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Combinatorial Number
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Proceedings of the Integers Conference 2011
Carrollton, Georgia, October 2629, 2011
edited by
Bruce Landman
Melvyn B. Nathanson
Jaroslav Neetril
Richard J. Nowakowski
Carl Pomerance
Aaron Robertson
De Gruyter
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010: 11-06.
Editors
Prof. Dr. Bruce Landman Prof. Dr. Melvyn B. Nathanson
University of West Georgia The City University of New York
Department of Mathematics Lehman College (CUNY)
1601 Maple Street Department of Mathematics
Carrollton, GA 30118, USA 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West
landman@westga.edu Bronx, NY 10468, USA
nathansn@alpha.lehman.cuny.edu
ISBN 978-3-11-028048-7
e-ISBN 978-3-11-028061-6
Set-ISBN 978-3-11-028062-3
Printed in Germany
www.degruyter.com
Preface
The Integers Conference 2011 was held October 2629, 2011, at the University of
West Georgia in Carrollton, Georgia, United States. This was the fifth Integers Con-
ference, held bi-annually since 2003. It featured plenary lectures presented by Ken
Ono, Carla Savage, Laszlo Szekely, Frank Thorne, and Julia Wolf, along with 60 other
research talks.
This volume consists of ten refereed articles, which are expanded and revised ver-
sions of talks presented at the conference. These ten articles will appear as a special
volume of the journal Integers. They represent a broad range of topics in the areas
of number theory and combinatorics including multiplicative number theory, additive
number theory, game theory, Ramsey theory, enumerative combinatorics, elementary
number theory, the theory of partitions, and integer sequences.
The conference was made possible with the generous support of the Number Theory
Foundation and the University of West Georgia.
Preface v
Index 155
Combinatorial Number Theory, 113 De Gruyter 2013
Chapter 1
Abstract. Misre games are notoriously more difficult to analyze than their normal-play coun-
terparts. To deal with the inherent lack of structure, Plambeck (2005) [7] considered restricted
universes of games and developed the concept of indistinguishability, modulo a given uni-
verse; the resulting quotient semigroup is called the misre monoid. Results for only three
general universes are known. We introduce a fourth: the universe of alternating games and
their sums. We find that the misre monoid of one-handed alternating games is isomorphic to
.Z; C/.
Keywords. Combinatorial Games, Misre Games.
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010. 91A46.
1.1 Introduction
Two players Left and Right play with a stack of pennies, which are either all heads-up
or all tails-up; Left can play on a tails-up stack and Right can play on a heads-up stack
by removing at least one penny and then inverting any remaining coins. The player who
removes the last penny loses. This is an alternating game, since neither Left nor Right
can make two consecutive moves in one stack, and it is being played under misre
rules. In the present chapter, we analyze individual alternating components (e.g., one
stack of pennies) in order to answer the following question: under misre play, who
wins a set of alternating games when they are played in a disjunctive sum? Note that a
disjunctive sum of alternating components is not necessarily itself an alternating game.
For a given game G, we use G L to denote a general left option and G L to denote
the set of all such options. We may refer to a single left option from the position G R
as G RL and to the set of all left options from the position G R as G RL . A game H
is a follower of G if H can be reached from G by some sequence of (not necessarily
alternating) moves.
In PENNY NIM, each component is one-handed, i.e. only one player has an op-
tion from the initial position. We can specify which player, Left or Right, has the
first move by the terms left-handed or right-handed, respectively. Games can also be
two-handed alternating, where both players have at least one option from the start
(G L 6D ;; G R 6D ;). If we placed a heads-up or tails-up stack of pennies on its side
and allowed either player to move by taking some pennies and orienting the stack ap-
propriately, then PENNY NIM would become a two-handed alternating game. This chap-
ter considers one-handed positions; however, the majority of our one-handed results
are true in the universe of all alternating games. Since every two-handed game has
exclusively one-handed followers, an understanding of one-handed games will help
us to subsequently analyze all alternating games. Readers familiar with normal-play
games will notice that one-handed alternating games are restricted to the normal-play
values 1, 0, and 1.
It is interesting to note that one-handed or end games in general can be very prob-
lematic for misre play Aaron Siegel calls them significant pathologies [9] and
yet there is simple, elegant structure in one-handed alternating games.
1.1.1 Background
We begin with an overview of prerequisite material. Conventionally, the players Left
and Right are female and male, respectively. We have already encountered an instance
of misre-play, where the first player unable to move wins; the more standard ending
condition is normal-play, where the first player unable to move loses. Games or posi-
tions are defined in terms of their options: G D G L j G R . The simplest game is the
zero game, 0 D j , where the dot indicates an empty set of options.
In both play conventions, the outcome classes next (N ), previous (P ), left (L), and
right (R) are partially ordered as shown in Figure 1.1, with Left preferring moves
toward the top and Right preferring moves toward the bottom. In our analysis of al-
ternating games, we often simultaneously consider the misre outcome and normal
outcome of a game; to distinguish between the two, we introduce the superscripts
and C , respectively. Thus a game in N \ RC is a next-win under misre play and
a right-win under normal play. When convenient we also use the outcome functions
o .G/ and oC .G/ to identify the misre or normal outcome of a game G.
L
P N
R
Figure 1.1. The partial order of outcome classes.
Chapter 1 The Misre Monoid of One-Handed Alternating Games 3
Many definitions from normal-play game theory1 are used without modification for
misre games, including disjunctive sum, equality, and inequality. Thus, for misre
games,
G D H if o .G C X / D o .H C X / for all games X;
G H if o .G C X / o .H C X / for all games X:
In normal-play, the negative of a game is defined recursively as G D G R jG L ,
and is so called because G C .G/ D 0 for all games G. Under misre play, however,
this property holds only if G is the zero game [5]. To avoid confusion and inappropriate
cancellation, we write G instead of G and refer to this game as the conjugate of G.
In normal-play games, there is an easy test for equality: G D 0 if and only if G 2
P C , and so G D H if and only if G H 2 P C . In misre-play, no such test exists.
Equality of misre games is difficult to prove and, moreover, is relatively rare; for
example, besides j itself, there are no games equal to the zero game under misre
play [5]. Within the last ten years (see, e.g., [79]), a partial solution to these challenges
has been presented: redefine equality by restricting the game universe. This method
has been used with much success by [24]. Given a set of games X, misre equivalence
(modulo X) is defined by
1.2 Equivalences
In analyzing alternating games, we find it useful to classify a position by both its mis-
re outcome and normal outcome. In general all 42 D 16 pairs of outcomes can be
attained [5] (for example, there exist games which are Left-win under both normal-
and misre-play), but more than half of these pairs do not occur among one-handed
games. Since either Left or Right has no first move in a one-handed game G, that player
wins immediately under misre rules and loses immediately under normal rules, and
so o .G/ 6D P , oC .G/ 6D N C , and o .G/ 6D oC .G/. The remaining seven out-
come pairs are each attained in the one-handed universe, as demonstrated in Figure 1.2
with the zero game and the games
A D 0 j ; B D 0; A j ; C D B j ;
R \ LC N \ LC R \ P C N \ P C L \ RC N \ RC L \ P C
A B C 0 A B C
Figure 1.2. The possible outcomes pairs for one-handed alternating games.
2 In
[6] and elsewhere, alternating games are referred to as consecutive move ban games.
3 Wewill find that 0 j is incomparable with zero in our universe; for this and other reasons we
chose not to use the normal-play name 1.
Chapter 1 The Misre Monoid of One-Handed Alternating Games 5
Most of the positions in Figure 1.2 appear in PENNY NIM; if we consider stacks on
which Left can play, then a one-penny stack is the game A, a two-penny stack is the
game B, and all other nonzero stacks are equivalent (modulo A) to B.
Throughout the chapter we make repeated use of the fact that a single one-handed
game alternates between being left-handed and right-handed as players alternate turns.
Furthermore, if Left has a good (misre) first move in a left-handed game, then it is to
a position in L , because no one-handed game is in P . Likewise, if Right as a good
first move in an alternating game, it is to a position in R .
We show in Theorem 1.4 that all one-handed games in N \ P C are indistinguish-
able from the zero game, an incredibly useful result that actually holds in the larger
universe A of all alternating games. We then extend this result by establishing that
a single one-handed game is indistinguishable (modulo A) from any other with the
same outcome pair; in particular, the seven games in Figure 1.2 are equivalent to all
others in their respective classes.
We first require the following two lemmas.
Lemma 1.2. If X is a sum of right-handed alternating games with at least one com-
ponent in L , then X 2 L .
Proof. Left wins trivially playing first on X . Assume, for followers of X , Left wins
playing second on a sum of right-handed games when at least one of them is in L .
Let G be a component of X in L . If Right plays in G to some G R then Left either
has no response and wins immediately, or responds with a good move G RL 2 L
and wins by induction on the sum. If Right plays in some other component of X then
Left either has no response and wins, or can play in that component to bring it back to
a right-handed game, and then wins playing second on the sum, by induction, since G
is still in L .
Proof. We prove the first statement, and the second will follow by symmetry. Let
G be a right-handed game with normal outcome P C and X be a sum of alternating
games. We need to show that o .G C X / o .X /. If o .X / D R then trivially
o .G C X / o .X /. It remains to show that if Left can win X going first (second),
then she can win G CX going first (second). Assume inductively that these statements
hold for all followers of G C X of the form G 0 C X 0 with G 0 2 P C .
Suppose now that Left can win X going first. If she has no move in X , then she has
no move in G C X , and thus wins immediately. Otherwise, she has a move to some
X L from which she wins moving second, and by induction she then wins G C X L
moving second. Thus Left can win G C X moving first.
Suppose Left wins X moving second. Note that Right always has a move at the
outset. If Right moves in G, then Left has a (normal-play) winning local response to
6 Rebecca Milley, Richard J. Nowakowski, and Paul Ottaway
some G RL , which as a right-handed game must be in P C and not LC . Then Left wins
G RL C X by induction. If Right moves in X to X R , then either Left wins because
she has no move, or she responds with her good second move X RL and by induction
wins G C X RL moving second.
We are now set to prove our earlier claim that every one-handed game in N \ P C
is indistinguishable among all alternating games from zero.
Proof. Note that G and H are right-handed games. Since H 2 P C , Lemma 1.2 gives
us 0 5 H . For G 5 0, let X be a sum in A. Suffices to show that if Right can win X
playing first (second), then Right can win G C X playing first (second); assume that
this is true for all followers X 0 of X . Now suppose Right can win X playing first. If
Right has no moves in X , he can make a good first misre move in G to G R 2 R
Chapter 1 The Misre Monoid of One-Handed Alternating Games 7
and win on G R C X by Lemma 1.2. Otherwise, Right makes his good misre move
in X to X R ; since Right wins X R playing second, he wins G C X R playing second
by induction. This shows Right wins G C X playing first.
If Right wins X playing second then Left has no good first move in X and cannot
play in the right-handed game G. Left must move X to X L , which Right can win
playing first, and then by induction Right can win G C X L playing first. Thus Right
wins G C X playing second.
The symmetric result obviously holds as well, and together these give us a partial
partial order of moves. In particular, Theorem 1.5 tells us that C 5 0 5 B and B 5
0 5 C . We will be able to establish another chain of domination (C 5 A 5 B,
B 5 A 5 C ) after we prove Theorem 1.6.
Proof. (i)(ii): If G 2 R \ LC then G is left-handed, and since Left has no good first
misre move, every Left option must be in N or R . But all Left options are right-
handed (or zero), and thus cannot be in R . So every Left option is in N . Similarly,
since G 2 LC , there is at least one Left option in P C or LC ; but right-handed (or
zero) games cannot be in LC , so at least one Left option is in P C . Together this
shows that there exists a G L 0 2 N \ P C . By Theorem 1.5, any other options
(necessarily in N \ RC ) are dominated by 0, and so G 0 j A. Case (ii)
follows by symmetry.
(iii)(vi): We combine the remaining results and use an inductive proof. The reader
can check that B is the smallest one-handed game in N \ LC (i.e., no one-handed
game with a shorter game tree is in N \ LC ), and B, C , and C are the smallest games
in R \ P C , N \ RC , and L \ P C , respectively.
We now proceed by induction on the followers. Let G and H be games in R \ P C
and N \ LC (note that G and H are left-handed; the right-handed results follow
similarly). As argued in (i)(ii), every Left option of G must be in N because Left
has no good first misre move in G 2 R . Additionally, G 2 P C forces every Left
option to be in RC or N C ; but one-handed games cannot be in N C , so every option
is in N \ RC . By induction each of these options is indistinguishable from B. Thus
G B j D C .
For H there is a bit more to show. Since H 2 N , Left has a good misre move
to a right-handed game in L ; since H 2 LC , Left has a good normal-play move
to a right-handed game in P C . This shows that Left either has a move to L \ P C
8 Rebecca Milley, Richard J. Nowakowski, and Paul Ottaway
H A; 0 j ; C j ; or A; C j :
Theorem 3.5 is a powerful result. Since the equivalences hold modulo all alternat-
ing games, and since every alternating game becomes one-handed after the first move,
these equivalences are pertinent to future research in the universe A. As promised,
Theorem 3.5 also allows us to prove the missing chain of domination; we can then
combine the results of Theorems 1.5 and 1.7 (below) to obtain the partial orders illus-
Chapter 1 The Misre Monoid of One-Handed Alternating Games 9
L \ P C N \ LC
N \P
C L \ RC N \P
C R \ LC
N \ RC
R \ PC
C B
0 A 0 A
B C
Left options (right-handed games) Right options (left-handed games)
Figure 1.3. The partial orders (modulo A) given by Theorems 1.5 and 1.7.
trated in Figure 1.3. As indicated by the figure, the game 0 is incomparable or fuzzy
with both A and A. To see this, note that 0 C 2 P while A C 2 N .
We have nearly finished our analysis of one-handed games in the alternating uni-
verse. The final result of this section addresses one of the main difficulties in misre
game theory: the lack of inverses under disjunctive sum. As mentioned in the introduc-
tion, we do not generally have G D G in misre games as we do for normal games.
Luckily for us, one-handed alternating games do possess this very convenient property.
Proof. This is trivially true for games in N \ P C . For any other (say, left-handed)
game G, we have G is equivalent (modulo A) to A; B; or C . Thus, it suffices to show
A C A 0, B C B 0, and C C C 0. Let X be be any sum of alternating
games, and suppose without loss of generality that Left wins X . Then in A C A C X ,
Left plays his winning strategy in X , responding in A C A (and thereby bringing it to
zero) only if Right plays there. If this happens before Left runs out of move in X , then
play resumes in X and Left wins as usual. Otherwise Right does not play in A C A
before Left wins X , at which point Left plays in A, bringing the game to a sum of
right-handed components including A 2 L . Left then wins by Lemma 1.2. Notice
this argument works whether Left wins X playing first or playing second or both.
For B C B C X , the argument works as above; if Right plays in B, then Left copies
her in B, bringing those components to 0 C 0 or A C A 0, and resumes play in X .
If Left runs out of moves in X before this happens, she plays in B to A and wins by
Lemma 1.2. Finally, in C C C C X , if Right plays in C , then Left copies in C to get
B C B 0. If Right does not play in C , then after Left runs out of moves in X he
plays in C to B. The game is now a sum of right-handed positions including B 2 L ,
so once again Left wins by Lemma 1.2.
Theorem 1.8 shows that a disjunctive sum forms the set of one-handed alternating
games into a group; G is in fact G. We use the notations interchangeably for the
remainder of the paper and write kG to represent k copies of the game G.
Together, Theorems 1.6 and 1.8 show that any sum of one-handed games in the al-
ternating universe A can be written as aACbB CcC for integers a; b; c. In Section 1.3
we determine the outcome of such a sum, and in Section 1.4 we use this information
to determine the misre monoid of O.
1.3 Outcomes
If G is a sum of one handed games in A; then G aA C bB C cC for integers a; b; c.
We can therefore represent any such sum as an ordered triple .a; b; c/. Figure 1.4
illustrates the possible Left and Right options from G (with the conditions for each
indicated below the horizontal line), and Theorem 1.9 establishes the misre outcome
of G.
Proof. The zero game is a next-player win under misre rules and has a C c D 0.
Assume the outcomes above hold for all followers of G D .a; b; c/.
Chapter 1 The Misre Monoid of One-Handed Alternating Games 11
.a; b; c/
.a1;b1;c/ .aC1;bC1;c/
If a C c < 0; then there exists at least one copy of A or C in the sum, so Right has
a move going first to .a C 1; b; c/ or .a; b C 1; c C 1/. At best then, Right can increase
the value of a C c to zero, giving Left a next-win position by induction. If Left plays
first, she can play to either .a 1; b; c/ or .a; b 1; c 1/, and so can guarantee a C c
remains negative and by induction leaves a Left-win position. Since Left wins playing
first or second, G 2 L when a C c < 0. A symmetric argument shows G 2 R
when a C c > 0.
If a C c D 0; then Left going first either has no moves and wins immediately, or has
a move in a copy of A; B, or C . From Figure 1.4 we see that Left can always decrease
either a or c by 1, thereby moving to a C c < 0 and winning by induction. Right wins
playing first by symmetry, and so G 2 N when a C c D 0.
This theorem will be very useful in analyzing the two-handed universe. For the
present chapter, it shows us that the equivalence classes among one-handed games
collapse even further when the universe is restricted to O. Notice that the integer b
does not influence the outcome of G D aACbB CcC . Thus, for X a sum of only one-
handed alternating games, we have o .X / D o .B C X /. This gives the following
corollaries.
Note that we do have to restrict the universe to O to get these results. In the two-
handed universe, B is distinguished from 0 with the game D 0 j 0: Left can win
B C going first, but loses playing first on .
The last thing to note in our analysis of O is that the positions aA and a0 A are
equivalent if and only if a D a 0 . If a 6D a0 ; then the games are distinguished by aA,
since aA C .aA/ is in N while a0 A C .aA/ is in L or R .
12 Rebecca Milley, Richard J. Nowakowski, and Paul Ottaway
Acknowledgments. The first two authors would like to thank NSERC for partial sup-
port of this research.
References
[1] M. H. Albert, R. J. Nowakowski, and D. Wolfe, Lessons in Play. Peters, Ltd., Nattick,
MA, 2007.
[2] M. R. Allen, An Investigation of Misre Partizan Games. PhD thesis, Dalhousie Univer-
sity, 2009.
[3] M. R. Allen, Peeking at partizan misre quotients, in: Games of No Chance 4, to appear.
[4] N. A. McKay, R. Milley, and R. J. Nowakowski, Hackenbush sprigs, preprint, 2012.
[5] G. A. Mesdal and P. Ottaway. Simplification of partizan games in misre play, Integers 7
(2007), #G06.
[6] P. Ottaway, Combinatorial Games with Restricted Options under Normal and Misre
Play, PhD Thesis, Dalhousie University, 2009.
[7] T. E. Plambeck, Taming the wild in impartial combinatorial games, Integers 5 (2005),
#G5, Comb. Games Sect.
[8] T. E. Plambeck and A. N. Siegel, Misre quotients for impartial games, Journal of Com-
binatorial Theory, Series A 115(4) (2008, 593 622.
[9] A. N. Siegel. Misre canonical forms of partizan games. a.arXiv:math/0703565v1, to ap-
pear in Games of No Chance 4.
Chapter 1 The Misre Monoid of One-Handed Alternating Games 13
Author information
Rebecca Milley, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Dalhousie University, Halifax,
Nova Scotia, Canada.
