Related papers: The elementary symmetric functions of a reciprocal…

We identify pairs of positive integers $(t, d)$ with the property that the integer sequence with general term $\lfloor{n^t/d\rfloor}$ contains at most finitely many primes.

In this paper we study sum-free subsets of the set $\{1,...,n\}$, that is, subsets of the first $n$ positive integers which contain no solution to the equation $x + y = z$. Cameron and Erd\H{o}s conjectured in 1990 that the number of such…

P. V. Chung showed that there are many multiplicative functions $f$ which satisfy $f(m^2+n^2) = f(m^2)+f(n^2)$ for all positive integers $m$ and $n$. In this article, we show that if more than $2$ squares in the additive condition are…

Erd\H{o}s proved that $\mathcal{F}(A) := \sum_{a \in A}\frac{1}{a\log a}$ converges for any primitive set of integers $A$ and later conjectured this sum is maximized when $A$ is the set of primes. Banks and Martin further conjectured that…

We identify a surprising inequality satisfied by elementary symmetric polynomials under the action of the fixed point measure of a random permutation. Concretely, for any collection of $n$ non-negative real numbers $a_1, \dots, a_n \in…

A special case of a fundamental result of Loewner and Horn [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 1969] says that given an integer $n \geq 1$, if the entrywise application of a smooth function $f : (0,\infty) \to \mathbb{R}$ preserves the set of $n…

We consider functions mapping non-negative integers to non-negative real numbers such that a and a+n are mapped to values at least 1/n apart. In this paper we use a novel method to construct such a function. We conjecture that the supremum…

A real arithmetic function f is multiplicatively monotonous if f (mn) -- f (m) has constant sign for m, n positive integers. Properties and examples of such functions are discussed, with applications to positive hermitian…

We study the set D of positive integers d for which the equation $\phi(a)-\phi(b)=d$ has infinitely many solution pairs (a,b), where $\phi$ is Euler's totient function. We show that the minumum of D is at most 154, exhibit a specific A so…

For every positive integer $n$, consider the linear operator $\U_{n}$ on polynomials of degree at most $d$ with integer coefficients defined as follows: if we write $\frac{h(t)}{(1 - t)^{d + 1}} = \sum_{m \geq 0} g(m) t^{m}$, for some…

Let A be an nxn (entrywise) positive matrix and let f(t)=det(I-t A). We prove that there always exists a positive integer N such that 1-f(t)^{1/N} has positive coefficients.

We introduce a new family $\mathcal{A}_{n,k}$ of Schur positive symmetric functions, which are defined as sums over totally symmetric plane partitions. In the first part, we show that, for $k=1$, this family is equal to a multivariate…

We study the space, $R_m$, of $m$-symmetric functions consisting of polynomials that are symmetric in the variables $x_{m+1},x_{m+2},x_{m+3},\dots$ but have no special symmetry in the variables $x_1,\dots,x_m$. We obtain $m$-symmetric…

We prove that there does not exist a non-square quadratic polynomial with integer coefficients and an axis of symmetry which takes square values for N consecutive integers for N=7 or N >= 9. At the opposite, if N <= 6 or N=8 there are…

Let $m\ge3$ be an integer. The polygonal numbers of order $m+2$ are given by $p_{m+2}(n)=m\binom n2+n$ $(n=0,1,2,\ldots)$. A famous claim of Fermat proved by Cauchy asserts that each nonnegative integer is the sum of $m+2$ polygonal numbers…

Different questions lead to the same class of functions from natural integers to integers: those which have integral difference ratios, i.e. verifying $f(a)-f(b)\equiv0 \pmod {(a-b)}$ for all $a>b$. We characterize this class of functions…

Given a nondecreasing function $f$ on $[-1,1]$, we investigate how well it can be approximated by nondecreasing algebraic polynomials that interpolate it at $\pm 1$. We establish pointwise estimates of the approximation error by such…

We introduce and study the arithmetic function E_m(n), defined as the sum of the remainders of n when divided by the first m positive integers. Although the definition is elementary, the function encodes rich arithmetic structure. In this…

We prove various theorems on approximation using polynomials with integer coefficients in the Bernstein basis of any given order. In the extreme, we draw the coefficients from $\{ \pm 1\}$ only. A basic case of our results states that for…

We prove that, if $m,n\geqslant 1$ and $a_1,\ldots,a_m$ are nonnegative integers, then \begin{align*} \frac{[a_1+\cdots+a_m+1]!}{[a_1]!\ldots[a_m]!}\sum^{n-1}_{h=0}q^h\prod_{i=1}^m{h\brack a_i} \equiv 0\pmod{[n]}, \end{align*} where…