A positive linear recurrence sequence (PLRS) is a sequence defined by a homogeneous linear recurrence relation with positive coefficients and a particular set of initial conditions. A sequence of positive integers is \emph{complete} if every positive integer is a sum of distinct terms of the sequence. One consequence of Zeckendorf's theorem is that the sequence of Fibonacci numbers is complete. Previous work has established a generalized Zeckendorf's theorem for all PLRS's. We consider PLRS's and want to classify them as complete or not. We study how completeness is affected by modifying the recurrence coefficients of a PLRS. Then, we determine in many cases which sequences generated by coefficients of the forms $[1, \ldots, 1, 0, \ldots, 0, N]$ are complete. Further, we conjecture bounds for other maximal last coefficients in complete sequences in other families of PLRS's. Our primary method is applying Brown's criterion, which says that an increasing sequence $\{H_n\}_{n = 1}^{\infty}$ is complete if and only if $H_1 = 1$ and $H_{n + 1} \leq 1 + \sum_{i = 1}^n H_i$. This paper is an introduction to the topic that is explored further in Completeness of Positive Linear Recurrence Sequences arXiv:2010.01655.
A sequence of positive integers is complete if every positive integer is a sum of distinct terms. A positive linear recurrence sequence (PLRS) is a sequence defined by a homogeneous linear recurrence relation with nonnegative coefficients of the form $H_{n+1} = c_1 H_n + \cdots + c_L H_{n-L+1}$ and a particular set of initial conditions. We seek to classify various PLRS's by completeness. With results on how completeness is affected by modifying the recurrence coefficients of a PLRS, we completely characterize completeness of several families of PLRS's as well as conjecturing criteria for more…
The generalized Narayana polynomials $N_{n,m}(x)$ arose from the study of infinite log-concavity of the Boros-Moll polynomials. The real-rootedness of $N_{n,m}(x)$ had been proved by Chen, Yang and Zhang. They also showed that when $n\geq m+2$, each of the generalized Narayana polynomials has one and only one positive zero and $m$ negative zeros, where the negative zeros of $N_{n,m}(x)$ and $N_{n+1,m+1}(x)$ have interlacing relations. In this paper, we study the properties of the positive zeros of $N_{n,m}(x)$ for $n\geq m+2$. We first obtain a new recurrence relation for the generalized Naray…
We study sets of the form $A = \big\{ n \in \mathbb N \big| \lVert p(n) \rVert_{\mathbb R / \mathbb Z} \leq \varepsilon(n) \big\}$ for various real valued polynomials $p$ and decay rates $\varepsilon$. In particular, we ask when such sets are bases of finite order for the positive integers. We show that generically, $A$ is a basis of order $2$ when $\operatorname{deg} p \geq 3$, but not when $\operatorname{deg} p = 2$, although then $A + A$ still has asymptotic density $1$.
The Fibonacci numbers satisfy the famous recurrence $F_n = F_{n - 1} + F_{n - 2}$. The theory of C-finite sequences ensures that the Fibonacci numbers whose indices are divisible by $m$, namely $F_{mn}$, satisfy a similar recurrence for every positive integer $m$, and these recurrences have an explicit, uniform representation. We will show that $a(mn)$ has a uniform recurrence over $m$ for any C-finite sequence $a(n)$ and use this to automatically derive some famous summation identities.
Zeckendorf's theorem states that any positive integer can be written uniquely as a sum of non-adjacent Fibonacci numbers; this result has been generalized to many recurrence relations, especially those arising from linear recurrences with leading term positive. We investigate legal decompositions arising from two new sequences: the $(s,b)$-Generacci sequence and the Fibonacci Quilt sequence. Both satisfy recurrence relations with leading term zero, and thus previous results and techniques do not apply. These sequences exhibit drastically different behavior. We show that the $(s,b)$-Generacci s…
We consider real sequences $(f_n)$ that satisfy a linear recurrence with constant coefficients. We show that the density of the positivity set of such a sequence always exists. In the special case where the sequence has no positive dominating characteristic root, we establish that the density is positive. Furthermore, we determine the values that can occur as density of such a positivity set, both for the special case just mentioned and in general.