Email: rkmilley@mathstat.dal.ca
Chapter 2
Abstract. Let > 0 and 0 < < 1. Define g; W N ! N by g; .n/ D b n C c. The set
g; .n/ W n 2 N is called the nonhomogeneous spectrum of and . By extension, we refer
to the maps g; as spectra. Bergelson, Hindman, and Kra showed that if A is an IP -set, a
central set, an IP -set, or a central -set, then g; A is the corresponding object. We extend
this result to include several other notions of largeness: C -sets, J -sets, strongly central sets,
and piecewise syndetic sets. Of these, C -sets are particularly interesting, because they are the
sets which satisfy the conclusion of the central sets theorem (and so have many of the strong
combinatorial properties of central sets) but have a much simpler elementary description than
do central sets.
Keywords. Central Set, Spectrum, IP-Set.
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010. 05D10.
2.1 Introduction
Given a positive real number , the set bnc W n 2 N is called the spectrum of .
(We write N for the set of positive integers and ! for the set of nonnegative integers.)
Numerous results about spectra were derived by Skolem [18] and Bang [1]. (For a nice
presentation of these results see [16].) In [19] Skolem introduced the more general sets
bn C c W n 2 N, determining for example when two such sets can be disjoint.
In terminology introduced by Graham, Lin, and Lin [9], the set bn C c W n 2 N
is called a nonhomogeneous spectrum. By extension, we refer to the function g; W
N ! N defined by g; .n/ D bn C c as a nonhomogeneous spectrum.
In [4], V. Bergelson, B. Kra, and the first author of this paper showed that if > 0,
0 < < 1, and a subset A of N is large in any of several senses, then so is g; A. The
main reason anyone should care about this fact is that it provides explicit nontrivial
examples of sets with these largeness properties. For example, a set A is an IP -set
P hxn inD1 is a sequence in N, F S.hxn inD1 / \ A ;, where
1 1
if and only if whenever
F S.hxn inD1 / D n2F xn W F 2 Pf .N/. Given any set X , Pf .X / is the set of
1
p
so trivial that b 7 bn C 1e c C 23 c W n 2 N is an IP -set. This is because it is
gp7;2=3 g;1=e N.
The notions of largeness which were shown in [4] to be preserved by spectra were,
in addition to the IP -sets mentioned above, IP -sets, central sets, central* sets, -
sets, and -sets. The set A is an IP -set if and only if it contains F S.hxn i1 nD1 / for
some sequence hxn i1 nD1 . (Thus a set is an IP -set if and only if it has nontrivial
intersection with each IP -set.) The set A is a -set if and only if it contains y x W
x; y 2 B and x < y for some infinite set B N. And a -set is one which has
nontrivial intersection with each -set.
Central sets in N were introduced by Furstenberg in [8] and were defined using no-
tions from topological dynamics. They have a much simpler characterization in terms
of the algebra of N. This characterization was obtained in [2] with the assistance
of B. Weiss. (It was shown to be equivalent in arbitrary semigroups by H. Shi and
H. Yang [17].) In order to discuss this we give a very brief overview of that algebraic
structure. The reader is referred to [13] for an elementary introduction to the subject.
Detailed historical references can also be found in that book. Most of the basic facts
mentioned in the next two paragraphs are not due to either of the authors of [13].
Let .S; C/ be a semigroup, not necessarily commutative, with the discrete topology.
(We denote the operation by C because we are primarily interested in the semigroup
.N; C/.) The StoneCech compactification S of S can be taken to be the set of ultra-
filters on S , with the points of S identified with the principal ultrafilters. The topology
on S has a basis consisting of A W A S where A D p 2 S W A 2 p. The
operation extends to S making .S; C/ a right topological semigroup (so for each
p 2 S the function p W S ! S defined by p .q/ D q C p is continuous) with
S contained in its topological center (so for each x 2 S , the function x W S ! S
defined by x .q/ D x C q is continuous). Given p; q 2 S and A S , A 2 p C q
if and only if x 2 S W x C A 2 q 2 p where x C A D y 2 S W x C y 2 A.
The reader should be cautioned that .S; C/ is very unlikely to be commutative; the
center of .N; C/ is N.
Any compact Hausdorff right topological semigroup T has a smallest two-sided
ideal, K.T /, which is the union of all of the minimal right ideals of T and is also the
union of all the minimal left ideals of T . The intersection of any minimal right ideal
and any minimal left ideal is a group, and any two such groups are isomorphic. (In
.N; C/ there are 2c minimal left ideals and 2c minimal right ideals.) In particular
there are idempotents in K.T /. An idempotent in T is in K.T / if and only if it is
minimal with respect to the ordering of idempotents, wherein p q if and only if
p D p C q D q C p. Idempotents in K.T / are referred to as minimal idempotents.
A subset A of S is central if and only if A is a member of a minimal idempotent of
S . And A is central* if and only if it has nontrivial intersection with each central set;
equivalently, A is central* if and only if it is a member of every minimal idempotent
in S . It is a trivial consequence of the definition that central sets are partition regular.
That is, if A is central and A is partitioned into finitely many cells, then one of these
Chapter 2 Images of C -Sets and Related Large Sets under Nonhomogeneous Spectra 17
cells is central. In particular, whenever S is partitioned into finitely many parts, one of
these must be central. From a combinatorial point of view, what is probably the most
important fact about central sets is that they satisfy the central sets theorem. We state
here the commutative version thereof because it is much simpler to state and we are
primarily concerned with .N; C/. We write NS for the set of sequences in S .
Theorem 2.1. Let .S; C/ be a commutative semigroup, and let A be a central subset
of S . There exist functions W Pf .NS / ! S and H W Pf .NS / ! Pf .N/ such that
(1) if F; G 2 Pf .NS / and F G, then max H.F / < min H.G/; and
(2) whenever m 2 N, G1 ; G2 ; : : : ; Gm 2 Pf .NS /, G1 G2 : : : Gm , and for
P P
each i 2 1; 2; : : : ; m, fi 2 Gi , one has m
iD1 .Gi /C t2H.Gi / fi .t / 2 A.
The following is the original central sets theorem as proved by Furstenberg [8,
Proposition 8.21].
Proof. We first note that A is central in Z because by [13, Theorem 1.65 and Exer-
cise 4.3.5], K.N/ D K.Z/ \ N. Pick W Pf .NZ/ ! Z and H W Pf .NZ/ !
Pf .N/ as guaranteed by Theorem 2.1.
Let G1 D 0; hy1;n i1 1 1
nD1 ; hy2;n inD1 ; : : : ; hyl;n inD1 , where 0 is the function con-
stantly equal to 0. For n 2 N, pick f 2 NN n Gn and let GnC1 D Gn [ f .
For n 2 N, let Hn D H.Gn / and let an D .Gn /. To see that each an 2 N,
P
note that 0 2 Gn so an D .Gn / C t2H.Gn / 0 .t / 2 A N. Conclusion (1) holds
directly. To verify conclusion (2), let F 2 Pf .N/ and i 2 1; 2; : : : ; l. Then for
P P P
each n 2 F , hyi;n i1 2 Gn so n2F .an C t2Hn yi;t / D .Gn / C
P nD1 n2F
y
t2H.Gn / i;t 2 A.
From Corollary 2.2, Furstenberg deduced several facts about central subsets of N,
including the fact that any partition regular system of homogeneous linear equations
with coefficients from Q has solutions in any central set; see [13, Chaps. 1416] for
many other examples of the strong properties enjoyed by central subsets of N.
The algebraic description of central sets is very simple and quite easy to work with.
There is an elementary description of central sets which was produced in [12] (or
18 Neil Hindman and John H. Johnson
see [13, Theorem 14.25]). However, that description is based on the notion of a collec-
tionwise piecewise syndetic family of sets a notion which is extremely complicated.
The masochistic reader is referred to [13, Definition 14.19].
For many of the facts about central sets, what is important is that they satisfy the cen-
tral sets theorem. We define a set to be a C -set if and only if it satisfies the conclusion
of the central sets theorem. We have not stated the general version of the central sets
theorem. In the case of commutative semigroups, the definition becomes as follows.
Of course one defines C -sets and J -sets analogously to IP -sets and central*
sets. That is, a set is a C -set if and only if it has nonempty intersection with every
C -set, and a set is a J -set if and only if it has nonempty intersection with every J -set.
Other notions of size with which we will be concerned in this chapter include strongly
central sets (abbreviated by S C ), piecewise syndetic sets (abbreviated by PS ), AP -
sets, syndetic sets, and thick sets. A subset of N is strongly central if and only if it is a
member of some idempotent in every minimal left ideal of N. (Since every left ideal
contains a minimal left ideal, this is equivalent to being a member of an idempotent
in every left ideal of N.) In .N; C/, a set A is piecewise syndetic if and only if there
is a bound b such that there are arbitrarily long blocks of N in which A has no gaps
longer than b. That is .9b 2 N/.8k 2 N/.9x 2 N/.x C 1; x C 2; : : : ; x C k
Sb
tD1 t C A/. In .N; C/, a set A is an AP -set if and only if it contains arbitrarily
long arithmetic progressions, is syndetic if and only if it has bounded gaps, and is thick
if and only if it contains arbitrarily long integer intervals. We say that a set is PS if
Chapter 2 Images of C -Sets and Related Large Sets under Nonhomogeneous Spectra 19
and only if it has nonempty intersection with each piecewise syndetic set and is AP
if and only if it has nonempty intersection with each AP -set.
Of the notions of size that we are considering, IP -sets, central sets, C -sets, J -sets,
piecewise syndetic sets, AP -sets, and -sets are all partition regular.
Notice that any J -set in N is an AP -set. In fact, it must contain arbitrarily long
arithmetic progressions with increment taken from the finite sums of any prespecified
sequence in N. To see this, let a sequence hxn i1 nD1 in N be given and let l 2 N. Let
F D htxn i1 nD1 W t 2 1; 2; : : : ; l :
P
Pick a 2 N and H 2 Pf .N/ such that for each t 2 1; 2; : : : ; l, a C t2H txn 2 A.
P
If d D t2H x t , then
a C t d W t 2 1; 2; : : : ; l A:
Proof. Statements (g) and (i) are the definitions of central and S C respectively.
Statements (a) and (q) follow from [3, Lemma 1.9(a) and (j)] respectively.
Statement (b) follows from [13, Theorem 3.11] and the fact that AP -sets are parti-
tion regular.
Statements (c), (d), (e), and (f) follow from [13, Theorems 5.12, 14.14.7, 14.15.1,
and 4.40], respectively.
Statements (h) and (j) follow from [5, Theorem 2.9(d) and (c)], respectively.
Statements (k), (l), (m), (n), (o), and (p) follow from statements (g), (f), (e), (d), (c),
and (b), respectively.
Figure 2.1 shows the relations that hold among the notions of size that we are con-
sidering. After noting that, by [13, Theorems 14.4.4 and 14.5], J.N/ and AP are
ideals of .N; C/ and, as we have already observed, each J -set is an AP -set so that
J.N/ AP , each of the implications follows quickly from the characterizations
in Theorem 2.7 except for the fact that IP ) and the corresponding fact that
) IP . (To see that central ) S C and thick ) central, one needs to note
that by [13, Corollary 2.6], each left ideal of N contains a minimal left ideal with an
idempotent, which is therefore an idempotent in K.N/.)
The easiest way to see that any IP -set is a -set (and thus any -set
Pn is an IP -
set) is to note that if F S.hxn inD1 / A and for each n 2 N, yn D tD1 x t , then
1
yn ym W n; m 2 N and m < n A.
Chapter 2 Images of C -Sets and Related Large Sets under Nonhomogeneous Spectra 21
AP
IP J
C PS
|
central* |
SC thick
syndetic central
PS C
J IP
AP
Figure 2.1. Diagram of implications
That none of the missing implications is valid is established by the following table
which lists for each property, a subset of N with that property that does not have any
of the other properties except those that it is forced to have because of the implications
in the diagram. In that table, the set D is the set produced in [11] which is a C -set but
has Banach density 0. In particular D \ K.N/ D ;. Since D 2N, D C 1 is not a
-set.
In most cases it is at least routine, if not obvious, that the set has the specified
property. We will explain now why this is true for J , central, S C , C , and J .
The set D is a member of an idempotent p 2 J.N/, so D C 1 2 p C 1 and
p C 1 2 J.N/. The set 2n C 2m W n; m 2 N and m < n is the intersection of
a thick
set with pa central*pset, and so is central.
S It is a consequence of [6,
Theorem 3.2]
that x 2 N W . 2x b 2x C 1=2c/ 2 1 nD1 1=.2n C 1/; 1=.2n/ , and its com-
plement are both strongly central, and thus its intersection with 2N, which is IP , is
strongly central. (We shall be giving a short P proof of this consequence of [6, Theo-
rem 3.2] in Theorem 2.15 below.) Since n2F 22n W F 2 Pf .N/ is not an AP -set,
it is not a J -set, and so
P
2N n n2F 22n W F 2 Pf .N/
Theorem 2.9. Let > 1 and let 0 < < 1. Then g; N is not thick. In particular,
none of the properties in the right column of Figure 2.1 are preserved by g; .
Proof. Pick r 2 N such that 1r < 1. Given n 2 N, let k D g; .n/. Then
g; .n C r/ k C r C 1 so at least one of k C 1; k C 2; : : : ; k C r is not in
g; N.
Theorem 2.10. Let A be a piecewise syndetic subset of N, let > 0, and let 0 <
< 1. Then g; A is piecewise syndetic.
Proof. Pick b 2 N such that for all w 2 N there exists x 2 N such that x; x C
S
1; : : : ; x C w btD0 .t C A/. Let m D db C e. We claim that for all y 2 N
S
there exists z 2 N such that z; z C 1; : : : ; z C y m tD0 .t C g; A/. To this
1
end, let y 2 N and let w D d ye. Pick x 2 N such that x; x C 1; : : : ; x C w
Sb Sm
tD0 .t C A/. Let z D g; .x/. We claim that z; z C 1; : : : ; z C y tD0 .t C
g; A/. To this end, let k 2 0; 1; : : : ; y be given. Now y w < y C so
z Cy .x Cw/C < z C1Cy C. Thus z Cy g; .x Cw/. Pick the first l 2 !
such that z C k g; .x C l/, and note that l 2 0; 1; : : : ; w. Pick t 2 0; 1; : : : ; b
such that x C l C t 2 A. Let v D g; .x C l C t / .z C k/. Then z C k C v 2 g; A
so it suffices to show that 0 v m. Since g; .x C l C t / g; .x/ D z, we
have v 0. By the choice of l, z C k > g; .x C l 1/ so x C l < z C k.
Consequently xCl Ct C < zCkCt C zCkCbC so g; .xCl Ct / <
z C k C b C z C k C m as required.
Theorem 2.11. Let A be an AP -set, let > 0, and let 0 < < 1. Then g; A is
an AP -set.
24 Neil Hindman and John H. Johnson
1 1
./ c 2 < d < c C 2 :
We claim that for each t 2 0; 1; : : : ; r 1, g; .aCt d / D kCt c. This is trivially true
for t 2 0; 1, and so assume that t 2 1; 2; : : : ; r 2 and that g; .a Ct d / D k Ct c.
Let m D g; .a C .t C 1/d /. Then,
i i C1
k C tc C .a C t d / C < k C t c C and
2 2
i i C1
m C .a C .t C 1/d / C < m C ; so
2 2
1 1
./ m k tc 2 < d < m k t c C 2 :
Combining ./ and ./ we have
1 1
c < m k tc C and
2 2
1 1
m k tc < c C :
2 2
Thus we have that k C .t C 1/c 1 < m < k C .t C 1/c C 1 and so k C .t C 1/c
1 D m.
e
Corollary 2.12. Let > 0 and let 0 < < 1. Then g; AP AP .
e
Proof. Let p 2 AP and let A 2 g; .p/. Pick B 2 p such that g; B A. Then B
is an AP -set, and by Theorem 2.11, g; B is an AP -set, and thus A is an AP -set.
Chapter 2 Images of C -Sets and Related Large Sets under Nonhomogeneous Spectra 25
f
Definition 2.13. Let > 0. Then Z D p 2 N W f .p/ D 0.
We gather some basic facts about the objects we have just defined.
Lemma 2.14. Let > 0; and let 0 < < 1. The function f f is a homomorphism
from N into T , and consequently each idempotent is in Z The restriction of h f
e
.
to Z is an isomorphism onto Z1= , whose inverse is the restriction of h1= to Z1= .
e f
For all p 2 Z , g; .p/ D h .p/.
Proof. The first conclusion follows from [13, Corollary 4.22]. The second and third
conclusions are [4, Theorem 5.10] and [4, Theorem 5.8], respectively.
Theorem 2.15. If U is an open subset of .0; 12 / with 0 2 c`U and > 0 is irrational,
then f1 U is strongly central.
IP -sets, -sets, central sets, IP -sets, central* sets, and -sets, is determined by
e
members of Z , so that g; agrees with an isomorphism on Z at those points. The
notion of strongly central had not yet been introduced at the time of the writing of [4].
We pause to observe that the methods of that paper are sufficient to show that it is
preserved by the functions g; .
Theorem 2.16. Let A be a strongly central subset of N, let > 0, and let 0 < < 1.
Then g; A is strongly central.
Proof. Let L be a minimal left ideal of N. We need to show that there is an idem-
potent in L \ g; A. Now L \ Z1= ; because any idempotent in L is in this
intersection, and so L\Z1= is a minimal left ideal of Z1= by [13, Theorem 1.65(2)].
e
Therefore h1= L \ Z1= is a minimal left ideal of Z by Lemma 2.14. Again by [13,
Theorem 1.65(2)], we may pick a minimal left ideal M of N such that h1= L \ e
Z1= D M \ Z . Pick an idempotent p 2 M \ A. Then p 2 Z so h f .p/ 2
f
h e e f
h1= L \ Z1= D L \ Z1= . Since A 2 p, g; A 2 g; .p/ D h .p/. Thus
f
h f
.p/ is an idempotent in L and g; A 2 h .p/.
In the rest of this chapter we need to consider points of N which f can take
anywhere in T . The following lemma will simplify some of the computations. In this
lemma we give specific values for , but we only really care that exists.
Lemma 2.18. Let F 2 Pf .NN/, let > 0, and let > 0. There exists H 2 Pf .N/
P
such that for all k 2 F , f t2H k.t / 2 .; /.
Chapter 2 Images of C -Sets and Related Large Sets under Nonhomogeneous Spectra 27
Lemma 2.19. Let F 2 Pf .NN/, let > 0, and let > 0. There is an increas-
ing sequence hHn i1 in P .N/ such that, for each n 2 N and each k 2 F ,
P nD1 f
f t2Hn k.t / 2 . 2n ; 2n /.
Proof. Pick H1 as guaranteed by Lemma 2.18 for 2 . Now let n 2 N and assume that
H1 ; H2 ; : : : ; Hn have been chosen. Let l D max Hn . For k 2 F define rk 2 NN
by, for t 2 N, rk .t / D k.l C t /. Pick by Lemma 2.18, L 2 Pf .N/ such that for all
P
k 2 F , f t2L rk .t / 2 . 2n ; 2n /. Let HnC1 D l C L.
Proof. Let F 2 Pf .NS / be given and pick c 2 S . Denote by c the sequence con-
stantly equal to c. For f 2 F define gf 2 NS by, for each n 2 N, gf .n/ D c C f .n/.
Let K D c [ gf W f 2 F . Then K 2 Pf .NS / so pick b 2 S and H 2 Pf .N/
P P
such that b C t2H c 2 A and for each f 2 F , b C t2H gf .t / 2 A. Let
P P
a D b C t2H c. Then for each f 2 F , a C t2H f .t / 2 A.
