English

Do perfect powers repel partition numbers?

Combinatorics 2025-01-10 v2 Number Theory

Abstract

In 2013 Zhi-Wei Sun conjectured that p(n)p(n) is never a power of an integer when n>1.n>1. We confirm this claim in many cases. We also observe that integral powers appear to repel the partition numbers. If k>1k>1 and Δk(n)\Delta_k(n) is the distance between p(n)p(n) and the nearest kkth power, then for every d0d\geq 0 we conjecture that there are at most finitely many nn for which Δk(n)d.\Delta_k(n)\leq d. More precisely, for every ε>0,\varepsilon>0, we conjecture that Mk(d):=max{n : Δk(n)d}=o(dε).M_k(d):=\max\{n \ : \ \Delta_k(n)\leq d\}=o( d^{\varepsilon}). In kk-power aspect with dd fixed, we also conjecture that if kk is sufficiently large, then Mk(d)=max{n : p(n)1d}. M_k(d)=\max \left\{ n \ : \ p(n)-1\leq d\right\}. In other words, 11 generally appears to be the closest kkth power among the partition numbers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.03754,
  title  = {Do perfect powers repel partition numbers?},
  author = {Mircea Merca and Ken Ono and Wei-Lun Tsai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.03754},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

(1) Accepted for publication in Annals Rom. Acad. Sci. (2) This paper is dedicated to the memory of Haim Brezis, and will appear in a special issue dedicated to his memory

R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:58:42.021Z