English

On differences of two harmonic numbers

Combinatorics 2024-06-13 v3

Abstract

We prove that the existence of infinitely many (mk,nk)N2(m_k, n_k) \in \mathbb{N}^2 such that the difference of harmonic numbers HmkHnkH_{m_k} - H_{n_k} approximates 1 well limk=nmk11nk2=0. \lim_{k \rightarrow \infty} \left| \sum_{\ell = n}^{m_k} \frac{1}{\ell} - 1 \right|\cdot n_k^2 = 0. This answers a question of Erd\H{o}s and Graham. The construction uses asymptotics for harmonic numbers, the precise nature of the continued fraction expansion of ee and a suitable rescaling of a subsequence of convergents. We also prove a quantitative rate by appealing to techniques of Heilbronn, Danicic, Harman, Hooley and others regarding min1nNminmNn2θm\min_{1 \leq n \leq N} \min_{m \in \mathbb{N}}\| n^2 \theta - m\|.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.11354,
  title  = {On differences of two harmonic numbers},
  author = {Jeck Lim and Stefan Steinerberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.11354},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T16:31:59.268Z