English

Fraenkel's Partition and Brown's Decomposition

Number Theory 2007-05-23 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

Denote the sequence ([ (n-x') / x ])_{n=1}^\infty by B(x, x'), a so-called Beatty sequence. Fraenkel's Partition Theorem gives necessary and sufficient conditions for B(x, x') and B(y, y') to tile the positive integers, i.e., for B(x, x') \cap B(y, y') = \emptyset and B(x, x') \cup B(y, y') = {1,2, 3, ...}. Fix 0 < x < 1, and let c_k = 1 if k \in B(x, 0), and c_k = 0 otherwise, i.e., c_k=[ (k+1) / x ] - [ k / x]. For a positive integer m let C_m be the binary word c_1c_2c_3... c_m. Brown's Decomposition gives integers q_1, q_2, ..., independent of m and growing at least exponentially, and integers t, z_0, z_1, z_2, ..., z_t (depending on m) such that C_m = C_{q_t}^{z_t}C_{q_{t-1}}^{z_{t-1}} ... C_{q_1}^{z_1}C_{q_0}^{z_0}. In other words, Brown's Decomposition gives a sparse set of initial segments of C_\infty and an explicit decomposition of C_m (for every m) into a product of these initial segments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0305133,
  title  = {Fraenkel's Partition and Brown's Decomposition},
  author = {Kevin O'Bryant},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0305133},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

19 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-22T16:54:26.139Z