwise upper bounds and bounds for the frequency of large values. In particular, the $k$-aspect is treated. As an application we obtain upper bounds for all the moments of the sums in question. We also give the asymptotics with the right main term for fourth moments. We also consider the mean square of very short sums, proving that on average short linear sums with …
${\cal E}$ denotes the family of all finite nonempty $S\subseteq{\mathbb N}:=\{1,2,\ldots\}$, and ${\cal E}(X):={\cal E}\cap\{S:S\subseteq X\}$ when $X\subseteq{\mathbb N}$. Similarly, ${\cal F}$ denotes the family of all finite nonempty $T\subseteq{\mathbb Q}^+$, and ${\cal F}(Y) := {\cal F}\cap\{T:T\subseteq Y\}$ where ${\mathbb Q}^+$ is the set of all positive rationals and $Y\subseteq{\mathbb Q}^+$. This paper treats the functions $σ:{\cal E}\rightarrow{\mathbb Q}^+$ given by $σ:S\mapstoσS :=\sum\{1/x:x\in S\}$, the function $δ:{\cal E}\rightarrow{\mathbb N}$ defined by $σS = νS/δS$ where …
Let $s_q(n)$ denote the sum of the digits of a number $n$ expressed in base $q$. We study here the ratio $\frac{s_q(n^α)}{s_q(n)}$ for various values of $q$ and $α$. In 1978, Kenneth B. Stolarsky showed that $\lim\inf_{n\rightarrow\infty}\frac{s_2(n^2)}{s_2(n)}=0$ and that $\lim\sup_{n\rightarrow\infty}\frac{s_2(n^2)}{s_2(n)}=\infty$ using an explicit construction. We show that for $α=2$ and $q\geq 2$, the above ratio can in fact be any positive rational number. We also study what happens when $α$ is a rational number that is not an integer, terminating the resulting expression by using the fl…
We prove new upper bounds on the number of representations of rational numbers $\frac{m}{n}$ as a sum of $4$ unit fractions, giving five different regions, depending on the size of $m$ in terms of $n$. In particular, we improve the most relevant cases, when $m$ is small, and when $m$ is close to $n$. The improvements stem from not only studying complete parametrizations of the set of solutions, but simplifying this set appropriately. Certain subsets of all parameters define the set of all solutions, up to applications of divisor functions, which has little impact on the upper bound of the numb…
We study real quadratic fields $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{D})$ such that, for a given rational integer $m$, all $m$-multiples of totally positive integers are sums of squares. We prove quite sharp necessary and sufficient conditions for this to happen. Further, we give a fast algorithm that solves this question for specific $m$, $D$ and we give complete results for $m \leq 5000$.
For $0\leq α<1$ and prime number $p$ let $L(α,p)$ be the sum of the first $[αp]$ values of Legendre symbol modulo $p$. We study positivity of $L(α,p)$ and prove that for $|α-\frac13|<2\cdot 10^{-6}$ and for rational $α\leq \frac12$ with denominators in the set $\{1,2,3,4,5,6,8,12\}$ the inequality $L(α,p)\geq 0$ holds for majority of primes.
For a number field $\mathbb{K}$, and integral ideals $\mathcal{I}$ and $\mathcal{J}$ in its number ring $\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{K}}$, Nowak studied the asymptotic behaviour of the average of Ramanujan sums $C_{\mathcal{J}}({\mathcal{I}})$ over both ideals $\mathcal{I}$ and $\mathcal{J}$. In this article, we extend this investigation by establishing asymptotic formulas for the second moment of averages of Ramanujan sums over quadratic and cubic number fields, thereby generalizing previous works of Chen, Kumchev, Robles, and Roy on moments of averages of Ramanujan sums over rationals. Additionally…
We prove a stratification result for certain families of $n$-dimensional (complete algebraic) multiplicative character sums. The character sums we consider are sums of products of $r$ multiplicative characters evaluated at rational functions, and the families (with $nr$ parameters) are obtained by allowing each of the $r$ rational functions to be replaced by an "offset", i.e. a translate, of itself. For very general such families, we show that the stratum of the parameter space on which the character sum has maximum weight $n+j$ has codimension at least $j\lfloor(r-1)/2(n-1)\rfloor$ for $1\le …
We prove a number of conjectures due to Dinesh Thakur concerning sums of the form $\sum_P h(P)$ where the sum is over monic irreducible polynomials $P$ in $\mathbb{F}_q[T]$, the function $h$ is a rational function and the sum is considered in the $T^{-1}$-adic topology. As an example of our results, in $\mathbb{F}_2[T]$, the sum $\sum_P \tfrac{1}{P^k - 1}$ always converges to a rational function, and is $0$ for $k=1$.
By telescoping method, Sun gave some hypergeometric series whose sums are related to $π$ recently. We investigate these series from the point of view of Gosper's algorithm. Given a hypergeometric term $t_k$, we consider the Gosper summability of $r(k)t_k$ for $r(k)$ being a rational function of $k$. We give an upper bound and a lower bound on the degree of the numerator of $r(k)$ such that $r(k)t_k$ is Gosper summable. We also show that the denominator of the $r(k)$ can read from the Gosper representation of $t_{k+1}/t_k$. Based on these results, we give a systematic method to construct series…
Let $f$ be a homogeneous polynomial with rational coefficients in $d$ variables. We prove several results concerning uniform simultaneous approximation to points on the graph of $f$, as well as on the hypersurface $\{f(x_1,\dots,x_d) = 1\}$. The results are first stated for the case $f(x_1,\dots,x_d) = x_1^2+\dots+x_d^2,$ which is of particular interest.
Let $p$ be an odd prime, and let $a$ be a rational $p$-adic integer with $a\not\equiv 0\pmod p$. In this paper, using WZ method we establish the congruences for $\sum_{k=0}^{p-1} \binom ak^2(-1)^k(1-\frac 2ak)$ modulo $p^2$ and $\sum_{k=0}^{p-1} \binom ak^r(1-\frac 2ak)^s$ modulo $p^4$, where $r\in\{3,4\}$ and $s\in\{1,3\}$.
We consider quadratic Weyl sums $S_N(x;c,α)=\sum_{n=1}^N\exp\{2πi((\frac{1}{2}n^2+cn)x+αn)\}$ for $c=α=0$ (the rational case) or $(c,α)\notin\mathbb{Q}^2$ (the irrational case), where $x$ is randomly distributed according to a probability measure absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure. The limiting distribution in the complex plane of $\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}S_N(x;c,α)$ as $N\to\infty$ was described by Marklof [13] (respectively Cellarosi and Marklof [5]) in the rational (resp. irrational) case. According to the limiting distribution, the probability of landing outside a ball of…
We consider quadratic Weyl sums $S_N(x;α,β)=\sum_{n=1}^N \exp\!\left[2πi\left( \left(\tfrac{1}{2}n^2+βn\right)\!x+αn\right)\right]$ for $(α,β)\in\mathbb{Q}^2$, where $x\in\mathbb{R}$ is randomly distributed according to a probability measure absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure. We prove that the limiting distribution in the complex plane of $\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}S_N(x;α,β)$ as $N\to\infty$ is either heavy tailed or compactly supported, depending solely on $α,β$. In the heavy tailed case, the probability (according to the limiting distribution) of landing outside a ball of r…