F D h2t i1
tD1 ; h2
tC1 1
i tD1 ; h22t i1
tD1 ; h2
2tC1 1
i tD1 :
Pick by Theorem 2.20 some a 2 A and H 2 Pf .N/ such that for all f 2 F , a C
P
t2H f .tP/ 2 A. Pick n 2 N and r 2 1; 2; : : : ; n 1 such that a D 22n C r2n C 1.
t
P 2t
Let b D t2H 2 and let d D t2H 2 . Then a; a C b; a C 2b A and
a; a C d; a C 2d A, and so by Lemma 2.21 we have a; a C b; a C 2b; a C
d; a C 2d 22n C m2n C 1 W m 2 1; 2; : : : ; n 1 . Pick m 2 1; 2; : : : ; n 1
P
such that a C b D 22n C m2n C 1. Then b D .m r/2n so 2n divides t2H 2t ,
and thus min H n. But then d 22n , and so a C d > 22n C .n 1/2n C 1,
a contradiction.
Thus the relationship between C -sets and J -sets is very similar to the relation-
ship between central sets and piecewise syndetic sets: however, there are a few con-
trasts. Firstly, J.S / is closed, while K.S / is commonly not closed. (In particular
K.N/ is not closed.) By [13, Corollary 4.41], p 2 S W .8A 2 p/.p is piecewise
syndetic/ D c`K.S /. Secondly, K.T / makes sense in an arbitrary compact Haus-
dorff right topological semigroup. We know of no reasonable meaning for J.T / in
that generality.
Proof. The first conclusion is [15, Theorem 2.14]. The second then follows from [13,
Theorem 3.11].
We show now that spectra preserve J -sets. As we remarked previously, this proof
f
is complicated by the fact that f can take members of J.N/ anywhere in T .
Chapter 2 Images of C -Sets and Related Large Sets under Nonhomogeneous Spectra 29
Theorem 2.25. Let A be a J -set in N, let > 0, and let 0 < < 1. Then g; A is
a J -set.
Proof. Let F 2 Pf .NN/ be given. Pick by Theorem 2.24 some p 2 J.N/ such that
A 2 p. Let
D f f .p/. Pick and as guaranteed by Lemma 2.17. Pick > 0 such
that and, if
C 0; 1, then .
C ;
C C / \ 0; 1 D ;.
Pick by Lemma 2.19 an increasing sequence hHn i1
P nD1 in Pf .N/ such that for each
n 2 N and each k 2 F , f1= t2Hn k.t / 2 . 32n ; 32n /. For k 2 F and n 2 N,
P
let rk .n/ D t2Hn k.t /. We claim that
P
./ for each k 2 F and each L 2 Pf .N/, we have h n2L .h1= rk /.n/ D
P P
n2L rk .n/ and f n2L .h1= rk /.n/ 2 . 3 ; 3 /.
If
C 0, then zk D wk 1. If 0 <
C 1, then 0 <
C 3 so zk D wk .
If 1 <
C , then 1 <
C 3 so zk D wk C 1.
Case 2. j D 2. Then
P
wk C
a C n2L .h1= rk /.n/ < wk C
C 3 ; and thus
P
wk C
C a C n2L .h1= rk /.n/ C < wk C
C C 3 :
If
C < 0, then
C C 3 < 0 so zk D wk 1. If 0
C < 1, then
C C 3 < 1 so zk D wk . If 1
C , then zk D wk C 1.
Now to complete the proof that there is some b 2 N with zk D yk C b for each
k 2 F , we show that x > 2 and wk D yk C x for each k 2 F . We know that
P
wk C
3 < a C n2L .h1= rk /.n/ < wk C
C 3
P
and by (), 3 < 2
n2L .h1= rk /.n/ yk < 3 so wk yk C
3 < a <
wk yk C
C 2
3 . Also xC
3 < a < xC
C 3 . Thus xC
3 < wk yk C
C 3
2
and wk yk C
2
3 < x C
C 3 so x < wk yk < x C so wk yk D x.
Also, 3 < a < x C
C 3 , so x 3.
The proof of Theorem 2.25 uses the fact from Theorem 2.24 that any J -set is a
member of an ultrafilter in J.N/, and therefore uses the axiom of choice. We suspect
that with a bit more work, the proof can be rewritten to only depend on the fact that
J -sets are partition regular. The proof of that fact in [15, Theorem 2.14] is elementary,
using the HalesJewett theorem, but is rather complicated.
e
Corollary 2.26. Let > 0, and let 0 < < 1. Then g; J.N/ J.N/.
e
Proof. Let p 2 J.N/ and let A 2 g; .p/. Pick B 2 p such that g; B A. Then
B is a J -set and by Theorem 2.25, g; B is a J -set and thus A is a J -set.
Corollary 2.27. Let A be a C -set in N, let > 0, and let 0 < < 1. Then g; A
is a C -set.
Proof. Pick by Theorem 2.23 an idempotent p 2 A \ J.N/. Then g; A 2 g; .p/.e
e
By Corollary 2.26, g; .p/ 2 J.N/, while by Lemma 2.14, since p is an idempotent
e f
and is therefore in Z , g; .p/ D h f
.p/ and h .p/ is an idempotent.
Lemma 2.28. Let > 0, let 0 < < 1, let q 2 N n N, and let r 2 Z . Then
e e e
g; .q C r/ D g; .q/ C g; .r/.
Chapter 2 Images of C -Sets and Related Large Sets under Nonhomogeneous Spectra 31
e
Proof. We shall show that there is some X 2 q such that for all x 2 X , g; .x Cr/ D
e e
g; .x/ C g; .r/. This will suffice since then the continuous functions g; r and
e e
g .r/ g; agree on a member of q and therefore agree at q. Once we have defined
;
X , we will let x 2 X and produce Y 2 r such that for all y 2 Y , g; .x C y/ D
e e
g; .x/Cg; .y/, so that the continuous functions g; x and g; .x/ g; agree
on a member of r.
Let
D f f 1 3 1
.q/. Pick by Lemma 2.17, 2 2 ; 4 and 2 .0; 2 / such that for all
2 .0; , x 2 N W g; .x/ C
< x < g; .x/ C
C 2 q. We consider
two cases (with three subcases each). Only in cases 1b and 1c does the choice of the
set Y depend on the choice of x.
Case 1.
C 2 0; 1. Let i D
C .
Case 1a. x 2 N W g; .x/C
D x 2 q. Let X D x 2 N W g; .x/C
D x.
Then is rational, since otherwise jX j 1, and thus Y D y 2 N W f .y/ D 0 2 r.
Let x 2 X and y 2 Y and let k D g; .x/ and l D h .y/. Then k C
D x and
l D y. Then k C i D x C , k C i C l D .x C y/ C , and l < y C < l C 1
so g; .x C y/ D k C i C l D g; .x/ C g; .y/.
Case 1b. x 2 N W g; .x/ C
< x < g; .x/ C
2 q. Let X D x 2 N W
g; .x/ C
< x < g; .x/ C
and let x 2 X be given. Let k D g; .x/ and
let D min; 1 ; k C
x. Let Y D y 2 N W f .y/ 2 .; /, let y 2 Y ,
and let l D h .y/.
Now kCi 1 < kC
C < xC < kC
C D kCi so g; .x/ D kCi 1.
Also l l C < y C < l C C l C 1 so g; .y/ D l. Finally, note
that y < l C k C l C
x so that k C l C i 1 < k C l C
C <
.x C y/ C < k C l C
C D k C l C i and thus g; .x C y/ D k C l C i 1.
Case 1c. x 2 N W g; .x/ C
< x < g; .x/ C
C 2 q. Let X D x 2 N W
g; .x/ C
< x < g; .x/ C
C and let x 2 X be given. Let k D g; .x/ and
let D min; 1 ; x k
. Let Y D y 2 N W f .y/ 2 .; /, let y 2 Y ,
and let l D h .y/.
Now k Ci D k C
C < x C < k C
C C < k Ci C1 so g; .x/ D k Ci .
Exactly as in case 1b, g; .y/ D l. Observe that y > l l x C k C
so that
k C l C i D k C l C
C < .x C y/ C < k C l C i C C < k C l C i C 1
and thus g; .x C y/ D k C l C i .
Case 2.
C 0; 1. Pick 2 .0; / such that min; 1 and .
C
;
C C/\0; 1 D ;. Let X D x 2 N W g; .x/C
2 < x < g; .x/C
C 2
and let Y D y 2 N W f .y/ 2 . 2 ; 2 /. Let k D g; .x/ and let l D h .y/. Then
l < l 2 C < y C < l C 2 C < l C 1 so g; .y/ D l.
Case 2a.
C < 0. Then k 1 < k C
C 2 < x C < k C
C C 2 < k
so g; .x/ D k 1. Also k C l 1 < k C l C
C < .x C y/ C <
k C l C
C C < k C l so g; .x C y/ D k C l 1.
32 Neil Hindman and John H. Johnson
e
Theorem 2.29. Let > 0 and let 0 < < 1. Then g; K.N/ K.N/, and
e
consequently g; c`K.N/ c`K.N/.
Proof. Of course the second conclusion follows from the first by continuity. To see
e
that g; K.N/ K.N/, let p 2 K.N/. Pick a minimal left ideal L of N
such that p 2 L and pick an idempotent r 2 L. Then r 2 Z (since f f is a homo-
morphism). Now K.Z / D Z \ K.N/ by [13, Theorem 1.65]. By Lemma 2.14,
e
g; .r/ D h f e
.r/ is an idempotent in K.Z1= / and so g; .r/ 2 K.N/. Now
p 2 L D L C r so there is some q 2 L such that p D q C r. Thus, by Lemma 2.28,
e e e
g; .p/ D g; .q/ C g; .r/ 2 K.N/.
We see now that spectra preserve C -sets. We saw in Theorem 2.9 that they need
not preserve thick, PS , J , or AP -sets. The reason for the distinction seems to be
that C -sets depend on idempotents, which are in particular members of Z . (All of
the properties shown to be preserved in [4] also depended on points which are members
of Z for each > 0.)
Theorem 2.30. Let A be a C -set in N, let > 0, and let 0 < < 1. Then g; A
is a C -set.
In [13, Corollary 16.43] it was shown that if 1, 0 < < 1, P is any of the
properties central, central*, IP , or IP , and A N, then g; A has property P
if and only if A has property P . The arguments given there depended on the specific
property. We see now that in fact, all that is required is the preservation of the property
by all spectra.
There are a few basic constructions which have been used to produce examples of
C -sets which are not central. By Theorem 2.31, if A is such an example, > 1, and
0 < < 1, then g; A is another such example.
Lemma 2.32. Let p 2 N, let 0 < < 1, and let 0 < < 1. There exist l 2 Z,
2 12 ; 34 , and A 2 p such that for all x 2 A, g; l C g1=; .x/ D x.
e
Proof. Let
D f1= .p/, and pick by Lemma 2.17 2 12 ; 34 and > 0 such that
for all 2 .0; , x 2 N W g1=; .x/ C
< 1 x < g1=; .x/ C
C 2 p. Let
D min 1 1
2 ; , let A D x 2 N W g1=; .x/ C
< x < g1=; .x/ C
C ,
and let x 2 A.
Now .
C 1 / .
C / D 1 2 1 2 1
2 D 1; and so pick l 2 Z
1
such that
C l <
C . Then
C l <
C 1.
Let k D g1=; .x/. We show that g; .l C k/ D x.
Now k C
< x < k C
C so x
Cl C < .k Cl/C <
x
C C l C , 0 l
C , and l
C C 1 so
x < .l C k/ C < x C 1 as required.
Theorem 2.33. Let I be a subset of N which is a left ideal of .Z; C/ and assume
e
that whenever 0 < and 0 < < 1, one has g; I I . Let 0 < 1
e e
and let 0 < < 1. Then g; I D I . In particular, g; K.N/ D K.N/,
e e e
g; c`K.N/ D c`K.N/, g; J.N/ D J.N/, and g; AP D AP .
Proof. If D 1, then g; is the identity function, and thus we assume that < 1.
e
We need to show that I g; I . Thus, let p 2 I . By Lemma 2.32 we may pick
l 2 Z, 2 12 ; 34 , and A 2 p such that for all x 2 A, g; l C g1=; .x/ D x. By
A A
assumption g1=; .p/ 2 I and since I is a left ideal of Z, l C g1=; .p/ 2 I . Since
e A e
A
g; l g1=; agrees with the identity on A, we have p D g; l C g1=; .p/
e
and so p 2 g; I .
34 Neil Hindman and John H. Johnson
We saw in Theorem 2.8 that if 1 and 0 < < 1, then g; preserves thick sets.
Proof. The proofs are essentially the same. We will do the proof for J -sets. Let A
e e
be a J -set. Then J.N/ A so J.N/ D g; J.N/ g; A D g; A.
We saw in Theorem 2.9 that if > 1, then the conclusion of Corollary 2.34 fails
badly. We see now that if > 1, then the conclusion of Theorem 2.33 also fails badly.
Theorem 2.35. Let > 1 and let 0 < < 1. There exists x 2 N such that for
every p 2 Z1= , g; N x C p. Consequently, if I is a left ideal of N, then
e
I n g; N ;.
Proof. Assume first that is rational and pick m; n 2 N such that m > n, D m n,
i iC1
and m and n are relatively prime. Pick i 2 0; 1; : : : ; n 1 such that n < n .
Pick t 2 N such that mt i 1 .mod n/. (See for example [10, Theorem 56].)
Pick x 2 N such that mt D x n i 1. Then m m iC1
n t C < n t C n D x. Also,
m m m i m1
n .t C 1/ C n t C n C n D x C n x C 1. Therefore
m m
./ if l 2 N and n l C x; then n l C x C 1:
Now, let p 2 Z1= D Zn=m D mN, and suppose that g; N 2 x C p. Then
.x C g; N/ \ mN 2 p, and so pick k 2 N such that x C mk 2 g; N and pick
Chapter 2 Images of C -Sets and Related Large Sets under Nonhomogeneous Spectra 35
Acknowledgments. The first author acknowledges support received from the Na-
tional Science Foundation via grant DMS-0852512. Some of the results in this paper
are from the second authors Ph.D. thesis.
References
[1] T. Bang, On the sequence n; n D 1; 2; : : : ; Math. Scand. 5 (1957), 6976.
[2] V. Bergelson and N. Hindman, Nonmetrizable topological dynamics and Ramsey Theory,
Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 320 (1990), 293320.
[3] V. Bergelson and N. Hindman, Partition regular structures contained in large sets are
abundant, J. Comb. Theory (Series A), 93 (2001), 1836.
[4] V. Bergelson, N. Hindman, and B. Kra, Iterated spectra of numbers elementary, dynam-
ical and algebraic approaches, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 348 (1996), 893912.
[5] V. Bergelson, N. Hindman, and R. McCutcheon, Notions of size and combinatorial prop-
erties of quotient sets in semigroups, Topology Proc. 23 (1998), 2360.
[6] V. Bergelson, N. Hindman, and D. Strauss, Strongly central sets and sets of polynomial
returns mod 1, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc., to appear.
[7] D. De, N. Hindman, and D. Strauss, A new and stronger Central Sets Theorem, Funda-
menta Mathematicae 199 (2008), 155-175.
36 Neil Hindman and John H. Johnson
Author information
Neil Hindman, Department of Mathematics, Howard University, Washington, DC, USA.
Email: nhindman@aol.com
Chapter 3
Here, pn is used to denote the n-th prime number. The purpose of the present chapter
is to obtain a refinement of (3.1) which shows that the Poisson distribution of the
prime numbers in short intervals extends down to the individual differences between
consecutive prime numbers. To obtain this result, we employ a version of the prime
38 Daniel A. Goldston and Andrew H. Ledoan
Theorem 3.1. Assume Conjecture H. Let d be any positive integer, and let p be a
prime number. Let, further,
8 Y p 1
< 2C2 p2
; if d is even;
S.d / D pjd
p>2
:
0; if d is odd;
Y
where
1
C2 D 1 D 0:66016 : : : ;
.p 1/2
p>2
and define X
N.x; d / D 1;
pnC1 x
pnC1 pn Dd
where pn denotes the n-th prime number. Then for any positive constant and d even
with d log x as x ! 1, we have
x
N.x; d / e S.d / : (3.2)
.log x/2
Here we note that S.d / is the singular series in the conjectured asymptotic formula
for the number of prime pairs differing by d . Our theorem shows that for consecutive
prime numbers the Poisson density is superimposed onto this formula for prime pairs.
Our theorem as well as its proof are implicitly contained in the 1999 paper by
Odlyzko, Rubinstein, and Wolf [11] on jumping champions.1 Without claiming any
originality, we think it is worthwhile to explicitly state and prove (3.2). More precise
results when d= log x ! 0 will be addressed in a second paper.
1 An integer d is called a jumping champion for a given x if d is the most frequently occurring
where
Y k
1 H .p/
S.H / D 1 1 ;
p
p p
H .p/ denotes the number of distinct residue classes modulo p occupied by the ele-
ments of H , and Z x
dt
lik .x/ D k
: (3.4)
2 .log t /
Note in particular that, if H .p/ D p for some prime number p, then S.H / D 0.
However, if H .p/ < p for all prime numbers p, then S.H / 0, in which case the
set H is called admissible. In (3.3), H is assumed to be admissible, since otherwise
.xI H / is equal to 0 or 1.
The prime k-tuple conjecture has been verified only for the prime number theorem.
That is to say, for the case of k D 1. It has been asserted that, in its strongest form,
the conjecture holds true for any fixed integer k with an error term that is Ok .x 1=2C" /
at most and uniformly for H
1; x. (See Montgomery and Soundararajan [9, 10].)
However, we do not need such strong conjectures here. Using
x kx
lik .x/ D CO ; (3.5)
.log x/k .log x/kC1
obtained from integration by parts, we replace lik .x/ by its main term and make the
following conjecture.
and, for k 3,
Dk D 0; d1 ; : : : ; dk2 ; d :
Here, we require d to be even. We want to count the number of consecutive prime
numbers which do not exceed x and have difference d , namely N.x; d /, and for this
we do inclusionexclusion with
X
2 .x; d / D 1;
px
pp 0 Dd
We next obtain an upper bound by including the quadruples eliminated in the previous
step and continue in this fashion to get, for R 1,
Q2RC1 .x; d / N.x; d / Q2R .x; d /; (3.8)
where, for N 2,
X
N X
QN .x; d / D 2 .x; d / C .1/k k .x; d1 ; : : : ; dk2 ; d /:
kD3 1d1 <<dk2 <d
We use the convention here that an empty sum has the value zero.
Chapter 3 On the Differences Between Consecutive Prime Numbers, I 41
X
Ak .d / D S.Dk /: (3.9)
1d1 <:::<dk2 <d
d k2
Ak .d / D S.d / C Ek .d /; (3.10)
.k 2/
where
!
d k2
Ek .d / D Ok : (3.11)
log log d
(See also Goldston and Ledoan [7].) Thus, on substituting (3.6), (3.7), (3.9), and (3.10),
we find that, for N 2,
X
N
QN .x; d / D S.d /li2 .x/ C .1/k Ak .d /lik .x/ C R2 .x; d /
kD3
X
N X
C .1/k Rk .x; Dk /
kD3 1d1 <<dk2 <d
" 2 #
ZX 1 d k
x N
dt
Z xX
N
dt
D S.d / 2
C .1/k Ek .d /
2 k log t .log t / 2 .log t /k
kD0 kD3
X
N X
C R2 .x; d / C .1/k Rk .x; Dk /;
kD3 1d1 <<dk2 <d
X
M
1 e
e x D .x/k C .x/M C1 ;
k .M C 1/
kD0
42 Daniel A. Goldston and Andrew H. Ledoan
X
N X
C .1/k Rk .x; Dk /
kD3 1d1 <<dk2 <d
N 1 !
