English

On unavoidable obstructions in Gaussian walks

Number Theory 2015-11-11 v1

Abstract

In this paper we investigate a problem about certain walks in the ring of Gaussian integers. Let n,dn,d be two natural numbers. Does there exist a sequence of Gaussian integers zjz_j such that zj+1zj=1|z_{j+1}-z_j|=1 and a pair of indices rr and ss, such that zrzs=nz_{r}-z_{s}=n and for all indices tt and uu, ztzudz_{t}-z_{u}\neq d? If there exists such a sequence we call nn to be dd avoidable. Let AnA_n be the set of all dNd\in \mathbb{N} such that nn is not dd avoidable. Recently, Ledoan and Zaharescu proved that {dN:dn}An\{d \in \mathbb{N} : d|n\}\subset A_n. We extend this result by giving a necessary and sufficient condition for dAnd\in A_n which answers a question posed by Ledoan and Zaharescu. We also find a precise formula for the cardinality of AnA_n and answer three other questions raised in the same paper.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1511.03237,
  title  = {On unavoidable obstructions in Gaussian walks},
  author = {Sai Teja Somu and Ram Krishna Pandey},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.03237},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

13 pages,submitted to INTEGERS: Electronic Journal of Combinatorial Number Theory

R2 v1 2026-06-22T11:41:49.101Z