English

On the Diophantine equation $U_n-b^m = c$

Number Theory 2023-12-05 v1

Abstract

Let (Un)nN(U_n)_{n\in \mathbb{N}} be a fixed linear recurrence sequence defined over the integers (with some technical restrictions). We prove that there exist effectively computable constants BB and N0N_0 such that for any b,cZb,c\in \mathbb{Z} with b>Bb> B the equation Unbm=cU_n - b^m = c has at most two distinct solutions (n,m)N2(n,m)\in \mathbb{N}^2 with nN0n\geq N_0 and m1m\geq 1. Moreover, we apply our result to the special case of Tribonacci numbers given by T1=T2=1T_1= T_2=1, T3=2T_3=2 and Tn=Tn1+Tn2+Tn3T_{n}=T_{n-1}+T_{n-2}+T_{n-3} for n4n\geq 4. By means of the LLL-algorithm and continued fraction reduction we are able to prove N0=1.11037N_0=1.1\cdot 10^{37} and B=e438B=e^{438}. The corresponding reduction algorithm is implemented in Sage.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2208.03068,
  title  = {On the Diophantine equation $U_n-b^m = c$},
  author = {Sebastian Heintze and Robert F. Tichy and Ingrid Vukusic and Volker Ziegler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.03068},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

34 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-25T01:30:14.935Z