English

A Conjectured Integer Sequence Arising From the Exponential Integral

Number Theory 2019-08-19 v4

Abstract

Let f0(z)=exp(z/(1z))f_0(z) = \exp(z/(1-z)), f1(z)=exp(1/(1z))E1(1/(1z))f_1(z) = \exp(1/(1-z))E_1(1/(1-z)), where E1(x)=xett1dtE_1(x) = \int_x^\infty e^{-t}t^{-1}{\,d}t. Let an=[zn]f0(z)a_n = [z^n]f_0(z) and bn=[zn]f1(z)b_n = [z^n]f_1(z) be the corresponding Maclaurin series coefficients. We show that ana_n and bnb_n may be expressed in terms of confluent hypergeometric functions. We consider the asymptotic behaviour of the sequences (an)(a_n) and (bn)(b_n) as nn \to \infty, showing that they are closely related, and proving a conjecture of Bruno Salvy regarding (bn)(b_n). Let ρn=anbn\rho_n = a_n b_n, so ρnzn=(f0f1)(z)\sum \rho_n z^n = (f_0\,\odot f_1)(z) is a Hadamard product. We obtain an asymptotic expansion 2n3/2ρndknk2n^{3/2}\rho_n \sim -\sum d_k n^{-k} as nn \to \infty, where the dkQd_k\in\mathbb Q, d0=1d_0=1. We conjecture that 26kdkZ2^{6k}d_k \in \mathbb Z. This has been verified for k1000k \le 1000.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.00316,
  title  = {A Conjectured Integer Sequence Arising From the Exponential Integral},
  author = {Richard P. Brent and M. L. Glasser and Anthony J. Guttmann},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.00316},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

18 pages, additional motivation and references in v3/v4

R2 v1 2026-06-23T06:28:10.250Z