English

Irrationality of the reciprocal sum of doubly exponential sequences

Number Theory 2025-04-09 v1

Abstract

We show that sequences of positive integers whose ratios an2/an+1a_n^2/a_{n+1} lie within a specific range are almost uniquely determined by their reciprocal sums. For instance, the Sylvester sequence is uniquely characterized as the only sequence with an2/an+1[2/3,4/3]a_n^2/a_{n+1}\in [2/3,4/3] whose reciprocal sum is equal to 11. This result has applications to irrationality problems. We prove that for almost every real number α>1\alpha > 1, sequences asymptotic to α2n\alpha^{2^n} have irrational reciprocal sums. Furthermore, our observations provide heuristic insight into an open problem by Erd\H{o}s and Graham.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.05933,
  title  = {Irrationality of the reciprocal sum of doubly exponential sequences},
  author = {Junnosuke Koizumi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.05933},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

14 pages. Comments welcome!