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Perfect powers in sequences of polygonal numbers

Number Theory 2026-06-26 v1

Abstract

Let Ps(n)P_s(n) denote the nn-th ss-gonal number. Consider the Diophantine equation Ps(n)=tmP_{s}(n) = t^{m} for integers n,s,tn, s, t and m>2m > 2. All solutions to this equation are known for m>2m>2 and s{3,5,6,8,10,20}s\in\{3,5,6,8,10,20\}. Here we extend these results to the cases s=2k+4s = 2k+4 (where k=4,6k = 4,6 or 5k975 \leq k \leq 97 is a prime number) and s=k+4s = k+4 (where k=9,15k = 9,15 or 3k973 \leq k \leq 97 is a prime number). The proofs of our results use the modular and hypergeometric methods, linear forms in logarithms and extensive calculations. We were unable to completely solve the above Diophantine equations, but we expect (based on GRH and the weak effective abcabc conjecture) that there will be no additional solutions beyond those explicitly shown in Theorems~1, 2 and 3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2606.28227,
  title  = {Perfect powers in sequences of polygonal numbers},
  author = {Andrzej Dąbrowski and Salah Eddine Rihane and Gökhan Soydan and Paul M. Voutier},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.28227},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

published version, but comments are still welcome