Related papers: A few more Lonely Runners

Consider a walk in the plane made of $n$ unit steps, with directions chosen independently and uniformly at random at each step. Rayleigh's theorem asserts that the probability for such a walk to end at a distance less than 1 from its…

Consider $n$ runners running on a circular track of unit length with constant speeds such that $k$ of the speeds are distinct. We show that, at some time, there will exist a sector $S$ which contains at least $|S|n+ \Omega(\sqrt{k})$…

The authors propose a new variation of random walks called ladder chains $L(r,s,p)$. We extend concepts such as ruin probability, hitting time, transience and recurrence of random walks to ladder chain. Take $L(2,2,p)$ for instance, we find…

In this paper, we work on a class of self-interacting nearest neighbor random walks, introduced in [Probab. Theory Related Fields 154 (2012) 149-163], for which there is competition between repulsion of neighboring edges and attraction of…

A paper of the first author and Zilke proposed seven combinatorial problems around formulas for the characteristic polynomial and the exponents of an isolated quasihomogeneous singularity. The most important of them was a conjecture on the…

We consider (n+1) runners with given constant unique integer speeds running along the circumference of a circle whose circumferential length is one, and all runners starting from the same point. We define and give lower bounds to a first…

In 1876 H. J. S. Smith defined an LCM matrix as follows: let S = {x_1, x_2, ..., x_n} be a set of positive integers. The LCM matrix [S] is the n $\times$ n matrix with lcm(x_i , x_j) as its ij entry. During the last 30 years singularity of…

Motivated by the search for a counterexample to the Poincar\'e conjecture in three and four dimensions, the Andrews-Curtis conjecture was proposed in 1965. It is now generally suspected that the Andrews-Curtis conjecture is false, but small…

Let $\mathbb{L}$ be a lattice in $n$-dimensional Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^n$ reduced in the sense of Korkine and Zolotareff and having a basis of the form $~(A_1,0,0,\cdots$ $,0),$ ~$(a_{2,1},A_2,0,\cdots,0),\cdots,$…

We consider a vertex reinforced random walk on the integer lattice with sub-linear reinforcement. Under some assumptions on the regular variation of the weight function, we characterize whether the walk gets stuck on a finite interval. When…

Rudin conjectured that there are never more than c N^(1/2) squares in an arithmetic progression of length N. Motivated by this surprisingly difficult problem we formulate more than twenty conjectures in harmonic analysis, analytic number…

We consider transient nearest neighbor random walks on the positive part of the real line. We give criteria for the finiteness of the number of cutpoints and strong cutpoints. Examples and open problems are presented.

In 1966, T. Gallai asked whether every connected graph has a vertex that appears in all longest paths. Since then this question has attracted much attention and many work has been done in this topic. One important open question in this area…

The following special case of a conjecture by Loehr and Warrington was proved recently by Ekhad, Vatter, and Zeilberger: There are 10^n zero-sum words of length 5n in the alphabet {+3,-2} such that no zero-sum consecutive subword that…

The question of the singularity at infinity of the hitting measure of random walks has a long history, originating from the work of Furstenberg in the 1960s. In 2011, Kaimanovich and Le Prince conjectured that the hitting measure of any…

For $n \geq 2$ we construct a measurable subset of the unit ball in $\mathbb{R}^n$ that does not contain pairs of points at distance 1 and whose volume is greater than $(1/2)^n$ times the volume of the ball. This disproves a conjecture of…

This article is motivated by a conjecture proposed by Sinai Robins in 2024. The conjecture asserts that two convex, centrally symmetric sets of positive measure that are not multi-tilers must coincide up to rigid motions if and only if…

For each pair of coprime integers $a$ and $b$ we have a rational $q$-Catalan number $\operatorname{Cat}(a,b)_q=\binom{a+b}{a}_q/[a+b]_q$. It is known that this is a polynomial in $q$ with nonnegative integer coefficients, but the nature of…

The illumination conjecture is a classical open problem in convex and discrete geometry, asserting that every compact convex body~$K$ in $\mathbb R^n$ can be illuminated by a set of no more than $2^n$ points. If $K$ has smooth boundary, it…

Consider a transient near-critical (1,2) random walk on the positive half line. We give a criteria for the finiteness of the number of the skipped points (the points never visited) by the random walk. This result generalizes (partially) the…