1 3d x
CO p ;
N N log x .log x/2
where Z
x
d dt
I.x; d / D exp :
2 log t .log t /2
the lemma and since S.d / 1 for d even, we have, for x ! 1 and d log x,
2 x x
QN .x; d / D S.d /I.x; d / C oN e C o S.d /
.log x/2 .log x/2
XN X
x
C ok S.Dk /
.log x/k
kD3 1d1 <<dk2 <d
N 1 !
1 3 x
CO p
N N .log x/2
N !
x 4 x
D S.d /I.x; d / C oN e 2 S.d / CO :
.log x/2 N .log x/2
Finally, on letting N tend to infinity sufficiently slowly, the theorem follows from the
estimate
x
I.x; d / e
.log x/2
and (3.8).
To prove this last estimate, we let dN D d= log x and apply (3.5) to obtain the upper
bound
Z x
N dt dN x x
I.x; d / e d 2
D e C O ;
2 .log t / .log x/2 .log x/3
and the lower bound
Z x
d dt
I.x; d / exp 2
log x log log x x= log x .log t /
h
log log x i h
x i
exp dN 1 C O li2 .x/ li2
log x log x
" !#
N x N
d log log x
e d 1CO :
.log x/2 log x
Hence, we have
" !#
dN x dN log log x
I.x; d / D e 1CO ;
.log x/2 log x
Acknowledgments. During the preparation of this work, the first author received sup-
port from the National Science Foundation Grant DMS-1104434. The authors would
like to express their sincere gratitude to the referee for his comments on the earlier
version of this paper.
44 Daniel A. Goldston and Andrew H. Ledoan
References
[1] R. P. Brent, The distribution of small gaps between successive primes, Math. Comp. 28
(1974), 315324.
[2] R. P. Brent, Irregularities in the distribution of primes and twin primes, in: Collection of
articles dedicated to Derrick Henry Lehmer on the occasion of his seventieth birthday,
Math. Comp. 29 (1975), 4356.
[3] R. P. Brent, Correction to: Irregularities in the distribution of primes and twin primes
(Math. Comp. 29 (1975), 4356), Math. Comput. 30(133) (1976), 198.
[4] P. Erdos and E. G. Straus, Remarks on the differences between consecutive primes, Elem.
Math. 35(5) (1980), 115118.
[5] P. X. Gallagher, On the distribution of primes in short intervals, Mathematika 23 (1976),
49.
[6] P. X. Gallagher, Corrigendum: On the distribution of primes in short intervals (Mathe-
matika 23 (1976), 49), Mathematika 28(1) (1981), 86.
[7] D. A. Goldston and A. H. Ledoan, The jumping champion conjecture, submitted for pub-
lication (2012), available at: http ://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.4879v1.
[8] G. H. Hardy and J. E. Littlewood, Some problems of Partitio numerorum; III: On the
expression of a number as a sum of primes, Acta Math. 44(1) (1922), 170. Reprinted as
pp. 561630 in :Collected Papers of G. H. Hardy, vol. I (including joint papers with J. E.
Littlewood and others; edited by a committee appointed by the London Mathematical
Society), Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1966.
[9] H. L. Montgomery and K. Soundararajan, Beyond pair correlation, in: Erdos and his
mathematics, I, pp. 507514, Budapest, 1999; Bolyai Soc. Math. Stud. 11, Jnos Bolyai
Math. Soc., Budapest, 2002.
[10] H. L. Montgomery and K. Soundararajan, Primes in short intervals, Comm. Math. Phys.
252(13) (2004), 589617.
[11] A. Odlyzko, M. Rubinstein, and M. Wolf, Jumping champions, Experiment. Math. 8(2)
(1999), 107118.
Author information
Daniel A. Goldston, Department of Mathematics, San Jos State University, San Jos, Cali-
fornia, USA.
Email: daniel.goldston@sjsu.edu
Chapter 4
Abstract. We consider sets of positive integers containing no sum of two elements in the set
and also no product of two elements. We show that the upper density of such a set is strictly
smaller than 12 and that this is best possible. Further, we also find the maximal order for the
density of such sets which are also periodic modulo some positive integer.
Keywords. Sum-Free Set, Product-Free Set, Upper Density.
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010. 11B05, 11B75.
4.1 Introduction
If A, B are sets of integers, we let A C B denote the set of sums a C b with a 2 A,
b 2 B, and we let A B denote the set of products ab with a 2 A, b 2 B. The sum-
product problem in combinatorial number theory is to show that if A is a finite set of
positive integers, then either A C A or A A is a much larger set than A. Specifically,
Erdos and Szemerdi [2] conjecture that if > 0 is arbitrary and A is a set of N
positive integers, then for N sufficiently large depending on the choice of , we have
jA C Aj C jA Aj N 2 :
is at most 12 . Density 12 can be achieved by taking A as the set of odd natural numbers.
Similarly, if A is a set of residues modulo n and is sum-free, then D.A/ WD jAj=n is
at most 12 , and this can be achieved when n is even and A consists of the odd residues.
The maximal density for D.A/ for A a sum-free set in Z=nZ was considered in [1].
In particular, the maximum for D.A/ is 13 3n 1
if n is divisible solely by primes that
1 1
are 1 modulo 3, it is 3 C 3p if n is divisible by some prime that is 2 modulo 3 and p
is the least such, and it is 13 otherwise. Consequently, we have D.A/ 25 if A is a
sum-free set in Z=nZ and n is odd. It is worth noting that maximal densities of subsets
of arbitrary finite Abelian groups are determined in [3]. For generalizations to subsets
of finite non-Abelian groups, see [4].
The problem of the maximum density of product-free sets of positive integers, or of
subsets of Z=nZ, only recently received attention. For subsets of the positive integers,
it was shown in [5] that the upper density of a product-free set must be strictly less
than 1; in fact, it cannot exceed 1 2a1 0 , where a0 is the least member of the set. Let
D.n/ denote the maximum value of D.A/ as A runs over product-free sets in Z=nZ.
In [7] it was shown that D.n/ < 12 for the vast majority of integers, namely for every
integer not divisible by the square of a product of six distinct primes. Moreover, the
density of integers which are divisible by the square of a product of six distinct primes
was shown to be smaller than 1:56 108 .
Somewhat surprisingly, D.n/ can in fact be arbitrarily close to 1 (see [5]), and thus
there are integers n and sets of residues modulo n consisting of 99% of all residues,
with the set of pairwise products lying in the remaining 1% of the residues. However, it
is not easy to find a numerical example that beats 50%. In [5], an example of a number
n with about 1:61 108 decimal digits was given with D.n/ > 12 ; it is not known if
there are any substantially smaller examples, say, with fewer than 108 decimal digits.
In [6] the maximal order of D.n/ was essentially found: there are positive constants
c; C such that for all sufficiently large n, we have
c
D.n/ 1 1 2e log 2
;
.log log n/ .log log log n/1=2
and there are infinitely many n with
C
D.n/ 1 1 2e log 2
:
.log log n/ .log log log n/1=2
In this chapter we consider two related questions. First, if A is a set of integers
which is both sum-free and product-free, how large may the upper asymptotic density
Chapter 4 On Sets of Integers Which Are Both Sum-Free and Product-Free 47
2
d .A/ be? Here a sum-free and product-free set with natural density 5 is achievable
by taking
A D n W n 2; 3 .mod 5/:
1
Our first result shows that for a set A to achieve upper asymptotic density close to 2
it must omit all small integers.
Theorem 4.1. Let A be a set of positive integers that is both product-free and sum-
free, and let a0 be the smallest element of A. If d .A/ > 25 ; then necessarily
1 1
d .A/ 1 :
2 2a0
Second, set
D .n/ WD maxD.A/ W A is a sum-free, product-free subset of Z=nZ:
What is the maximal order of D .n/? We prove the following complementary results,
showing that density 12 can be approached, and quantifying the rate of approach.
Theorem 4.2. There is a positive constant such that for all sufficiently large num-
bers n,
1
D .n/ e :
2 .log log n/ 2 2 .log log log n/1=2
1 log
Theorem 4.3. There is a positive constant and infinitely many integers n with
1
D .n/ e :
2 .log log n/1 2 log 2 .log log log n/1=2
Note that D .5/ D 25 and, if 5jn, then D .n/ 25 . A possibly interesting com-
putational problem is to numerically exhibit some n with D .n/ > 25 . Theorem 4.3
assures us that such numbers exist, but the least example might be very large.
One might also ask for the densest possible set A for which A, A C A, and A A
are pairwise disjoint. However, Proposition 4.9 below implies immediately that any
sum-free, product-free set A
Z=nZ with D.A/ > 25 also has A C A and A A
disjoint. Thus, from Theorem 4.3, we may have these three sets pairwise disjoint with
D.A/ arbitrarily close to 12 .
Lemma 4.4. Suppose that A is a sum-free set of positive integers and that a1 ; a2 2
A. Then for all x > 0,
1
j.a1 C A.x a1 // \ .a2 C A.x a2 //j .1 3x / .a1 C a2 /:
2
Proof. We have the sets A.x/; a1 C A.x a1 /; a2 C A.x a2 / all lying in 1; x and
the latter two sets are disjoint from the first set (since A is sum-free). Thus,
j.a1 C A.x a1 // \ .a2 C A.x a2 //j
D ja1 C A.x a1 /j C ja2 C A.x a2 /j
j.a1 C A.x a1 // [ .a2 C A.x a2 //j
ja1 C A.x a1 /j C ja2 C A.x a2 /j .x jA.x/j/
.jA.x/j a1 / C .jA.x/j a2 / C .jA.x/j x/
D 3jA.x/j x .a1 C a2 /:
A WD a1 a2 W a1 ; a2 2 A:
Ag WD A \ .g C A/ D a 2 A W a C g 2 A:
Corollary 4.5. If A is a sum-free set of positive integers and g 2 A then, for any
x > 0,
1
jAg .x/j .1 3x / x C O.1/;
2
in which the implied constant depends on both g and A.
Proposition 4.6. If A is a sum-free set of positive integers with upper density greater
than 25 , then A is the set of all even integers and A consists solely of odd numbers.
1
.1 3x /x C O.1/ jA.x/j D .1 x /x;
2
so that x 15 CO. x1 /. Hence lim inf x 15 , contradicting the assumption that A has
upper density greater than 25 . Thus, g1 C Ag1 and Ag2 are not disjoint, which as we
have seen, implies that g1 C g2 2 A. Thus, A is a subgroup of Z, say A D gZ
for some positive integer g.
Since each a1 a2 0 .mod g/ for all a1 ; a2 2 A, all members of A are in one
residue class modulo g. Since A has upper density greater than 25 , it follows that g D 1
or 2. But A must be disjoint from A. Indeed, if a1 a2 D a3 with a1 ; a2 ; a3 2 A,
then a1 D a2 C a3 , violating the condition that A is sum-free. Thus, if g D 1, A D ;,
and if g D 2, A consists solely of odd numbers. The first case violates our hypothesis,
so our proof is complete.
Remark 4.7. Proposition 4.6 is best possible, as can be seen by taking A as the set of
positive integers that are either 2 or 3 modulo 5.
We now prove the following result, which immediately implies Theorem 4.1.
Proposition 4.8. Suppose that A is a sum-free set of positive integers with least mem-
ber a0 . Suppose in addition that a0 A is disjoint from A. Then the upper density of A
is at most max 25 ; 12 .1 2a1 0 /.
Proof. If the upper density of A is at most 25 , the result holds trivially, so we may
assume the upper density exceeds 25 . It follows from Proposition 4.6 that A consists
solely of odd numbers. Thus, for any real number x a0 , both a0 A.x=a0 / and A.x/
consist solely of odd numbers, they are disjoint, and they lie in 1; x. Thus,
x
x 1
jA.x/j C A D jA.x/j C a A x C O.1/:
a0 a0 2
0
Further A.x/ n A.x=a0 / is contained within the odd numbers in .x=a0 ; x, so that
x 1 x
jA.x/j A x C O.1/:
a0 2 a0
50 Pr Kurlberg, Jeffrey C. Lagarias, and Carl Pomerance
Proof. Replace A with A, N the set of positive numbers in the residue classes in A. Then
N
A has density D.A/ and is sum-free. It follows from Proposition 4.6 that all members
of AN are odd. If n were odd, then AN would contain both odd and even members, so we
must have n even and A a subset of the odd residue classes in Z=nZ. This completes
the proof.
We are now ready to prove Theorem 4.2. For those n with D .n/ 25 , the result
holds for any number , so assume that D .n/ > 25 . Let A
Z=nZ be a product-
free, sum-free set with D.A/ D D .n/. By Proposition 4.9 we have that n is even
and that A is a subset of the odd residues modulo n. Suppose that k is an integer with
n 2k < 2n. Let N D 22k n and let B be the set of positive integers of the form
2j b where j k and b N=2j D 22kj n, such there is some a 2 A with b a
.mod n/. Then the members of B are in 1; N and
X
k
2kj k kC1 1 2kC1
jBj D 2 jAj D 2 .2 1/jAj > 1 2 jAj: (4.1)
n
j D0
Further, since N is of order of magnitude n3 , we have that log log N D log log n C
O.1/, and so for any fixed choice of c0 < c we have for n sufficiently large that
c0
jBj N 1 e :
.log log n/1 2 log 2 .log log log n/1=2
Thus, from our lower bound for jBj in (4.1) we have
N 1 1 c0
jAj < 2kC1 1 1 e :
2 n .log log n/1 2 log 2 .log log log n/1=2
Since N=22kC1 D n=2, it follows that for any fixed c1 < c0 and n sufficiently large,
we have
n c1
jAj < 1 e :
2 .log log n/1 2 log 2 .log log log n/1=2
We thus may choose as any number smaller than c=2. This concludes the proof of
Theorem 4.2.
and let A be the set of residues a modulo nx with gcd.a; nx / 2 Dx0 . Then A is product-
free (cf. Lemma 2.3 in [5]), and since nx is even and every residue in A is odd, we have
that A is sum-free as well. We shall now establish a sufficiently large lower bound on
D.A/ to show that D .nx / satisfies the inequality in the theorem with n D nx .
For d 2 Dx0 , the number of a .mod nx / with gcd.a; nx / D d is '.nx /=d , so that
!
'.nx / X 1 '.nx / X 1 X 1
D.A/ D D : (4.2)
nx 0
d nx d d
d 2Dx d j`x d j`x
d odd d odd
d 62Dx0
We have
X 1 Y p Y 1
Y p
1 .x/
D 1 aC1 1 ;
d p1 p p1 x
d j`x 2<px 2<px 2<px
d odd p a k`x
52 Pr Kurlberg, Jeffrey C. Lagarias, and Carl Pomerance
Q
and, since '.nx /=nx D 21 pjnx ; p>2 .1 1=p/, we find that
'.nx / X 1 1 1 .x/ 1 .x/
1 : (4.3)
nx d 2 x 2 x
d j`x
d odd
Here P .d / denotes the largest prime factor of d . Since this sum includes every odd
integer d j`x with d 62 Dx0 , we have
'.nx / X 1
e
'.nx / .log x/ 2 log 2 1
1=2
e ;
nx
d j`
d nx .log log x/ .log x/ 2 2 .log log x/1=2
1 log
x
d odd
d 62Dx0
Q
where we use Mertens theorem in the form '.nx /=nx D px .11=p/
1= log x
for the last step. Putting this estimate and Inequality (4.3) into Equation (4.2), we get
1 .x/ c0
D.A/ e
2 x .log x/1 2 log 2 .log log x/1=2
for some positive constant c 0 . Using .x/=x
1= log x and log x D log log nx C
O.1/, we have
1
D.A/ e
2 .log log nx /1 2 log 2 .log log log nx /1=2
for any fixed constant > c 0 and x sufficiently large. Thus, D .nx / satisfies the
condition of Theorem 4.3 for x sufficiently large, completing the proof.
Acknowledgments. We thank Albert Bush, Chris Pryby, and Joseph Vandehey for
raising the question of sets which are both sum-free and product-free. We also thank
Imre Ruzsa for several nice suggestions that simplified our arguments. P. K. was sup-
ported in part by grants from the Gran Gustafsson Foundation, and the Swedish Re-
search Council. J. C. L. was supported in part by NSF grant DMS-1101373. C. P. was
supported in part by NSF grant DMS-1001180.
Chapter 4 On Sets of Integers Which Are Both Sum-Free and Product-Free 53
References
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Japan Acad. 45(1) (1969), 15.
[2] P. Erdos and E. Szemerdi, On sums and products of integers: To the memory of Paul
Turn, in: P. Erdos (ed.), Studies in pure mathematics, pp. 213218, Birkhuser, Basel,
1983.
[3] B. Green and I. Z. Ruzsa, Sum-free sets in abelian groups, Israel J. Math. 147 (2005),
157188.
[4] K. S. Kedlaya, Product-free subsets of groups, then and now, in: R. Y. Chow and D. C.
Isaksen (eds.), Communicating Mathematics, pp. 179187, Contemp. Math. 479, Amer.
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Arith. 155 (2012), 163173.
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Author information
Pr Kurlberg, Department of Mathematics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm,
Sweden.
Email: kurlberg@math.kth.se
Chapter 5
Abstract. This paper is an expanded version of the authors lecture at the Integers Conference
2011. We discuss the secondary terms in the DavenportHeilbronn theorems on cubic fields
and 3-torsion in class groups of quadratic fields. Such secondary terms had been conjectured by
DatskovskyWright and Roberts, and proofs of these or closely related secondary terms were
obtained independently by Bhargava, Shankar, and Tsimerman, Hough, Zhao, and Taniguchi
and the author.
In this chapter we discuss the history of the problem and highlight the diverse methods used
in several papers to address it.
Keywords. Quadratic Field, Cubic Field, Class Group.
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010. 11R16, 11R29.
5.1 Introduction
This chapter concerns the following two theorems:
Theorem 5.1. Let N3 .X / count the number of cubic fields K with 0 < Disc.K/ <
X . We have
1 4.1=3/
N3 .X / D C X C K X 5=6 C o.X 5=6 /; (5.1)
12.3/ 5.2=3/3 .5=3/
p
where C D 3, C C D 1, K D 3, and K C D 1.
and where the sum ranges over fundamental discriminants D, the product is over all
primes, and the constants are as before.
The main terms are due to Davenport and Heilbronn [15], and the secondary term
in Theorem 5.1 was conjectured by Roberts [32] and implicitly by Datskovsky and
Wright [14].
The secondary terms were expected to be difficult to prove. However, progress has
recently been made in four independent works, using a variety of methods. Both results
above have been proved by Bhargava, Shankar, and Tsimerman [7], using the geom-
etry of numbers, and by Taniguchi and the present author [37], using Shintani zeta
functions. Hough [24] has proved a variation of Theorem 5.2 by studying the distribu-
tion of Heegner points in the complex upper half-plane, and Zhao [45] has obtained a
variation of Theorem 5.1 for function fields, using algebraic geometry.1
The authors lecture at the 2011 Integers Conference explained (briefly) how each
of these four approaches sheds light on these secondary terms, and this chapter is an
expanded version of our lecture. We begin with some background on counting fields
and on counting cubic fields in particular. The reader might skip to Section 5.4 for our
discussion of the secondary terms.
Theorem 5.3 (Hermite). There are only finitely many number fields of bounded dis-
criminant.
p n
Moreover, by Stirlings formula n 2 n ne and therefore
n n
jDisc.K/j e 2 C o.1/ D 5:803 C o.1/ : (5.4)
4
2
The constant e 4 can be improved; see Odlyzko [29]. Conversely, this bound is sharp
apart from the constant; Golod and Shafarevich [21] proved the existence of an infinite
class field tower of fields K for which jDisc.K/j1=n is constant.2
To prove these theorems3 , use the r embeddings K ,! R and the s pairs of em-
beddings K ,! C to embed the ring of integers of K as a lattice in n-dimensional
space. As proved by Minkowski, any convex body centered around the origin whose
volume is greater than 2rCs jDisc.K/j1=2 must contain a lattice point other than zero.
