English

On Frobenius Numbers of Shifted Power Sequences

Combinatorics 2026-04-13 v4

Abstract

We resolve the open problem of characterizing the Frobenius number g(A)g(A) for shifted square sequences A=(a,a+12,,a+k2)A = (a, a+1^2, \ldots, a+k^2), confirming a conjecture of Einstein et al. (2007). By combining a combinatorial reduction to an optimization problem with Lagrange's Four-Square Theorem and generating function techniques, we derive an explicit formula for g(A)g(A): a piecewise quadratic polynomial in aa, classified by residue classes modulo k2k^2.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.02722,
  title  = {On Frobenius Numbers of Shifted Power Sequences},
  author = {Feihu Liu and Guoce Xin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.02722},
  year   = {2026}
}

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16 pages 2 tables