In this paper, we study the root distribution of some univariate polynomials $W_n(z)$ satisfying a recurrence of order two with linear polynomial coefficients over positive numbers. We discover a sufficient and necessary condition for the overall real-rootedness of all the polynomials, in terms of the polynomial coefficients of the recurrence. Moreover, in the real-rooted case, we find the set of limits of zeros, which turns out to be the union of a closed interval and one or two isolated points; when non-real-rooted polynomial exists, we present a sufficient condition under which every polyno…
We study a recurrence defined on a three dimensional lattice and prove that its values are Laurent polynomials in the initial conditions with all coefficients equal to one. This recurrence was studied by Propp and by Fomin and Zelivinsky. Fomin and Zelivinsky were able to prove Laurentness and conjectured that the coefficients were 1. Our proof establishes a bijection between the terms of the Laurent polynomial and the perfect matchings of certain graphs, generalizing the theory of Aztec diamonds. In particular, this shows that the coefficients of this polynomial, and polynomials obtained by s…
A nondecreasing sequence of positive integers is $(α,β)$-Conolly, or Conolly-like for short, if for every positive integer $m$ the number of times that $m$ occurs in the sequence is $α+ βr_m$, where $r_m$ is $1$ plus the 2-adic valuation of $m$. A recurrence relation is $(α, β)$-Conolly if it has an $(α, β)$-Conolly solution sequence. We discover that Conolly-like sequences often appear as solutions to nested (or meta-Fibonacci) recurrence relations of the form $A(n) = \sum_{i=1}^k A(n-s_i-\sum_{j=1}^{p_i} A(n-a_{ij}))$ with appropriate initial conditions. For any fixed integers $k$ and $p_1,p…
We exhibit a lower-triangular matrix of polynomials $T(a,c,d,e,f,g)$ in six indeterminates that appears empirically to be coefficientwise totally positive, and which includes as a special case the Eulerian triangle. We prove the coefficientwise total positivity of $T(a,c,0,e,0,0)$, which includes the reversed Stirling subset triangle.
Zeckendorf's theorem states that every positive integer can be written uniquely as the sum of non-consecutive shifted Fibonacci numbers $\{F_n\}$, where we take $F_1=1$ and $F_2=2$. This has been generalized for any Positive Linear Recurrence Sequence (PLRS), which informally is a sequence satisfying a homogeneous linear recurrence with a positive leading coefficient and non-negative integer coefficients. These decompositions are generalizations of base $B$ decompositions. In this and the follow-up paper, we provide two approaches to investigate linear recurrences with leading coefficient zero…
For positive integers $α$ and $β$, we define an $(α,β)$-walk to be any sequence of positive integers satisfying $w_{k+2}=αw_{k+1}+βw_k$. We say that an $(α,β)$-walk is $n$-slow if $w_s=n$ with $s$ as large as possible. Slow $(1,1)$-walks have been investigated by several authors. In this paper we consider $(α,β)$-walks for arbitrary positive $α,β$. We derive a characterization theorem for these walks, and with this we prove several results concerning the total number of $n$-slow walks for a given $n$. In addition to this, we study the slowest $n$-slow walk for a given $n$ amongst all possible …
We consider two decision problems for linear recurrence sequences (LRS) over the integers, namely the Positivity Problem (are all terms of a given LRS positive?) and the Ultimate Positivity Problem} (are all but finitely many terms of a given LRS positive?). We show decidability of both problems for LRS of order 5 or less, with complexity in the Counting Hierarchy for Positivity, and in polynomial time for Ultimate Positivity. Moreover, we show by way of hardness that extending the decidability of either problem to LRS of order 6 would entail major breakthroughs in analytic number theory, more…
We define the_hive ring_, which has a basis indexed by dominant weights for GL(n), and structure constants given by counting hives [KT1] (or equivalently honeycombs, or Berenstein-Zelevinsky patterns [BZ1]). We use the octahedron rule from [Robbins-Rumsey,Fomin-Zelevinsky,Propp,Speyer] to prove bijectively that this "ring" is indeed associative. This, and the Pieri rule, give a self-contained proof that the hive ring is isomorphic as a ring-with-basis to the representation ring of GL(n). In the honeycomb interpretation, the octahedron rule becomes "scattering" of the honeycombs. This recovers …
Zeckendorf's theorem states that every positive integer can be written uniquely as the sum of non-consecutive shifted Fibonacci numbers $\{F_n\}$, where we take $F_1=1$ and $F_2=2$. This has been generalized for any Positive Linear Recurrence Sequence (PLRS), which informally is a sequence satisfying a homogeneous linear recurrence with a positive leading coefficient and non-negative integer coefficients. In this and the preceding paper we provide two approaches to investigate linear recurrences with leading coefficient zero, followed by non-negative integer coefficients, with differences betw…
