English

A Fixed-Prime Criterion for Reciprocals in Missing-Digit Sets

Number Theory 2026-04-14 v1

Abstract

We prove a structural upper bound on the pp-adic valuation of denominators of rationals belonging to a missing-digit set Km,DK_{m,D}, generalizing a key step in recent work of Lin, Wu, and Yang [arXiv:2603.24614] on reciprocals of factorials. For a rational rQ\frac{r}{Q} with gcd(Q,m)=1\gcd(Q,m)=1 and a fixed prime p0mp_0\nmid m, membership in Km,DK_{m,D} forces νp0(Q)\nu_{p_0}(Q) to be controlled by the p0p_0-adic valuation of the multiplicative order of mm modulo the radical of QQ, with explicit overhead depending only on mm and DD. Because the obstruction is stated at the level of a single denominator, a pair of sequence-specific valuation estimates converts it into an effective finiteness criterion for {1an:nN}Km,D\left\{\frac{1}{a_n}:n\in\mathbb{N}\right\}\cap K_{m,D}. Specializing to the case in which QQ is the part of n!n! coprime to mm recovers the fixed-prime step in the Lin--Wu--Yang argument. As applications, we treat reciprocals of superfactorials, products of polynomial values, and products of Fibonacci numbers. We also exhibit an exponential family -- products of (mk1)(m^k-1) -- for which the full structural criterion applies but a coarser largest-prime-factor formulation does not.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.11282,
  title  = {A Fixed-Prime Criterion for Reciprocals in Missing-Digit Sets},
  author = {Scott Duke Kominers},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.11282},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

24 pages, 5 tables, plus source code appendix

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:06:04.371Z