English

Structures in Additive Sequences

Number Theory 2018-04-26 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

Consider the sequence V(2,n)\mathcal{V}(2,n) constructed in a greedy fashion by setting a1=2a_1 = 2, a2=na_2 = n and defining am+1a_{m+1} as the smallest integer larger than ama_m that can be written as the sum of two (not necessarily distinct) earlier terms in exactly one way; the sequence V(2,3)\mathcal{V}(2,3), for example, is given by V(2,3)=2,3,4,5,9,10,11,16,22, \mathcal{V}(2,3) = 2,3,4,5,9,10,11,16,22,\dots We prove that if n5n \geqslant 5 is odd, then the sequence V(2,n)\mathcal{V}(2,n) has exactly two even terms {2,2n}\left\{2,2n\right\} if and only if n1n-1 is not a power of 2. We also show that in this case, V(2,n)\mathcal{V}(2,n) eventually becomes a union of arithmetic progressions. If n1n-1 is a power of 2, then there is at least one more even term 2n2+22n^2 + 2 and we conjecture there are no more even terms. In the proof, we display an interesting connection between V(2,n)\mathcal{V}(2,n) and Sierpinski Triangle. We prove several other results, discuss a series of striking phenomena and pose many problems. This relates to existing results of Finch, Schmerl & Spiegel and a classical family of sequences defined by Ulam.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1804.09594,
  title  = {Structures in Additive Sequences},
  author = {Borys Kuca},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.09594},
  year   = {2018}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T01:35:28.964Z