English

On the non-holonomic character of logarithms, powers, and the n-th prime function

Combinatorics 2008-02-28 v1

Abstract

We establish that the sequences formed by logarithms and by "fractional" powers of integers, as well as the sequence of prime numbers, are non-holonomic, thereby answering three open problems of Gerhold [Electronic Journal of Combinatorics 11 (2004), R87]. Our proofs depend on basic complex analysis, namely a conjunction of the Structure Theorem for singularities of solutions to linear differential equations and of an Abelian theorem. A brief discussion is offered regarding the scope of singularity-based methods and several naturally occurring sequences are proved to be non-holonomic.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0501379,
  title  = {On the non-holonomic character of logarithms, powers, and the n-th prime function},
  author = {Philippe Flajolet and Stefan Gerhold and Bruno Salvy},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0501379},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

13 pages