However, this point must have norm at least 1, and geometric considerations allow
one to conclude Minkowskis lower bound.
Hermites theorem can be proved in a similar way. We again use Minkowskis con-
vex body theorem to find an element 2 OK , the sizes of whose complex embeddings
Qwhich is guaranteed to generate K over Q. The minimal polynomial
are all small, and
of is equal to .X .//, where ranges over all real and complex embeddings
of K, and the bounds obtained from Minkowskis theorem yield bounds on the coeffi-
cients of the minimal polynomial of . For a fixed discriminant bound, there are only
finitely many such polynomials and thus only finitely many possibilities for K.
Remark 5.5. Although this proof of Hermites theorem relies on Minkowskis work,
Hermites paper [23] preceded Minkowskis by over thirty years. Hermite claimed
in [23] that there are finitely many fields of bounded discriminant with fixed degree;
the stronger claim of Theorem 5.3 seems to depend also on Minkowskis work.
These proofs yield results about fields of each fixed degree, and so far this has been
a natural way to count them. In what follows, let Nn .X / be the number of fields K of
degree n with jDisc.K/j < X . (Results are also known when the sign of the discrim-
inant, or more generally the number of real embeddings, is specified.)
We have the following results (excluding n D 3):
n = 1. There is only Q.
n = 2. We have the equality of Dirichlet series
X
.s/
jDisc.K/js D 1 C 1 2s C 2 4s ; (5.5)
.2s/
KWQ
D2
and it follows that
6 p
N2 .X / D 2
X C O. X/: (5.6)
p
1 ; 46/, which he proved to have an infinite
2 Martinet [27] gave the example of F D Q.11 C 11
2-class field tower, for which jDisc.K/j1=n D 92:2 : : : for each field K. We refer to Lemmermeyer [25]
for a discussion of related issues, along with a very thorough bibliography.
3 See [28, Chap. III.2] for complete proofs.
58 Frank Thorne
The typical proof of (5.6) estimates, for each squarefree odd q, the number of inte-
gers n divisible by q 2 satisfying the 2-adic conditions implied by Equation (5.6), and
then uses inclusionexclusion to sieve for squarefreeness. The details are commonly
left as an exercise for beginning analytic number theory students. However, it was
not until the recent work of Belabas, Bhargava, and Pomerance [2] that the analogous
method was developed to yield power-saving error terms for N3 .X /.
How does one estimate the number of integers n with 0 < n < X and q 2 jn?
(For simplicity of explanation, we ignore the 2-adic conditions.) This is a lattice-point
counting problem in a one-dimensional vector space, so the answer is q12 times the
length of the interval .0; X / plus an error of O.1/. This is trivial, but its generaliza-
tion to the cubic case, where one counts GL2 .Z/-orbits on a four-dimensional lattice,
satisfying local conditions .mod q 2 / and a global condition 0 < Disc.f / < X , is
not. (The higher dimensional analogues are even less so!)
These integers may also be counted using analytic number theory. By Perrons for-
mula, we have Z 2Ci1
X ds
1D q 2s .s/X s ; (5.7)
2i1 s
0<n<X
q 2 jn
and these sums may be estimated by shifting the contour and using the functional
equation of the zeta function. This functional equation relies on Poisson summation,
and so again relies on the questions interpretation as a lattice point counting problem.
Even the most diehard fan of contour integration would likely prefer the trivial
proof, but this analytic method also generalizes usefully to the cubic case, where the
Riemann zeta function is replaced with a Shintani zeta function.
These two counting techniques, in combination with the inclusionexclusion sieve,
are the starting points of the geometric and analytic proofs of Theorems 5.1 and 5.2,
respectively!
We note one additional point related to Equation (5.5). Wright [42] observed that
this Dirichlet series has the beautiful representation
X Y 1 X
jDisc.K/js D jDisc.Kv /jps ; (5.8)
p
2
KWQ
D2 Kv WQp
2
and proved this in a much more general framework. (He obtained similar formulas for
degree n cyclic extensions of any number field.) His results follow from considering
a nontrivial twist of the adelic zeta function of Tates thesis [39]. This twist makes
the affine line into a prehomogeneous vector space, with the action of GL.1/ given
by .t /x D t n x.
Essentially, a vector space is prehomogeneous if it has an action of an algebraic
group G, which is transitive over C apart from the vanishing locus of an irreducible
polynomial. This prehomogeneous property is essential both in Bhargavas work
and in the zeta-function approach pioneered by Sato and Shintani [34]; cubic, quartic,
Chapter 5 Secondary Terms in the Davenport-Heilbronn Theorems 59
and quintic fields are parameterized by lattice points4 up to the action of G.Z/, and
these may be counted geometrically or analytically.
Wrights work on (5.8) and its generalizations mirrors his work with Datskovsky
[13,14,41] on the Shintani zeta function associated to cubic fields, and this latter work
is at the heart of the analytic approach to counting cubic fields. In follow-up work,
Wright and Yukie [43] proposed a program to enumerate quartic and quintic fields by
studying the zeta functions associated to appropriate prehomogeneous vector spaces.
So far their program has not succeeded. However:
n = 4, 5. Bhargava [3, 6] proved the asymptotic formulas
5 Y
N4 .X; S4 / 1 C p 2 p 3 p 4 X; (5.9)
24 p
13 Y
N5 .X / 1 C p 2 p 4 p 5 X: (5.10)
120 p
The count N4 .X; S4 / includes only quartic fields with Galois group S4 , and (5.9) im-
plies an asymptotic for N4 .X / in combination with work of Baily [1], Cohen, Diaz y
Diaz, and Olivier [9], and Wong [40]. Bhargavas geometric approach may be consid-
ered an extension of the methods described in Sections 5.3 and 5.6.
n > 5. For n > 5, Bhargava conjectured [4] that Nn .X; Sn / Cn X . The explicit
constants Cn have natural interpretations as Euler products; each Euler factor repre-
sents the probability that a field K of degree n has a certain localization. Ellenberg
and Venkatesh
p
[19] have proved the best upper bound to date, namely Nn .X /
X exp.C log n/ .
It is unclear whether prehomogeneous vector spaces may be used to obtain formu-
las for Nn .X / for n > 5. By a classification theorem of Sato and Kimura [33], it is
known that there are no reduced, irreducible, and reductive prehomogeneous vector
spaces parameterizing rings of rank > 5; it remains to be seen whether there are any
prehomogeneous vector spaces not satisfying these assumptions which parameterize
such rings.
There is a natural action of GL2 .Z/ (and also of SL2 .Z/) on VZ , given by
1
. f /.u; v/ D f ..u; v/ /: (5.13)
det
Proposition 5.7 ([7, 15]). Under the DeloneFaddeev correspondence, a cubic ring
R is maximal if any only if its corresponding cubic form f belongs to the set Up
VZ
for all p, defined by the following equivalent conditions:
the ring R is not contained in any other cubic ring with index divisible by p;
the cubic form f is not a multiple of p, and there is no GL2 .Z/-transformation of
f .u; v/ D au3 C bu2 v C cuv 2 C dv 3 such that a is a multiple of p 2 and b is a
multiple of p.
where N .q; X / counts the number of cubic orders of discriminant 0 < D < X
which are nonmaximal at every prime dividing q. This simple observation has proved
to be quite useful! For large q, BBP prove that N .q; X /
X 3!.q/ =q 2 using rea-
sonably elementary methods. Therefore, one has
X
N3 .X / D
.q/N .q; X / C O.X=Q1 /: (5.15)
qQ
For small q, BBP estimate N .q; X / with explicit error terms using geometric
methods. These error terms are good enough to allow them to take the sum in Equation
(5.14) up to Q D .X log X /1=8 , which yields a final error term of O.X 7=8C /.
In addition, their methods extend to counting S4 -quartic fields, where they obtain
a main term of C4 X with error
X 23=24C .
5 The Shintani zeta functions are commonly defined in terms of SL .Z/ rather than GL .Z/, multi-
2 2
plying (5.16) by a factor of 2.
64 Frank Thorne
In the former sum, VZ is the lattice defined in Equation (5.11), the sum is over elements
of positive or negative discriminant respectively, and Stab.x/ is the stabilizer of x in
GL2 .Z/. The latter sum is over isomorphism classes of cubic rings. The equality of
these two series follows from the DeloneFaddeev correspondence (Theorem 5.6).
This is an example of a zeta function associated to a prehomogeneous vector space.
The definition of prehomogeneous concerns the GL2 .C/ action on VC , but here the
important (related) fact is that GL2 .R/ acts transitively on the positive- and negative-
discriminant loci VR . Sato and Shintani [34] developed a general theory of zeta func-
tions associated to prehomogeneous vector spaces, and for the space of binary cubic
forms Shintani proved [35] that these zeta functions enjoy analytic continuation and an
explicit functional equation. These zeta functions have poles at s D 1, as is common
for zeta functions, and at s D 5=6, which is much more unusual.
Shintanis work opens the door to the study of cubic fields using analytic number
theory. In particular, by Perrons formula and standard techniques we have
X Z 2Ci1
1 Xs
D
.s/ ds (5.17)
jStab.x/j 2i1 s
x2GL2 .Z/nVZ
Disc.x/<X 6
D RessD1
.s/X C RessD5=6
.s/X 5=6 C O.X 3=5C /:
5
Although the left side is not the counting function of cubic fields, for the first time we
see the X 5=6 secondary term. This, therefore, gives an explanation for the secondary
terms in Theorems 5.1 and 5.2, because the Shintani zeta functions have secondary
poles.6
To count cubic fields, the most important step is sieving for maximality. This is
possible by work of Datskovsky and Wright [13,14,41], who gave Shintanis work an
adelic formulation along the lines of Tates thesis [39]. This allowed them to incorpo-
rate a variety of conditions into the definition of the Shintani zeta functions, including
the DavenportHeilbronn maximality conditions (given in Proposition 5.7).
A bogus proof of Roberts conjecture is as follows. For a set of primes P , define
the P -maximal Shintani zeta function by the Dirichlet series (5.16), with the added
condition that the only cubic forms counted are those in the set Up for each p 2 P .
Therefore, letting P be the set of primes < X , it follows that
X0 Z 2Ci1
1 Xs
D
P .s/ ds (5.18)
jAut.R/j 2i1 s
Disc.x/<R
6
D RessD1
P .s/X C RessD5=6
P .s/X 5=6 C O.X 3=5C /;
5
where the sum is over all maximal cubic rings, corresponding to fields of degree 3,
with Disc.R/ < X . The quadratic fields (and Q) can easily be counted and sub-
tracted, but the error term in (5.18) depends on the particular zeta function
P , and
6 Of
course this begs the question of why the Shintani zeta functions have poles at s D 5=6. This can
of course be explained by the various calculations in Shintanis work, but for now a satisfying highbrow
argument is unknown to the author.
Chapter 5 Secondary Terms in the Davenport-Heilbronn Theorems 65
therefore the implied constant depends on X (indeed, when standard techniques are
used, exponentially so!).
However, this flawed argument enabled Datskovsky and Wright [14] to give a rigor-
ous analytic proof of the DavenportHeilbronn theorem. The key step7 is to use (5.18),
but with P equal to the set of all primes < Y , where Y tends to infinity very slowly
with X . Given their adelic framework, their work yielded an asymptotic formula for
the number of cubic extensions of any global field of characteristic not 2 or 3.
Moreover, Roberts [32] computed the limit of the secondary terms in (5.18) and
found an excellent match with numerical data. This led him to conjecture that (5.18)
(equivalently, (5.1)) was correct with some undetermined error term smaller than
X 5=6 .
He closed his paper with the following (paraphrased very slightly):
The pessimistic discussion in [14] suggests to us that the way may be difficult. However, one
ingredient of a proof might be the functional equation of
P .s/ with respect to s ! 1 s,
studied in [13, 41]. Another ingredient might be [34, Theorem 3], which concerns growth
of arithmetic functions whose associated Dirichlet series satisfy such a functional equation.
This is actually a good summary of our proofs of Theorems 5.1 and 5.2! To get the
ball rolling, we needed to incorporate the sieve used by Belabas, Bhargava, and Pomer-
ance described in Section 5.3. In place of the P -maximal zeta function we introduced
the q-nonmaximal zeta function, which counts only cubic rings not maximal at each
prime dividing q. This allowed us to count maximal cubic rings, and the irreducible
such rings correspond to cubic fields.
Remark 5.8. As described at the end of Section 5.2, we count 3-torsion elements of
class groups by a variation of this argument. Such elements correspond to cubic fields
not totally ramified at any prime, and so we expand the definition of the q-nonmaximal
zeta function to count cubic rings either nonmaximal or totally ramified at every prime
dividing q.
Equation (5.18) holds for each q-nonmaximal zeta function, and the q-dependence
of the error term can be bounded in terms of the exponential sum
X X 1 X
bq .x/j WD
j q .y/ exp.2 i x; y=q /; (5.19)
2
q8
x2VZ=q 2 Z x2VZ=q 2 Z y2VZ=q 2 Z
by q 8 ; this is enough to allow us to take Q D X 1=25 in (5.15) and obtain an error term
of X 24=25C in the Davenport-Heilbronn theorems. We could improve this using the
CauchySchwarz inequality, but not below X 5=6 .
In [37] we incorporated several improvements to lower the error terms in Theo-
rems 5.1 and 5.2 to O.X 7=9C / and O.X 18=23C /, respectively. Among these is a
careful analysis of the sum in Equation (5.19), carried out in [38]. For each x we ob-
tained exact formulas for the inner sum in Equation (5.19), proving that the outer sum
is
q 1C .
Discriminant modulo 5 0 1 2 3 4
Actual count 21277 22887 22751 22748 22781
Theoretical result 21307 22757 22757 22757 22757
Difference 30 130 6 9 24
Discriminant modulo 7 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Actual count 15330 17229 14327 15323 17027 18058 15150
Theoretical result 15316 17209 14277 15316 17024 18063 15131
Difference 14 20 50 7 3 5 19
The data modulo 5 is essentially equidistributed, apart from the a D 0 column. (The
relative deficit of cubic fields divisible by 5, or by any other modulus, can be explained
by a careful reading of Davenport and Heilbronns original paper.) However, the data
modulo 7 shows a striking lack of equidistribution.8
The theoretical results above come from a generalization of Theorem 5.1 to arith-
metic progressions; the secondary term now involves a sum of residues of twisted
Shintani zeta functions. These residues are evaluated in [38], and for characters for
8 The counting functions for cubic field discriminants 0 .mod 7/ and 3 .mod 7/ are not the same.
The main term for 0 .mod 7/ is smaller than that for 3 .mod 7/, the secondary term is larger, and the
equality in the second row of the table is a coincidence of roundoff error.
Chapter 5 Secondary Terms in the Davenport-Heilbronn Theorems 67
The authors describe this step as thickening the cusp. As jDisc.v/j1 dv is GL2 .R/-
invariant, we may rewrite this as
Z
1
N.V I X / D #x 2 Virr \ gB W jDisc.x/j < X dg; (5.22)
M g2F
n R
where M WD 2 1
v2B\V jDisc.v/j dv: This is rewritten as
Z
1
N.V ; X / D #x 2 Virr \ B.n; t; ; X /t 2 d nd t d (5.23)
M 0
g2N .a/A 0
Remark 5.9. As Shankar has explained to the author, a more geometric argument
can also be given which does not rely on the analytic continuation of the Riemann zeta
function. However, it is unclear whether the resulting error term would be smaller than
X 5=6 when combined with the sieve.
We introduce some notation. Let N .VZ I X / count all cubic forms v with 0 <
Disc.v/ < X . For a prime p, let N .Upc I X / count those cubic forms which are
nonmaximal at p, i.e., which do not lie in the set Up defined in Proposition 5.7. (In
referring to cubic forms as nonmaximal we are implicitly appealing to the Delone
Faddeev correspondence.) Finally, for any 2 P 1 .Z=pZ/, let N .Vp; I X / count
those cubic forms v such that the reduction of v modulo p has as a root.
With this notation, we have the following correspondence:
10 It seems that the restrictions that D 2 .mod 4/ and D < 0 could both be lifted with some
p
effort. The restriction on the sign is the more serious of the two, as elements of class groups of Q. D/
for positive D correspond to closed geodesics rather than Heegner points. However, Dukes result holds
for either sign, so in [24] Hough expresses optimism that the positive discriminant case of Theorem 5.2
could be handled as well.
Chapter 5 Secondary Terms in the Davenport-Heilbronn Theorems 71
and for compactly supported, infinitely differentiable test functions , he proves that
X 4 b
#Cl3 .D/.D=X / D .1/X C O.X 7=8C /: (5.33)
2
0<D
D2 .mod 4/
The correct secondary term of order X 5=6 appears in both formulas, in spite of the
larger error terms, and in follow-up work (in progress) he obtains an error less than
X 5=6 in (5.33), thereby obtaining a proof of a related secondary term.
Houghs work has very different prospects for generalization from the approaches
described previously. In particular, his approach can be used to study k-torsion in class
groups for odd k > 3, and he makes the following conjecture:
Conjecture 5.11 (Hough [24]). For good test functions and odd k 3, we have
X
#Clk .D/.D=X / D
0<D
D2 .mod 4/
4b b 1 1
.1/X C C1;k C X 1=2C1=k C o.X 1=2C1=k /; (5.34)
2 2 k
where
1 .1 k2 / . 12 /. 12 k1 /
1=k 11=k
C1;k WD 1 2 C 2
6k .2/ .1 k1 /
Y
1 1=k 1C2=k 1C1=k 1
1C p p p p : (5.35)
pC1
p>2
Indeed he proves his conjecture, but with error terms larger than X . Even a proof
of the main term for the single case k D 5 would be a major achievement. Indeed, the
average size of Clp .D/ was conjectured by Cohen and Lenstra [11] to be 2 for each
prime p 3, and Cohen and Lenstra further conjectured that the p-part of Clp .D/ is
1
isomorphic to a fixed p-group H with probability proportional to jAut.H /j
. No case of
these conjectures is currently known for any p 5, and essentially nothing is known
for p D 3 beyond Theorem 5.2.
aza Cb
za ! cz a Cd
with ad bc D 1, and therefore the Heegner point za is well-defined in
p
the quotient SL2 .Z/nH. One checks thatpza D za for any 2 Q. D/, and hence
za depends only on the class ofpa in Cl. D/. One similarly checks that za zb if
a and b are inequivalent in Cl. D/. p
Therefore, there are h.D/ Heegner points associated to Q. D/ in SL2 .Z/nH,
and in [17] Duke proves that they equidistribute with respect to the hyperbolic measure
dx dy
y2
as D ! 1. Hough proves the same for the Heegner points associated to the
3-part of the ideal class group:
Here we take B H rather than B SL2 .Z/nH, so that each Heegner point
is counted once for each representative of its SL2 .Z/ orbit in B. (We recall that a
primitive ideal is one without any rational integer divisors other than 1.)
Straightaway one can see that this is an equidistribution statement. But it also im-
plies the DavenportHeilbronn theorem! Taking B to be the standard (or any other)
fundamental domain for the action of SL2 .Z/pon H, one counts each Heegner point
(and thus each nontrivial element of Cl3 .Q. D//) exactly once. The Davenport-
Heilbronn theorem follows from the classical computation vol.B/ D 3 .
We will follow Houghs approach sufficiently far as to see the secondary term.
