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A short proof of Mathar's 2013 recurrence conjecture for the Laguerre sequence~A025166

Combinatorics 2026-05-12 v1

Abstract

For the OEIS sequence A025166, defined by a(n)=n!2nLn(1/2)a(n) = -n!\,2^{n}\,L_{n}(1/2) where LnL_{n} is the Laguerre polynomial of degree nn, R.~J.~Mathar contributed in February 2013 the conjectured order-2 P-recursive recurrence a(n)+(4n+3)a(n1)+4(n1)2a(n2)  =  0,n2. a(n) + (-4n+3)\, a(n-1) + 4(n-1)^{2}\, a(n-2) \;=\; 0, \qquad n \ge 2. We give a one-page proof. The exponential generating function F(x)=exp ⁣(x/(12x))/(12x)F(x) = -\exp\!\big(-x/(1-2x)\big)/(1-2x) satisfies the first-order linear ODE (12x)2F(x)=(14x)F(x)(1-2x)^{2} F'(x) = (1-4x)\, F(x), and Mathar's recurrence then falls out by reading off the coefficient of xn/n!x^{n}/n!. Both steps are short. The supplementary archive includes a SymPy script which checks the ODE identically and the recurrence numerically up to n=5000n = 5000.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.08444,
  title  = {A short proof of Mathar's 2013 recurrence conjecture for the Laguerre sequence~A025166},
  author = {Tong Niu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.08444},
  year   = {2026}
}

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8 pages