Second order recurrence relations of real numbers arise form various applications in discrete time dynamical systems as well as in the context on Markov chains. Solutions to the recurrence relations are fully defined by the first two initial values as well as the recurrence formula. We calculate in this work explicitly as a function of $a_1$ the minimal positive solution $(a_i)_{i\in\mathbb{N}}$ to non-homogeneous second order recurrence relation with affine coefficients when the non-homogeneity is constant and negative, and the first initial value equals $a_0=0$. We show that rational coeffic…
We consider the following question: Which real sequences (a(n)) that satisfy a linear recurrence with constant coefficients are positive for sufficiently large n? We show that the answer is negative for both (a(n)) and (-a(n)), if the dominating characteristic roots in the representation of a(n) as a generalized power sum comprise either two pairs of conjugate complex roots or one negative real root and one pair of conjugate complex roots. The proof uses results from Diophantine approximation and the geometry of numbers. Concerning the case of a real positive dominating root we show what the a…
Zeckendorf's theorem states every positive integer has a unique decomposition as a sum of non-adjacent Fibonacci numbers. This result has been generalized to many sequences $\{a_n\}$ arising from an integer positive linear recurrence, each of which has a corresponding notion of a legal decomposition. Previous work proved the number of summands in decompositions of $m \in [a_n, a_{n+1})$ becomes normally distributed as $n\to\infty$, and the individual gap measures associated to each $m$ converge to geometric random variables, when the leading coefficient in the recurrence is positive. We explor…
In this paper we show how polynomial walks can be used to establish a twisted recurrence for sets of positive density in $\mathbb{Z}^d$. In particular, we prove that if $Γ\leq \operatorname{GL}_d(\mathbb{Z})$ is finitely generated by unipotents and acts irreducibly on $\mathbb{R}^d$, then for any set $B \subset \mathbb{Z}^d$ of positive density, there exists $k \geq 1$ such that for any $v \in k \mathbb{Z}^d$ one can find $γ\in Γ$ with $γv \in B - B$. Our method does not require the linearity of the action, and we prove a twisted recurrence for semigroups of maps from $\mathbb{Z}^d$ to $\mathb…
We recast homogeneous linear recurrence sequences with fixed coefficients in terms of partial Bell polynomials, and use their properties to obtain various combinatorial identities and multifold convolution formulas. Our approach relies on a basis of sequences that can be obtained as the INVERT transform of the coefficients of the given recurrence relation. For such a basis sequence $(y_n)$ with generating function $Y(t)$, and for any positive integer $r$, we give a formula for the convolved sequence generated by $Y(t)^r$ and prove that it satisfies an elegant recurrence relation.
We derive the necessary and sufficient condition, for a given Polynomial Recurrence Sequence to converge to a given target rational K. By converge, we mean that the Nth term of the sequence, is equal to K, as N tends to positive infinity. The basic idea of our approach is to construct a univariate polynomial equation in x, whose coefficients correspond to the terms of the Sequence. The approach then obtains the condition by analyzing five cases that cover all possible real values of x. The condition can be evaluated within time that is a polynomial function of the size of the description of th…
Magyar has shown that if $B \subset \mathbb{Z}^d$ has positive upper density $(d \geq 5)$, then the set of squared distances $\{ \|b_1-b_2 \|^2 \text{ }: \text{ } b_1,b_2 \in B \}$ contains an infinitely long arithmetic progression, whose period depends only on the upper density of $B$. We extend this result by showing that $B$ contains locally isometrically embedded copies of every tree with edge lengths in some given arithmetic progression (whose period depends only on the upper density of $B$ and the number of vertices of the sought tree). In particular, $B$ contains all chains of elements …
We develop novel techniques which allow us to prove a diverse range of results relating to subset sums and complete sequences of positive integers, including solutions to several longstanding open problems. These include: solutions to the three problems of Burr and Erdős on Ramsey complete sequences, for which Erdős later offered a combined total of \$350; analogous results for the new notion of density complete sequences; the solution to a conjecture of Alon and Erdős on the minimum number of colors needed to color the positive integers less than $n$ so that $n$ cannot be written as a monochr…
We prove that there is a set of integers $A$ having positive upper Banach density whose difference set $A-A:=\{a-b:a,b\in A\}$ does not contain a Bohr neighborhood of any integer, answering a question asked by Bergelson, Hegyvári, Ruzsa, and the author, in various combinations. In the language of dynamical systems, this result shows that there is a set of integers $S$ which is dense in the Bohr topology of $\mathbb Z$ and which is not a set of measurable recurrence. Our proof yields the following stronger result: if $S\subseteq \mathbb Z$ is dense in the Bohr topology of $\mathbb Z$, then ther…