His work begins with the following parameterization of ideals (and therefore Heegner
points), essentially due to Soundararajan [36].
Proposition 5.13 ([24, 36]). Let D 2 .mod 4/ be squarefree and let k 3 be odd.
The set
.l; m; n; t / 2 .ZC /4 W lmk D l 2 n2 C t 2 D; ljD; .m; ntD/ D 1 (5.37)
to Equation (5.37). Ideals a not coprime to D yield solutions to Equation (5.37) with
l > 1.
Chapter 5 Secondary Terms in the Davenport-Heilbronn Theorems 73
As one of the two main steps in his proof, Hough now applies this parameterization
to count Heegner points in the region
1 1 1
RY WD z 2 H W < <.z/ < ; =.z/ > : (5.38)
2 2 Y
This establishes the vertical distribution of Heegner points, and he separately estab-
lishes that they are equidistributed horizontally. He proves that the number of Heegner
points in RY is equal to
6
YX C C5=6 X 5=6 C O. /; (5.39)
3
for a fairly complicated error term depending on both X and Y . The secondary term
appears here for the following
p reason: By the parameterization above, we may write
an ideal a as lm; lnt 1 C D. We have lm3 D l 2 np2 C t 2 D, so that lm D 1=3 ,
implying that the Heegner point za has imaginary part lmD D 1=6 X 1=6 . In other
words, the Heegner points equidistribute as X ! 1, but for fixed X they do not
appear high in the cusp.
The hyperbolic volume of the subset of RY with =.z/ > X 1=6 is equal to
Z 1=2 Z 1
dx dy
D X 1=6 : (5.40)
xD1=2 yDX 1=6 y2
Accounting (much more carefully than done here!) for the fact that this subset con-
tains no Heegner points yields the negative secondary term in Equation (5.39), and an
analogous argument explains the second term in Equation (5.34).
where Fq .t/ .s/ is the Dedekind zeta function of Fq .t /, or equivalently the zeta func-
tion of the algebraic curve PF1q .
Datskovsky and Wrights proof uses the adelic Shintani zeta function; in [45] Zhao
obtains another proof of Equation (5.41) using algebraic geometry. A trigonal curve
is a threefold cover of P 1 , and there is a bijection between isomorphism classes of
smooth trigonal curves and cubic rational function fields. Already this perspective is
enlightening; for example, the RiemannHurwitz formula implies that the discriminant
has even degree, explaining why Equation (5.41) is an equation for S.2N / and not
S.N /.
The problem, then, is to count smooth trigonal curves. These may be counted by
embedding the curves into Hirzebruch surfaces Fk ; for each trigonal curve C there is
a unique nonnegative integer k, called the Maroni invariant of C , such that C embeds
into Fk WD PP 1 .O O.k//:
Zhao now counts curves on each surface Fk and sieves for smoothness, using a
sieve method related to one developed by Poonen [31]. However, the main technique
is different and new. The main term in Equation (5.41) comes from estimating the
number of trigonal curves C with each Maroni invariant k and then summing the
results over all integers k. However, the Maroni invariant of a smooth trigonal curve
C is at most N=3, provided that the field corresponding to C has absolute discriminant
q 2N . Limiting our sum to k N=3 naturally introduces a secondary term of order
q 5N=3 into Equation (5.41).
Zhaos method, like all other methods described in this paper, comes with error
terms; at present he has obtained an error term of O.N 2 q 5N=3 / in Equation (5.41),
narrowly missing a proof of the secondary term. He has some optimism that this error
term can be reduced below q 5N=3 , and also that some of his methods may be adapted
to say something interesting in the number field case.
5.9 Conclusion
Cubic fields have seen a great deal of recent study recently, and we recommend the pa-
pers of CohenMorra [12] and MartinPollack [26] (among others) for recent studies
of cubic fields from other perspectives.
Many interesting open questions remain in the subject. For example, what is the
correct error term in the DavenportHeilbronn theorems? Even if we cannot prove
it, it would still be interesting to determine the expected order of magnitude. To get
the best error terms it seems that we should count fields K of degree at most 3, each
1
weighted by jAut.K/j . This is suggested both by numerical data and also by consid-
ering the space of binary cubic forms, where reducible maximal forms correspond to
quadratic fields or to Q. (Note that this heuristic does not generalize directly to higher
degree fields.) The data in [32] suggests that the true error may be smaller than X 1=2 ,
and a comparison with the divisor problem suggests that the error might be on the
Chapter 5 Secondary Terms in the Davenport-Heilbronn Theorems 75
order of X 3=8 . Nevertheless, the comparison with the divisor problem is not exact,
and the numerical data is inconclusive.
Perhaps the most compelling open question concerns quartic and quintic fields.
Asymptotic formulas were proved by Bhargava [3,6]; should these formulas have sec-
ondary terms? It is generally believed that they should. However, so far we lack even
a good conjecture. The zeta-function approach seems likely to work, and Yukie [44]
has made some progress in this direction; the geometric approach seems likely to work
as well. However, for now the difficulties with either approach appear rather severe.
Another open question concerns the multiplicity of cubic fields. It is believed that
there should be
n cubic fields of discriminant n, but the best bound known is
O.n1=3C /, due to Ellenberg and Venkatesh [19]. Nontrivial bounds were also ob-
tained by Helfgott and Venkatesh [22] and Pierce [30], using a variety of methods.
Any of the methods described in the present paper could potentially yield improve-
ments, but none of them have succeeded to date. (The present author has attempted
improvements by means of Shintani zeta functions, which have led to a number of
instructive and interesting failures.)
Finally, this paper raises the question of whether or not unexpected connections
might be found between the four perspectives presented here, and some promising
preliminary results have been obtained in this direction. We anticipate that this and
related questions will be addressed in the near future.
Acknowledgments. I would like to thank the many people who have shared their in-
sights on these secondary terms, especially Manjul Bhargava, Jordan Ellenberg, Bob
Hough, Arul Shankar, Kannan Soundararajan, Takashi Taniguchi, Melanie Matchett
Wood, and Yongqiang Zhao. I would further like to thank Bhargava, Shankar,
Taniguchi, Zhao, and an anonymous referee for comments on this paper in particu-
lar. Most of all I would like to thank Akshay Venkatesh who originally brought this
topic to my attention.
In addition, I would like to thank the organizers of Integers 2011 for hosting an
outstanding conference.
References
[1] A. M. Baily, On the density of discriminants of quartic fields, J. Reine Angew. Math. 315
(1980), 190210.
[2] K. Belabas, M. Bhargava, and C. Pomerance, Error estimates in the Davenport-Heilbronn
theorems, Duke Math. J. 153(1) (2010), 173210.
[3] M. Bhargava, The density of discriminants of quartic rings and fields, Ann. of Math. 162(2)
(2005), 10311063.
[4] M. Bhargava, Mass formulae for extensions of local fields, and conjectures on the density
of number field discriminants, Int. Math. Res. Not. (2007), no. 17, Art. ID rnm052.
76 Frank Thorne
[5] M. Bhargava, Higher composition laws and applications, in: Proceedings of the Interna-
tional Congress of Mathematicians, vol. II, 271294, Eur. Math. Soc., Zrich, 2006.
[6] M. Bhargava, The density of discriminants of quintic rings and fields, Ann. of Math.
172(3) (2010), 1559-1591.
[7] M. Bhargava, A. Shankar, and J. Tsimerman, On the Davenport-Heilbronn theorem and
second order terms, preprint; available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.0672, last accessed
6/19/2013.
[8] M. Bhargava, T. Taniguchi, and F. Thorne, work in preparation.
[9] H. Cohen, F. Diaz y Diaz, and M. Olivier, Enumerating quartic dihedral extensions of Q,
Compositio Math. 133 (2002), 6593.
[10] H. Cohen, F. Diaz y Diaz, and M. Olivier, Counting discriminants of number fields,
J. Thor. Nombres Bordeaux 18(3) (2006), 573593.
[11] H. Cohen and H. Lenstra, Heuristics on class groups of number fields, in: Number theory,
Noordwijkerhout 1983, pp. 3362, Lecture Notes in Math. 1068, Springer, Berlin, 1984.
[12] H. Cohen and A. Morra, Counting cubic extensions with given quadratic resolvent, J. Al-
gebra 325 (2011), 461478.
[13] B. Datskovsky and D. Wright, The adelic zeta function associated to the space of binary
cubic forms. II. Local theory, J. Reine Angew. Math. 367 (1986), 2775.
[14] B. Datskovsky and D. Wright, Density of discriminants of cubic extensions, J. Reine
Angew. Math. 386 (1988), 116138.
[15] H. Davenport and H. Heilbronn, On the density of discriminants of cubic fields. II, Proc.
Roy. Soc. London Ser. A 322(1551) (1971), 405420.
[16] B. N. Delone and D. K. Faddeev, The theory of irrationalities of the third degree (in
English translation), AMS, Providence, 1964.
[17] W. Duke, Hyperbolic distribution problems and half-integral weight Maass forms, Invent.
Math. 92(1) (1988), 7390.
[18] J. Ellenberg and A. Venkatesh, The number of extensions of a number field with fixed
degree and bounded discriminant, Ann. of Math. 163(2) (2006), 723741.
[19] J. Ellenberg and A. Venkatesh, Reflection principles and bounds for class group torsion,
Int. Math. Res. Not. (2007), no. 1, Art. ID rnm002.
[20] W. T. Gan, B. Gross, and G. Savin, Fourier coefficients of modular forms on G2 , Duke
Math. J. 115 (2002), 105169.
[21] E. Golod and I. Shafarevich, On the class field tower, Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR Ser. Mat. 28
(1964), 261272, in Russian.
[22] H. Helfgott and A. Venkatesh, Integral points on elliptic curves and 3-torsion in class
groups, J. Amer. Math. Soc. 19(3) (2006), 527550.
[23] C. Hermite, Extrait dune lettre de M. C. Hermite M. Borchardt sur le nombre limit
dirrationalits auxquelles se rduisent les racines des quations coefficients entiers
complexes dun degr et dun discriminant donns, J. Reine Angew. Math. 53 (1857),
182192.
[24] B. Hough, Equidistribution of Heegner points associated to the 3-part of the class group,
preprint, available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.1458, last accessed 6/19/2013.
Chapter 5 Secondary Terms in the Davenport-Heilbronn Theorems 77
Author information
Frank Thorne, Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South
Carolina, USA.
Email: thorne@math.sc.edu
Combinatorial Number Theory, 7989 De Gruyter 2013
Chapter 6
Abstract. Spotted tilings are presented as a new combinatorial interpretation of n-color com-
positions. Previous and new results are proven using this tool, an interpretation of the Fibonacci
numbers, and a case of Terquems problem. The spotted tilings allow for MacMahons zig-zag
graphs to be applied to n-color compositions, addressing a question of Agarwal in the article
where these compositions were introduced in 2000.
Keywords. Integer Compostions, Tilings, Zig-Zag Graph.
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010. 05A17.
6.1 Background
For a given positive integer n, the compositions of n are ordered t -tuples .c1 ; : : : ; c t /
of positive integers with c1 C C c t D n. For instance, there are four compositions
of 3, namely .3/; .2; 1/; .1; 2/; and .1; 1; 1/. The individual ci are called parts of the
composition. Compositions are sometimes referred to as ordered partitions.
Compositions of n may be represented graphically as tilings of a 1 n board, where
a part k corresponds to a 1 k rectangle. This is essentially MacMahons construction
using nodes on a line [7]. Figure 6.1 shows the tilings for the compositions of 3. Notice
that each tiling has a vertical bar at the leftmost edge, possibly vertical bars separating
the rectangles corresponding to parts, and a vertical bar at the rightmost edge.
3 21 12 111
Figure 6.1. The 4 tilings representing the compositions of 3.
Agarwal [1] introduced the concept of n-colored compositions, where a part k has
one of k possible colors, denoted by a subscript 1; : : : ; k. There are eight n-colored
compositions of 3, namely
.31 /; .32 /; .33 /; .21 ; 11 /; .22 ; 11 /; .11 ; 21 /; .11 ; 22 /; .11 ; 11 ; 11 /:
Let C C.n/ denote the number of n-color compositions of n, so C C.3/ D 8. These
compositions, inspired by the analogous concept of n-color partitions, have been fur-
ther considered in several articles and monographs.
80 Brian Hopkins
31 u 21 11 u u 11 21 u u 11 11 11 u u u
32 u 22 11 u u 11 22 u u
33 u
We will use this new tool to prove previous and new results about colored compo-
sitions (Section 6.2) and to develop an analog of MacMahons zig-zag graphs (Sec-
tion 6.3), addressing a question of Agarwal [1].
There are two combinatorial results we will use in the sequel. The Fibonacci num-
bers are given by F0 D 0, F1 D 1 and the recurrence Fn D Fn1 C Fn2 for n 2.
The following theorem is proven using generating functions in [6].
Theorem 6.1. Let C o.n/ denote the number of compositions of n whose parts are all
odd. Then C o.n/ D Fn .
Proof. Let T .j; k/ denote the number of desired subsequences. Since there are k odd
numbers in 1; : : : ; 2k 1, we have T .1; k/ D k. To determine T .j; k/ inductively,
there are two cases to consider. If a subsequence counted by T .j; k/ does not include
Chapter 6 Spotted Tilings and n-Color Compositions 81
using the binomial coefficient identities known as the hockey-stick theorem and
Pascals lemma (identities 135 and 127 of [3]).
Theorem 6.3 ([1, Theorem 1b, d]). The number of n-color compositions of n satisfies
the formula C C.n/ D F2n and the recurrence relation C C.n/ D 3 C C.n 1/
q
C C.n 2/. The corresponding generating function is 13qCq 2.
u
u
u
u u
u u
u u
u u
u u u
bars at 0, some odd position, and 2n. To create the corresponding spotted tiling, halve
all distances and replace the bars at any half-integer positions with spots.
By Theorem 6.1, C C.n/ D F2n . The recurrence relation for F2n is known, but
we demonstrate the recurrence in terms of spotted tilings to introduce ideas used in
subsequent proofs. We establish a bijection between the n-color compositions counted
by 3 C C.n 1/ and by C C.n/ C C C.n 2/.
Given three copies of the spotted tilings counted by C C.n 1/, perform the fol-
lowing operations:
In terms of spotted tilings, operation (a) adds a box at the right hand side. Operations
(b) and (c1) both extend the final rectangle by length one; (b) keeps the spots fixed,
while (c1) moves the last spot from the first position of a 1 k rectangle to the last
position of the new 1 .k C 1/ rectangle. The results of (a), (b), and (c1) are spotted
tilings counted by C C.n/ with no repetition notice that (b) produces tilings where
the spot is not in the rightmost position, while tilings produced by (a) and (c1) all have
a spot in the rightmost position. Operation (c2) moves the spot of the final rectangle
one position to the left and decreases the rectangle by length one, producing a tiling
counted by C C.n 2/. Both (c1) and (c2) can be considered to move the last spot one
position to the left, allowing wrap around from the leftmost to rightmost position.
We demonstrate this with 3 C C.3/ D C C.4/ C C C.2/. Since operations (a) and
(b) are less complicated, Figure 6.4 shows them only applied to 32 , while all 8 spotted
tilings counted by C C.3/ are shown under (c1) and (c2).
For the reverse direction, there are three cases for n-color compositions counted
by C C.n/. If the last part is 11 , remove it; this is the inverse of operation (a). If the
last part is kj for k 2 and j < k, replace it with .k 1/j ; this is the inverse of
operation (b). If the last part is kk for k 2, replace it with .k 1/1 ; this is the
Chapter 6 Spotted Tilings and n-Color Compositions 83
(a) u u u
(b) u u
(c1) u u
(c2) u u
(c2) u u
(c1) u u u u
(c1) u u u u
(c1) u u u u
(c2) u u u u
(c1) u u u u u u
Figure 6.4. For three copies of C C.3/, examples of operations (a) and (b), and row by row
details of (c1) and (c2).
inverse of operation (c1). For an n-color composition counted by C C.n 2/ with last
part kj , replace it with .k C 1/j C1 ; this is the inverse operation of (c2).
We have established C C.n/ D 3 C C.n 1/ C C.n 2/. The generating function
follows from the recurrence (denominator) and initial values of the sequence (numer-
ator); see [10] for more details.
Theorem 6.4 ([1, Theorem 1a, c]). The number of n-color compositions of n with
m parts satisfies the formula C C.n; m/ D nCm1
2m1 . The corresponding generating
qm
function is .1q/2m
.
which is equivalent to the even index case of an identity connecting Fibonacci numbers
to diagonals in Pascals triangle (identity 4 in [3]).
84 Brian Hopkins
Theorem 6.5 ([5, Theorems 1.2, 5.1]). The number of n-color compositions of n
having only even parts satisfies the formula C C e.n/ D 4 C C e.n 2/ C C e.n 4/
with initial values C C e.0/ D 0 and C C e.2/ D 2. The corresponding generating
2q 2
function is 14q 2 Cq 4
.
Proof. Note that C C e.n/ D 0 for all odd n. We establish a bijection between the
n-color compositions counted by C C e.n/ C C C e.n 4/ and by 4 C C e.n 2/.
Similar to the recurrence relation proof of Theorem 6.3, we perform the following
operations on four copies of the spotted tilings counted by C C.n 2/:
Notice that the three (d) operations each move the spot in the last rectangle two to
the left, with the convention that the rightmost position is to the left of the leftmost
position. Adding parts 2j and changing between part lengths k, k C 2, and k 2
maintains the parity restriction. Figure 6.5 shows the results on four copies of the
spotted tilings counted by C C e.4/.
(a) u u u
(b) u u u
(c) u u
(d1) u u
(d2) u u
(d3) u u
(d3) u u
(d1) u u u u
(d2) u u u u
(d1) u u u u
(d2) u u u u
Figure 6.5. For three copies of C C e.4/, examples of operations (a), (b), and (c), and row by
row details of (d1), (d2), and (d3).
Chapter 6 Spotted Tilings and n-Color Compositions 85
As in the proof of Theorem 6.3, operations (a), (b), (c), (d1), and (d2) produce n-
color compositions counted by C C e.n/ with no repetition, by inspection of the last
part. Operation (d3) produces n-color compositions counted by C C e.n 4/.
For the inverse map, there are again several cases for an n-color composition counted
by C C e.n/. If the last part is 21 or 22 , remove it. If the last part is kj with j k 2,
replace it with .k 2/j . If the last part is kk1 or kk , replace it with .k 2/1 or .k 2/2 ,
respectively. These are inverse operations for (a), (b), (c), (d1), and (d2), respectively.
Given an n-color composition counted by C C e.n 4/, replace the last part kj with
.k C 2/j C2 , the inverse of operation (d3).
We have established C C e.n/ D 4C C e.n2/C C e.n4/. The initial conditions
are easily checked. The sequence begins 0; 0; 2; 0; 8; 0; 30; 0; 112; 0; 418. Removing
the zeros, this is double the sequence A001353 in [8]. The generating function follows
from the recurrence relation and the initial values.
Theorem 6.6. The number of n-color compositions of n having only odd parts sat-
isfies the recurrence C C o.n/ D C C o.n 1/ C 2 C C o.n 2/ C C C o.n 3/
C C o.n 4/ with initial values 0; 1; 1; 4. The corresponding generating function is
qCq 3
1q2q 2 q 3 Cq 4
.
(a) given an n-color composition counted by C C o.n 1/, add 11 at the end;
(b) for the first set of n-color composition counted by C C o.n 2/, replace the final
part kj with .k C 2/j ;
(c) for the second set of n-color composition counted by C C o.n 2/;
(c1) if the last part is k1 , replace it with .k C 2/kC1 ;
(c2) if the last part is k2 , replace it with .k C 2/kC2 ;
(c3)] if the last part is kj with j 3, replace it with .k 2/j 2 ;
(d) given an n-color composition counted by C C o.n 3/, add 33 at the end.
