English

When can we decide that a P-finite sequence is positive?

Symbolic Computation 2010-05-05 v1

Abstract

We consider two algorithms which can be used for proving positivity of sequences that are defined by a linear recurrence equation with polynomial coefficients (P-finite sequences). Both algorithms have in common that while they do succeed on a great many examples, there is no guarantee for them to terminate, and they do in fact not terminate for every input. For some restricted classes of P-finite recurrence equations of order up to three we provide a priori criteria that assert the termination of the algorithms.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1005.0600,
  title  = {When can we decide that a P-finite sequence is positive?},
  author = {Manuel Kauers and Veronika Pillwein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1005.0600},
  year   = {2010}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:18:31.037Z