We study the periodicity of nim-sequences for subtraction games having subtraction sets with three elements. In particular, we give solutions in several cases, and we describe how these subtraction sets can be augmented by additional numbers without changing the nim-sequences. The paper concludes with a conjecture on ultimately bipartite subtraction games.
We introduce a class of normal play partizan games, called Complementary Subtraction. Let $A$ denote your favorite set of positive integers. This is Left's subtraction set, whereas Right subtracts numbers not in $A$. The Golden Nugget Subtraction Game has the $A$ and $B$ sequences, from Wythoff's game, as the two complementary subtraction sets. As a function of the heap size, the maximum size of the canonical forms grows quickly. However, the value of the heap is either a number or, in reduced canonical form, a switch. We find the switches by using properties of the Fibonacci word and standard…
Partizan subtraction games are combinatorial games where two players, say Left and Right, alternately remove a number n of tokens from a heap of tokens, with $n \in S_L$ (resp. $n \in S_R$) when it is Left's (resp. Right's) turn. The first player unable to move loses. These games were introduced by Fraenkel and Kotzig in 1987, where they introduced the notion of dominance, i.e. an asymptotic behavior of the outcome sequence where Left always wins if the heap is sufficiently large. In the current paper, we investigate the other kinds of behaviors for the outcome sequence. In addition to dominan…
Given a positive integer $M$ and a real number $q \in (1,M+1]$, an expansion of a real number $x \in \left[0,M/(q-1)\right]$ over the alphabet $A=\{0,1,\ldots,M\}$ is a sequence $(c_i) \in A^{\mathbb N}$ such that $x=\sum_{i=1}^{\infty}c_iq^{-i}$. Generalizing many earlier results, we investigate in this paper the topological properties of the set $U_q$ consisting of numbers $x$ having a unique expansion of this form, and the combinatorial properties of the set $U_q'$ consisting of their corresponding expansions. We also provide shorter proofs of the main results of Baker in [B] by adapting th…
In recent years, high dimensional expanders have been found to have a variety of applications in theoretical computer science, such as efficient CSPs approximations, improved sampling and list-decoding algorithms, and more. Within that, an important high dimensional expansion notion is \emph{cosystolic expansion}, which has found applications in the construction of efficiently decodable quantum codes and in proving lower bounds for CSPs. Cosystolic expansion is considered with systems of equations over a group where the variables and equations correspond to faces of the complex. Previous works…
We study random compact subsets of R^3 which can be described as "random Menger sponges". We use those random sets to construct a pair of compact sets A and B in R^3 which are of the same positive measure, such that A can be covered by finitely many translates of B, B can be covered by finitely many translates of A, and yet A and B are not equidecomposable. Furthermore, we construct the first example of a compact subset of R^3 of positive measure which is not a domain of expansion. This answers a question of Adrian Ioana.
Recent works have shown that expansion of pseudorandom sets is of great importance. However, all current works on pseudorandom sets are limited only to product (or approximate product) spaces, where Fourier Analysis methods could be applied. In this work we ask the natural question whether pseudorandom sets are relevant in domains where Fourier Analysis methods cannot be applied, e.g., one-sided local spectral expanders. We take the first step in the path of answering this question. We put forward a new definition for pseudorandom sets, which we call ``double balanced sets''. We demonstrate th…
Kahale proved that linear sized sets in $d$-regular Ramanujan graphs have vertex expansion $\sim\frac{d}{2}$ and complemented this with construction of near-Ramanujan graphs with vertex expansion no better than $\frac{d}{2}$. However, the construction of Kahale encounters highly local obstructions to better vertex expansion. In particular, the poorly expanding sets are associated with short cycles in the graph. Thus, it is natural to ask whether high-girth Ramanujan graphs have improved vertex expansion. Our results are two-fold: 1. For every $d = p+1$ for prime $p$ and infinitely many $n$, we…