As in the proof of Theorem 6.5, the three (c) operations move the spot in the last
rectangle two to the left, with the wrap around convention. Adding parts 11 and 33 and
changing between part lengths k, k C 2, and k 2 maintains the parity requirement.
Figure 6.6 shows the results on C C o.5/ C 2 C C o.4/ C C C o.3/.
Notice that neither operations (c1) nor (c2) produces an n-color composition of
n C 2 with last part 33 . As in the previous proofs, operations (a), (b), (c1), (c2), and (d)
produce n-color compositions counted by C C o.n/ with no repetition, by inspection of
the last part. Operation (c3) produces n-color compositions counted by C C o.n 4/.
86 Brian Hopkins
(a) u u u
(b) u u u u
(c1) u u u u
(c1) u u u u
(c1) u u u u
(c1) u u u u
(c2) u u u u
(c3) u u u u
(c1) u u u u u u u u
(d) u u u
Figure 6.6. For n D 6, examples of operations (a), (b), and (d), and row by row details of (c1),
(c2), and (c3).
For the inverse map, consider an n-color composition counted by C C o.n/. If the
last part is 11 or 33 , remove it. If the past part is kj with j k 2, replace it with
.k 2/j . If the last part is kk1 or kk , replace it with .k 2/1 or .k 2/2 , respectively.
There are inverse operations for (a), (d), (b), (c1), and (c2), respectively. Given an n-
color composition counted by C C o.n 4/, replace the last part kj with .k C 2/j C2 ,
the inverse operation of (c3).
We have established C C o.n/ D C C o.n 1/ C 2 C C o.n 2/ C C C o.n 3/
C C o.n 4/. The initial conditions are easily checked. The sequence begins 0, 1, 1, 4,
7, 15, 32, 65, 137, 284, 591, which is A119749 in [8]. The generating function follows
from the recurrence relation and the initial values.
Figure 6.7. Mahonian zig-zag graphs showing that the conjugate of (2,1,3) is (1,3,1,1).
Chapter 6 Spotted Tilings and n-Color Compositions 87
In the paper where Agarwal introduced n-color compositions [1], he concluded with
two questions, including What will be the shape of MacMahons zig-zag graph in the
case of n-colour compositions? The notion of spotted tilings introduced here allows
a possible answer to this question simply carry the spots into the zig-zag graph. But
for which n-color compositions does conjugation of the spotted zig-zag graph lead to
a valid spotted tiling?
Consider the composition in Figure 6.7. Can .2; 1; 3/ be colored so that it is con-
jugable? In order for the first column to include a spot, the 2 must become 21 . The
second column automatically has a spot since 1 can only become 11 . To avoid another
spot in the second column, the 3 must become 32 or 33 , but either possibility leaves
some column without a spot. So no coloring of .2; 1; 3/ gives a conjugable n-color
composition. In contrast, Figure 6.8 shows that .21 ; 11 ; 32 ; 11 / is conjugable.
11 32 11 22
21 u u
11 u u
32 u u
11 u u
Figure 6.8. Spotted zig-zag graphs showing that the conjugate of .21 ; 11 ; 32 ; 11 / is .11 , 32 ,
11 , 22 /.
Definition. An n-color composition is conjugable if its zig-zag graph has exactly one
spot per column.
Our final theorem characterizes and counts conjugable n-color compositions.
Theorem 6.7.
(a) Conjugable n-color compositions have the form
a
21 ; 11 ; 2b2 ; .32 ; 2a1 ; 11 ; 2b2 /c
where exponents denote repetition, a; b; c 0, and a; b may vary in each occur-
rence.
(b) The number of conjugable n-color compositions of n is 0 if n is even, 2.n1/=2 if
n is odd.
Proof. The analysis of conjugable n-color compositions is most easily done in terms
of the zig-zag graphs. By construction, there is one spot per row. By definition, there
is one spot per column. Since a subsequent part is positioned with its first segment
under the last segment of its predecessor, its spot must appear to the right of the spot
above it. In order to have one spot per column, it is exactly one position to the right.
The spots, therefore, lie on the diagonal.
The parts 31 , 33 , and kj for any k 4 cannot occur in a conjugable n-color compo-
sitions, since each would leave at least one column without a spot. As spots must ap-
pear on the diagonal, the allowed parts 11 ; 21 ; 22 ; 32 may occur within the constraints
shown in Figure 6.9. The description in part (a) follows.
88 Brian Hopkins
u u u u
u u u u
Figure 6.9. Parts 11 and 22 can only be followed by some allowed k2 while parts 21 and 32
can only be followed by some allowed k1 .
z z z
u u u u u u u u u u u u
Figure 6.10. Between adjacent spots, there are two choices for the position of a vertical bar,
so there are 4 conjugable n-color compositions of 5.
Acknowledgments. Thanks to the organizers for putting together this fifth Integers
Conference and to the anonymous referee for helpful comments.
References
[1] A.K. Agarwal, n-colour compositions, Indian J. Pure Appl. Math. 31(11) (2000) 1421
1437.
[2] A.K. Agarwal and G. Narang, Lattice paths and n-colour compositions, Discrete Math.
308(9) (2008) 17321740.
[3] A. Benjamin and J. Quinn, Proofs that Really Count: The Art of Combinatorial Proof,
Mathematical Association of America, 2003.
[4] C. Church Jr. and H. Gould, Lattice point solution of the generalized problem of Terquem
and an extension of Fibonacci numbers, Fibonacci Quart. 5(1) (1967) 5968.
Chapter 6 Spotted Tilings and n-Color Compositions 89
[5] G. Yu-Hong, n-colour even self-inverse compositions, Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. (Math.
Sci.) 120(1) (2010) 2733.
[6] V. Hoggatt Jr. and D. Lind, Fibonacci and binomial properties of weighted compositions,
J. Combin. Theory 4(2) (1968) 121124.
[7] P. A. MacMahon, Combinatory Analysis, volume 1, Cambridge University Press, 1915.
[8] The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, published electronically at http://oeis.
org, 2012, last accessed 12/12/2012.
[9] O. Terquem, Sur un symbole combinatoire dEuler et son utilit dans LAnalyse, J. Math.
Pures Appl. 4 (1839) 177184.
[10] H. Wilf, generatingfunctionology, Academic Press, 1990.
Author information
Brian Hopkins, Department of Mathematics, Saint Peters University, Jersey City, New Jer-
sey, USA.
Email: bhopkins@saintpeters.edu
Combinatorial Number Theory, 91107 De Gruyter 2013
Chapter 7
Abstract. We present a class of two-player Wythoff game variations we dub Wyt(f ) that
depends on a given function f .k/. In this class a move consists of removing either a positive
number of tokens from precisely one of two given piles, or k tokens from one pile and `
from the other, subject to the constraint 0 < k ` < f .k/. We analyze three classes of
integer-valued functions f .k/: constant, superadditive, and polynomial of degree > 1 with
nonnegative integer coefficients. The nature of the winning positions in the games is essentially
unique for each class.
Keywords. Combinatorial Games, Wythoff Games.
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010. 91A46.
7.1 Introduction
We propose and analyze a family of two-player combinatorial take-away games played
on two piles, dubbed Wyt(f ). The two players move alternately by selecting one of
the following moves:
move of the first type: take any positive number of tokens from a single pile, possibly
the entire pile;
move of the second type: take k > 0 tokens from one pile and ` > 0 tokens from
the other. This move is restricted by the condition
where f .k/ W Z0 ! Z0 is a function that distinguishes the games from each
other.
A position in the game can be represented by a pair .a; b/ (a; b 2 Z0 ) which de-
notes the number of tokens in each pile. Without loss of generality we assume through-
out 0 a b. The games we consider here are played under the normal play conven-
tion, that is, the player making the last move wins the game and the opponent loses.
In the misre play convention the player making the last move loses and the opponent
wins.
92 Aviezri S. Fraenkel and Yuval Tanny
Note that these are impartial games the set of possible moves for a player de-
pends only on the game position, not on the player. They are deterministic (no chance
moves) and acyclic (the number of tokens decreases at every move until it becomes 0).
Therefore we can partition the positions of the game into Next player winning posi-
tions (denoted N -positions, or by the set N WD N .f / Z20 ) and Previous player
winning positions (denoted P -positions, or by the set P WD P .f / Z20 ).
A game G is tractable if
for every position, its state (P - or N -position) can be decided in polynomial time;
the next move from any N -position to a P -position can be computed in polynomial
time;
the winner can consummate a win in at most an exponential number of moves.
To the run of the mill algorithmicians the last item dooms the game as intractable. It
may be quite a surprise to them that this is not the case: whereas we dislike computing
in exponential time, the human race relishes observing some of its members being
tormented for an exponential length of time! In fact, the easy game Nim and similar
take-away games do require that amount of time. For games there are also notions of
polynomiality and efficiency; see [12], especially Section 4.
In the next sections of this chapter, we define sequences An and Bn to analyze the
P -positions. We use the notation
A D [1 1
iD0 Ai ; B D [iD0 Bi :
In addition, when analyzing the P -positions we frequently use the mex function: Let
S be a finite set of nonnegative integers. Then mex.S / is defined to be the least non-
negative integer not in S . Note that the mex of the empty set is 0.
This chapter presents characterizations of the P -positions and tractable winning
strategies for the following types of functions:
f .k/ D t; t > 0 an integer;
f .k/ is a strictly increasing superadditive function;
P
f .k/ D niD0 ai k i is a polynomial of degree n > 1 with integer coefficients ai 0
and a0 > 0.
Note that a function f W Z0 ! Z0 is called superadditive if it satisfies: f .k/ k
and f .k C `/ f .k/ C f .`/ for all k; ` 2 Z0 .
Wyt(f ) is a general class of games that encapsulates a number of previously an-
alyzed games and new games. In its simplest case, where f .k/ 2 0; 1, the move
of the second type cannot be done and the game reduces to Nim on 2 piles (in nor-
mal play). For the case f .k/ D k C 1 the game reduces to the classical Wythoff
game [24], where in a move of the second type the player has to take the same pos-
itive number of tokens from both piles. An analysis of the constant difference class
f .k/ D k C t , t 1 integer and later for the linear class f .k/ D sk C t s; t 1
Chapter 7 A Class of Wythoff-Like Games 93
integers was done by Fraenkel [8, 11]. For other examples of variations of 2-piles
Wythoff, see [3, 5, 10, 13, 15, 18, 20].
In Section 7.2 we deal with the case f .k/ D t , and in Section 7.3 with superaddi-
tivity. In Section 7.4 we handle polynomials, where we resort to real analysis for the
proofs. Further possible work is indicated in the final Section 7.5.
Lemma 7.1.
(i) Let t 2. For every m 2 Z0 , g.m/ m, with equality if and only if m
0 .mod .t C 1//.
(ii) The function g is an injection.
Table 7.1. t D 3:
n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
An 0 1 2 4 5 8 9 10 12 13 16 17 18 20 21 24 25
Bn 0 3 6 4 7 8 11 14 12 15 16 19 22 20 23 24 27
n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
An 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13 14 15 16
Bn 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 11 21 31 41 51 61
Throughout this section, we use the convention that for every nonnegative number m
we let m0 ; m1 ; m2 be the appropriate digits of m in the above numeration system.
Using our numeration system we can present the g function in a more intuitive way.
Lemma 7.5. Let t 2 Z2 , and m 2 Z0 which is represented uniquely in the form
(7.2) with digits m0 ; m1 ; m2 . If m1 m0 , then
g.m/ D m2 .t 2 1/ C m0 t C m1 :
Otherwise,
g.m/ D .m2 C 1/.t 2 1/ C m0 t C m1 :
Proof. We have,
g.m/ D g.m2 .t 2 1/ C m1 t C m0 /
D m2 .t 2 1/t C m1 t 2 C m0 t .t 2 1/
.b.m1 t C m0 /=.t C 1/c C m2 .t 1//
D m2 .t 2 1/ C m1 t 2 C m0 t .t 2 1/b.m1 t C m0 /=.t C 1/c:
g.m/ D m2 .t 2 1/ C m1 t 2 C m0 t m1 .t 2 1/
D m2 .t 2 1/ C m0 t C m1 :
Remark 7.6. Notice that in the two displayed formulas of Lemma 7.5 the digits m0 ,
m1 of the unique representation (7.2) of m have been switched. Furthermore, m has a
unique representation of the form (7.2) if and only if m0 WD m2 .t 2 1/ C m0 t C m1
has a unique representation. Their value difference is m m0 D .m1 m0 /.t 1/.
We presented the relation between An and Bn using the special numeration system.
In the next couple of lemmas we show that an independent simple characterization of
the Ai and Bi sets follows from the use of this numeration system. This charac-
terization will enable us to prove that the An and Bn pairs constitute the P -positions
of the game.
Lemma 7.7. Let t 2 Z2 , and m 2 Z0 which is represented uniquely in the form
(7.2) with digits m0 ; m1 ; m2 . Then m 2 A if and only if m1 m0 .
96 Aviezri S. Fraenkel and Yuval Tanny
Consequently we have:
Proof. If m1 > m0 then m A by Lemma 7.7 and therefore m 2 B by the mex prop-
erty. If m1 D m0 then m 2 A by Lemma 7.7 and m D g.m/ 2 B by Corollary 7.4.
Conversely, if m 2 B, then by definition there exists a 2 A such that m D g.a/. Let
a0 ; a1 ; a2 be the digits of a represented in form (7.2). Then by Lemma 7.7, a1 a0 ;
and by Lemma 7.5, m0 D a1 and m1 D a0 , so m0 m1 .
Corollary 7.9.
(i) If An D m2 .t 2 1/ C m1 t C m0 then Bn D m2 .t 2 1/ C m0 t C m1 .
(ii) Bn An D .m0 m1 /.t 1/ 0. In particular, Bn D An if and only if m0 D m1 .
Theorem 7.10. For f .k/ D t a constant, the set of P -positions of Wyt.f / is given
by W WD [1
iD0 .Ai ; Bi /.
repeating terms in B, since the function g is an injection (Corollary 7.1 (ii)) and there
are no repeating terms in A.
Suppose that a move of the second type from .An ; Bn / 2 W produces a position
.Am ; Bm / 2 W . Then m < n. This move can be made either in the form
(i) An ! Am , Bn ! Bm . Then
2 An Am
Bn Bm D t .An Am / .t 1/ :
t C1 t C1
If bAn =.t C1/c D bAm =.t C1/c then Bn Bm D t .An Am / t , contradicting
the move rule (7.1). Otherwise, bAn =.t C 1/c bAm =.t C 1/c 1. Since An
Am D k < t , we get
Bn Bm t .t 1/ .t 2 1/ D 1 t < 0;
x1 t C x0 y1 t C y0 < x0 t C x1 : (7.4)
The right-hand side of Equation (7.4) is equivalent to .x0 y1 /t > y0 x1 . If y0 x1 ,
then s D y1 and x0 > y1 , so s < x0 < t . If y0 < x1 , then s D y1 1, yet
x0 y1 , and we have again s < x0 < t . The left-hand side of Equation (7.4) is
equivalent to y0 x0 .x1 y1 /t . By Lemma 7.7, x1 x0 , since x D An . Hence
s y1 C b.y0 x0 /=t /c x1 0:
(b) By (a2), x1 s < t , so by Lemma 7.7, x 0 D Am for suitable m. Again by (a2),
0 s < t , so y 0 D Bm by Corollary 7.9(i).
(c) From (a), 0 < x x 0 D x0 s < t . Now y y 0 D .y1 s/t C y0 x1 , since
y2 D x2 . By (a1), if y0 x1 then s D y1 , so 0 y y 0 D y0 x1 < t ; and if
y0 < x1 then s D y1 1, so 0 < y y 0 D t .x1 y0 / < t .
Proof. We wish to compute whether or not .x; y/ 2 P in time linear in the input size
.log xy/. Expand x and y in our numeration system, which can be done linearly by
using the simple greedy algorithm from [9]:
x2 D bx=.t 2 1/c
x1 D b.x x2 .t 2 1//=t c
x0 D x x2 .t 2 1/ x1 t:
Corollary 7.12. Let t 2 Z2 and f .k/ D t a constant function. Then there is a
tractable strategy for winning Wyt(f ).
Proof. Using the instructions in the second part of the proof of Theorem 7.10, the
greedy algorithm in Theorem 7.11, and Lemmas 7.7 and 7.8, it is clear how to construct
a tractable strategy for winning Wyt(f ) for any given N -position.
Proof. (i) Lemmas 7.7 and 7.8 and Corollary 7.9 imply that the sequences A and B
have residues that are periodic mod p. Indeed, membership of x in A and B depends
only on the relative size of x0 and x1 , not on the size of x2 .
(ii) Using (i) we can assume x2 D 0. By the mex property, all the residues of A in
0; p 1 are increasing, so they are distinct. Their number is precisely the number of
x0 , x1 satisfying 0 x1 x0 t 1. Since x0 D x1 D t 1 is forbidden, this
number is precisely .t 1/.t C 2/=2, t 1 of which are common to both sequences,
namely those for which 0 x0 D x1 < t 1. The proof for the residues of B is
similar.
(iii) Follows immediately from (ii).
(iv) Follows immediately from Corollary 7.9(ii).
Remark 7.14. Notice that the preceding propositions (i)-(iv) of Theorem 7.13 can be
seen in Table 7.1.
Almost all game positions .x; y/, 0 x y are N -positions see [22, 23]. There-
fore .x; y/ P with high probability. Theorem 7.13 can help to dispose of them
quickly by computing the residues of x and y mod p and searching for them in a
pre-constructed table of the p D t 2 1 residue pairs of .An ; Bn / mod p.
an example, the first few P -positions for the game for which f .x/ D x 2 are shown
in Table 7.3.
Table 7.3. f .x/ D x 2 .
n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
An 0 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 10 11 12 13 14 15
Bn 0 1 4 9 25 36 49 64 100 121 144 169 196 225
Remark 7.15. The function f in this example is a polynomial, and polynomials are
considered in the next section. However, a polynomial of degree t 1 of the form
X
t
f .x/ D ai x i ; ai 2 Z0 for 0 i t; a t > 0; (7.5)
iD0
is clearly superadditive if and only if a0 D 0. In the next section we consider the case
a0 > 0.
Remark 7.16. Notice that if f W Z0 ! Z0 is strictly increasing, then f .k/ k.
Let
An D mexAi ; Bi W 0 i < n; Bn D f .An /; n 0: (7.6)
Remark 7.18. For all superadditive functions f; f .0/ D 0. This follows from f .0/ D
f .0 C 0/ f .0/ C f .0/.
Proof. Since f is not the identity function, there exists a minimum integer N 2 Z1
such that f .N / N . Thus for every integer n < N , f .n/ D n. Notice that N 0
because f .0/ D 0 (Remark 7.18). By Remark 7.16, we have f .N / N C 1.
Let a WD 1 C 1=.2N 1/. Since N 1 it is clear that a > 1. We can write every
integer n N in the form n D kN C r, where 0 r < N and k 2 Z1 . The
102 Aviezri S. Fraenkel and Yuval Tanny
Proof. Using the algorithm in Theorem 7.21 and the instructions in the second part
of the proof of Theorem 7.17, it is clear how to construct a tractable strategy for win-
ning Wyt(f ) for any given N -position. Note that by using the binary search described
in the beginning of Theorem 7.21, it is possible to calculate f 1 .x/, if it exists, in
polynomial time.
