English

Invariant and dual subtraction games resolving the Duch\^e-Rigo conjecture

Combinatorics 2010-05-25 v1

Abstract

We prove a recent conjecture of Duch\^ene and Rigo, stating that every complementary pair of homogeneous Beatty sequences represents the solution to an \emph{invariant} impartial game. Here invariance means that each available move in a game can be played anywhere inside the game-board. In fact, we establish such a result for a wider class of pairs of complementary sequences, and in the process generalize the notion of a \emph{subtraction game}. Given a pair of complementary sequences (an)(a_n) and (bn)(b_n) of positive integers, we define a game GG by setting {{an,bn}}\{\{a_n, b_n\}\} as invariant moves. We then introduce the invariant game GG^\star , whose moves are all non-zero PP-positions of GG. Provided the set of non-zero PP-positions of GG^\star equals {{an,bn}}\{\{a_n,b_n\}\}, this \emph{is} the desired invariant game. We give sufficient conditions on the initial pair of sequences for this 'duality' to hold.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1005.4162,
  title  = {Invariant and dual subtraction games resolving the Duch\^e-Rigo conjecture},
  author = {Urban Larsson and Peter Hegarty and Aviezri S. Fraenkel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1005.4162},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

11 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:26:36.447Z