7.4 Polynomial
In this section we consider the game Wyt(f ) for which f W R0 ! R0 is a polyno-
mial of the form (7.5) with t 2 and a0 > 0.
Thus f is convex although not superadditive (Remark 7.15). The analysis of this
class of games is similar to that of the previous section, since the function which defines
the B sequence is superadditive, as we show presently.
We define here, as before, the sequences that compose the P -positions of this class
of games. For x 2 R0 , we define
maxf .x/; f .1/x if x 2 1; 1/
g.x/ D
f .1/x if x 2 0; 1/;
and
An D mexAi ; Bi W 0 i < n; Bn D g.An /; n 0: (7.7)
The function g is defined on R0 in order to enable us to use basic calculus for proving
that g is a superadditive function. Note that g.Z0 / Z0 .
As an example, the first few P -positions for the game for which f .x/ D x 2 C 9
are displayed in Table 7.4.
n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
An 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13 14
Bn 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 130 153 178 205
0; 1/ then g.x/ is a convex function in this interval. We show here that gC 0 .x/ is
increasing there.
Remark 7.24. Since t 2, f .An / > f .1/An for all sufficiently large n, so S is
finite, containing at most the first few nonnegative integers. The next lemma throws
some light on the set S .
Lemma 7.25. The set S is nonempty, and for every n 2 S we have An < f .1/ and
An D n.
Note 7.26. For the example f .x/ D x 2 C 9 we have An < f .1/ and f .An /
f .1/An for 0 n 9, but f .An / > f .1/An for all n > 9. Thus An D n for
0 n 9, but An > n for all n > 9 (see Table 7.4).
Theorem 7.27. Let f W Z0 ! Z0 be a polynomial of the form .7:5/ with t 2 and
a0 > 0. Then the set of P -positions of Wyt.f / is given by W WD [1
iD0 .Ai ; Bi /,
where Ai , Bi are defined in .7:7/.
Proof. As in the proof of Theorems 7.10 and 7.17, it suffices to show that
(1) every move from any position in W lands in a position outside W ;
(2) for every position outside W , there is a move to some position in W:
(1) The proof is the same as in part 1 of Theorem 7.17, using g instead of f and
using g.x/ f .x/.
(2) The proof for this statement is as in part 2 of Theorem 7.17 up to and including
Case (iii) x D An y < f .An / D Bn . There are two additional cases:
Case (iv) x D An , f .An / y < Bn and there exists m for which y D Bm < Bn .
Then move to the position .Am ; Bm / by subtracting An Am tokens from the first
pile, using a move of the first type.
Case (v) x D An , f .An / y < Bn and y D Bm for no m. Since Bn D g.An / >
f .An / it follows from the definition of g and Remark 7.24 that:
Corollary 7.28. Let f be a polynomial of the form .7:5/ with t 2 and a0 > 0. Then
there is a tractable strategy for winning Wyt.f /.
106 Aviezri S. Fraenkel and Yuval Tanny
References
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Author information
Aviezri S. Fraenkel, Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Weizmann
Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Email: fraenkel@wisdom.weizmann.ac.il
Yuval Tanny, Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Weizmann Insti-
tute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Email: yuval.tanny@gmail.com
Combinatorial Number Theory, 109121 De Gruyter 2013
Chapter 8
Abstract. Here, we show that if s 62 1; 2; 4 is a fixed positive integer and m and n are coprime
positive integers such that the multiplicative order of FnC1 =Fn modulo Fm is s, where Fk is
the k-th Fibonacci number, then m < 500s 2 .
Keywords. Fibonacci Sequence, Multiplicative Order.
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010. 11A07, 11B39.
8.1 Introduction
Let Fk k0 be the Fibonacci sequence given by F0 D 0; F1 D 1 and
FkC2 D FkC1 C Fk for all k 0:
Let m 3 and n be positive integers such that Fm and Fn are coprime. Since
gcd.Fm ; Fn / D Fgcd.m;n/ , this last property holds when gcd.m; n/ 2 1; 2. Then
Fn is invertible modulo Fm . Assuming also that FnC1 is coprime to Fm , we can think
of the rational number FnC1 =Fn as an invertible element modulo Fm . Here we look
at its order denoted by s. Formally, s depends on both m and n, but we shall omit this
dependence in what follows.
It is quite possible that this order is s D 1. Indeed, this happens precisely when
FnC1 Fn .mod Fm /, so Fm j FnC1 Fn D Fn1 , and this holds when m j n 1.
Hence, when n 1 .mod m/.
2
It is also possible that s D 2. In this case, FnC1 Fn2 .mod Fm /, so
2
Fm j FnC1 Fn2 D .FnC1 Fn /.FnC1 C Fn / D Fn1 FnC2 :
Assume that m > 12. Then, by Carmichaels primitive divisor theorem (see [1]), Fm
has a primitive prime factor p. This primitive prime has the property that p j Fm but
p F` for any positive integer 1 ` < m. Furthermore, p j F` if and only if m j `.
From the above divisibilities, we see that either p j Fn1 , case in which m j n 1, or
p j FnC2 , case in which m j n C 2. The situation when m j n 1 leads to s D 1 and
this is not convenient, so we must have m j n C 2. Thus, n 2 .mod m/.
110 Takao Komatsu, Florian Luca, and Yohei Tachiya
4
It is also possible that s D 4. In this case, FnC1 Fn4 .mod Fm /, so
4
Fm j FnC1 Fn4 D .FnC1 Fn /.FnC1 C Fn /.FnC1
2
C Fn2 / D Fn1 FnC2 F2nC1 :
If m > 12, then Fm has a primitive prime factor p. Since p divides the right-hand side
of the above divisibility relation, we get that m divides one of n 1; n C 2 or 2n C 1.
The first two cases lead to s 2 1; 2. The third case is possible only when m is odd
and n .m 1/=2 .mod m/.
From the above discussion, we see that for each of s 2 1; 2; 4 there exist infinitely
many positive integers m such that the set of invertible residue classes modulo Fm
contains a class representable as FnC1 =Fn for some appropriate positive integer n
whose multiplicative order is s. We asked ourselves if this property holds for some
other positive integers s. Maybe quite surprisingly, the answer is no.
Our main result is the following:
Lemma 8.2. Let X 3 be a real number. Let a and b be positive integers p with
maxa; b X . Then there p exist integers u; v not both zero with maxjuj; jvj X
such that jau C bvj 3 X.
p
Proof.pConsider the nonnegative numbers as Cbt p for s; t 2 0; 1; : : : ; b Xc. There
are .b Xc C 1/2 > X such numbers all in 0; 2X X. By the pigeon hole principle,
there exist .s1 ; t1 / .s2 ; t2 / such that
p
2X X p
ja.s1 s2 / C b.t1 t2 /j D j.as1 C bt1 / .as2 C bt2 /j 3 X:
X 1
Putting u D s1 s2 and v D t1 t2 , we get the desired conclusion.
p
We put D .1 C 5/=2 and D 1 .
Lemma 8.3. Let D e 2 iu=v with coprime positive integers u and v be a primitive
root of unity of order v. If v 62 1; 2; 4, then the two numbers
and
C
Chapter 8 On the Multiplicative Order of FnC1 =Fn Modulo Fm 111
Proof. Assume on the contrary that there exist integers m and n not both zero such
that
m
D n : (8.1)
C
If m D 0, then n D 1, therefore n D 0, which is impossible. So, we assume that
m 0. Up to replacing the pair .m; n/ by .m; n/, we may assume that m > 0.
Assume first that v is coprime to 5. Then 2 K D Q.e 2 i=5 / and 2 L D Q.e 2 i=v /
and K and L are both Galois extensions of Q whose intersection is trivial (i.e., equal
to Q). Thus, every Galois automorphism of G D Gal.L=Q/ can be extended to
a Galois automorphism of the compositum M D KL D Q.e 2 i=5v / of K and L in
such a way that ./ D . Applying an arbitrary such 2 G to (8.1), we deduce that
Equation (8.1) holds when we replace by any conjugate of it. In particular, given
u1 ; u2 2 1; : : : ; v both coprime to v, we have
!m !m
e 2 iu1 =v 2e 2 iu2 =v
D n D : (8.2)
C e 2 iu1 =v C e 2 iu2 =v
Taking absolute values in (8.2) and then extracting mth roots, we get
2 2 C 2 2 2 cos.2u1 =v/ C 1
1 C D
2 C 2 cos.2u1 =v/ C 1 2 C 2 cos.2u1 =v/ C 1
e 2 iu1 =v 2 e 2 iu2 =v 2
D D
C e 2 iu1 =v C e 2 iu2 =v
2 2 cos.2u2 =v/ C 1
D
2 C 2 cos.2u2 =v/ C 1
2 2 C 2
D 1 C ;
2 C 2 cos.2u2 =v/ C 1
giving
cos.2u1 =v/ D cos.2u2 =v/:
This gives
q q
sin.2u1 =v/ D 1 cos.2u1 =v/2 D 1 cos.2u2 =v/2
D sin.2u2 =v/:
This argument shows that there exist at most 2 primitive roots of unity of order v,
therefore .v/ 2, and since v 62 1; 2; 4, we get that v 2 3; 6. Let us look at these
112 Takao Komatsu, Florian Luca, and Yohei Tachiya
p p
cases. In this instance, M D Q. 5; i 3/ is of degree 4 over Q. We compute
8 9
p p !1
< 2 C 5 C "i 3 =
2 p p W " 2 1 :
C : 5 C "i 3 ;
which is false.
A similar argument applies when 5 j v. In this case K D Q.e 2 i=5 / L, and so
M D L and G D Gal.M=Q/ is isomorphic with the group of invertible elements
modulo v which has order .v/. Further, by Galois theory, there are exactly .v/=2
Galois automorphisms such that ./ D . We deduce that there exists a subset
U
1; 2; : : : ; v of positive integers coprime to v having exactly .v/=2 elements,
such that Equation (8.1) holds for all D e 2 iu=v with all u 2 U. The preceding
argument shows that
therefore
Proof. We distinguish four cases. For a positive integer m we put m .X / for the mth
cyclotomic polynomial.
If v is odd, then 2 is also a primitive root of order v of unity, so
1 C 2 j v .1/ j X v 1 D 2:
XD1
If 2 j v and v=2 is odd, then 2 is a primitive root of unity of order v=2 and
1 C 2 j v=2 .1/ j X v=2 1 D 2:
XD1
If 4 j v and v=4 is odd, then, since v=4 > 1, it follows that .X v=4 1/ and .X C 1/
are proper divisors of X v=2 1 and they do not have any common roots. Thus,
X v=2 1 X v=4 C 1
1 C 2 j v=2 .1/ j D D
.X v=4 1/.X C 1/ XD1 X C 1 XD1
X v=41 X v=42 C C 1 D v=4:
XD1
If 8 j v, then
X v=2 1
1 C 2 j v=2 .1/ j D X v=4
C 1 D 2:
X v=4 1 XD1 XD1
For a prime number p and a nonzero integer m, we put p .m/ for the exponent of
the prime p in the factorization of m. For a finite set of primes S and a positive integer
m, we put Y
mS D p p .m/
p2S
Lemma 8.5. If S is any finite set of primes and m is a positive integer, then
Y
.Fm /S 2m FpC1 :
p2S
Proof. For a prime p, let fp be its order of appearance in the Fibonacci sequence,
which is the minimal positive integer k such that p j Fk . It is well-known that
8
0 if m 6 0 .mod fp /I
< .F / C .m=f / if m 0 .mod f /; p is oddI
p fp p p p
p .Fm / D
1 if m 3 .mod 6/; p D 2I
: 2 C 2 .m/ if m 0 .mod 6/; p D 2:
114 Takao Komatsu, Florian Luca, and Yohei Tachiya
always holds with p;2 being 0 if p is odd and 1 if p D 2. Since fp p C 1 holds for
all primes p, we get that
! !
Y Y
p .Ffp / p .m/
.Fm /S p p 22 .m/C1
p2S pjm
p>2
Y Y
2m Ffp 2m FpC1 ;
p2S p2S
We also use the fact that if m 1, then the sequence Fk k0 is periodic modulo Fm
with period 4m. Assume now that s 1; 2; 4 is a positive integer and that m > 1000
is such that there exist n with Fn coprime to Fm and FnC1 =Fn is invertible modulo
Fm of multiplicative order exactly s. From the periodicity of Fk k0 modulo Fm , we
may assume that n 4m, and since Fn FnC1 and Fm are coprime, we may assume
that n 4m 2. We shall exploit the relation
Y
s
Fm j FnC1 Fns D .FnC1 Fn /: (8.5)
W s D1
A D gcd.Fm ; FnC1 Fn /;
B D gcd.Fm ; FnC1 C Fn /;
2
C D gcd.Fm ; FnC1 C Fn2 /;
Then,
The numbers d1 ; d2 ; d3 are divisors of m and they are proper, since if di D m for
some i 2 1; 2; 3, then, from what we have seen in the Introduction, we would get that
s 2 1; 2; 4, which is not the case. Observe that any two of d1 ; d2 ; d3 are coprime,
or the greatest common divisors of any two of them is exactly 3. The second condition
holds precisely when m 0 .mod 3/ and n 1 .mod 3/. Indeed, this holds because
When the greatest common divisor of any two of the numbers d1 ; d2 ; d3 is exactly 3,
we get
d1 d2 d3 m dj dk m 2=3
; therefore ;
3 3 3 3 3 3 3
leading to the slightly worse bound than Equation (8.6), namely
P
where we used the fact that pjs p s, which is easily proved by induction on the
number of distinct prime factors of s.
Step 3. We put
Fm
ED ;
gcd.ABCD; Fm /
and bound E.
We shall estimate the number E by using the fact that E is coprime to 2s, as well
as divisibility (8.5), which in particular tell us that
Y
Fm j ABC .FnC1 Fn /;
W s D1
621;i
where Ei are ideals in OK . Then relations (8.10) and (8.11) tell us that
Y
`
EOK j Ei : (8.12)
iD1
Our next goal is to bound the norm NK=Q .Ei / of Ei for i D 1; : : : ; `: First of all,
Fm 2 Ei . Thus, with Equation (8.3) and the fact that D 1 , we get
m .1/m m .mod Ei /:
Let us show that and Ei are coprime. Assume this is not so and let be some
prime ideal of OK dividing both and Ei . Then we get .mod / and so
1 .mod / by (8.14). Multiplying these two congruences we get 1 2
.mod /. Hence, j 1 C 2 , and so by Lemma 8.4 we get that j 2s. However, this
contradicts the fact that j Ei j E, with E an integer coprime to 2s. Thus, indeed
and Ei are coprime, so is invertible modulo Ei . Now congruence (8.14)
shows that
1 C
2n .1/nC1 .mod Ei /;
therefore !
2nC1 nC1 C
.1/ .mod Ei /: (8.15)
We now apply Lemma 8.2 to a D 2m and b D 2n C 1 2.4m 2/ C 1 < 8m
with the choice XpD 8m to deduce that there exist integersp u, v not both zero with
maxjuj; jvj X such that j2mu C .2n C 1/vj 3 X : We raise congruence
(8.13) to u and congruence (8.15) to v and multiply the resulting congruences getting
!v
2muC.2nC1/v muC.nC1/v v C
D .1/ .mod Ei /:
We record this as
!b
a C
.mod Ei / (8.16)
for suitable roots of unity and of order dividing 2s with not of order 1; 2 or 4,
where a D 2mu C .2n C 1/v and b D v. We may assume that a 0, for if not, we
replace the pair .u; v/ by the pair .u; v/, thus replacing .a; b/ by .a; b/ and
by 1 and leaving unaffected. We may additionally assume that b 0, for if not,
we replace b by b and D by D , again a root of unity of order dividing 2s
but not of order 1; 2 or 4, and leave a and unaffected. Thus, Ei divides the algebraic
integer
Ei D a . i /b i . C i /b ; (8.17)
where i 2 i ; i and i is some suitable root of unity of order dividing 2s. Let us
show that Ei 0. If Ei D 0; we then get
!b
a C i
D i ;
i
and after raising both sides of the above equality to the power 2s, we get, since 2s
i D 1,
that
!2bs
2sa C i
D :
i
118 Takao Komatsu, Florian Luca, and Yohei Tachiya
1 2 31=3 1 7
g.m; s/ p > 0:103:
2 .4500/1=3 4500 log 1000
Thus, in order to prove that m < 500s 2 , it suffices to prove f .500s 2 ; s/ > 0. We
checked with Mathematica that this inequality holds for s 17. For the remaining
values s 2 3; 16, we checked individually by noticing that for each one of these
values of s a slightly better inequality than (8.20) holds. For example, in the case
when s 2 3; 5; 7; 9; 11; 13; 15, there is no need for d2 and d3 because s is odd. Thus,
the analogue of inequality (8.20) for such values of s is simply
p
m log.4m/ p .s 1/ log.2 /
m2< 1CsC C 7.s 1/ 2m C : (8.22)
2 log log
Plugging in s D 3; 5; 7; 9; 11; 13, and 15 into (8.22), we got m bounded by 2000,
7000, 15000, 26000, 40000, 57000, and 77000, respectively, and so the inequality
m < 500s 2 definitely holds for these values of s as well. When s D 6; 10; 14, we keep
only two divisors in Case 1, namely d1 and d2 since there is no need for d3 . Putting
i 2 1; 2 such that di D maxd1 ; d2 and letting j be such that i; j D 1; 2, the
analog of inequality (8.7) is p
dj 3m:
Since ` s 2, when s D 6; 10; 14, the analog of inequality (8.20) in this case is
p
m p log.4m/ p .s 2/ log.2 /
m 2 < C 3m 2 C s C C 7.s 2/ 2m C ; (8.23)
2 log log
120 Takao Komatsu, Florian Luca, and Yohei Tachiya
giving for s D 6; 10, and 14 that m is bounded by 8000; 27000, and 60000; respec-
tively. Thus, the inequality m < 500s 2 holds also for s D 6; 10; 14.
Finally, for s D 8; 12; 16, we use the analog of inequality (8.20) with the value
` s 4, yielding
p
m 4=3 2=3 log.4m/ p .s 4/ log.2 /
m2 < C3 m 2CsC C7.s4/ 2mC ; (8.24)
2 log log
which at s D 8; 12, and 16 gives that m is bounded by 16000; 45000, and 88000,
respectively, so the inequality m < 500s 2 holds in these last three cases as well.
This completes the proof of the theorem.
Fnx C FnC1
x
D Fm
has no positive integer solutions with n 2 and x 3. The method there was based
on linear forms in logarithms. Since for any potential solution of the above equation
it is easy to check that FnC1 =Fn is an invertible element modulo Fm which is not of
order 1; 2; or 4 but whose order divides 2x, we get right away from Theorem 8.1 that
m < 2000x 2 . Next, by Equation (8.4), we get
2 1
nx FnC1
x
< Fnx C FnC1
x
D Fm < m1 < 2000x ;
and we derive that n < 2000x. However, we could not find an elementary upper
bound on x out of this equation (without appealing to linear forms in logarithms). We
conclude by mentioning that all the solutions of the more general Diophantine equation
y
Fnx C FnC1
x D Fm in positive integers .n; m; x; y/ were found in [2].
References
[1] R. D. Carmichael, On the numerical factors of the arithmetic forms n n , Ann. Math.
(2) 15 (1913), 3070.
[2] N. Hirata-Kohno and F. Luca, On the Diophantine equation Fnx C FnC1x
D Fmy , preprint,
2012.
[3] F. Luca and R. Oyono, On the sum of powers of two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, Proc.
Japan Acad. Ser. A. 87 (2011), 4550.
Author information
Takao Komatsu, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Hirosaki University, Hirosaki,
Japan.
Email: komatsu@cc.hirosaki-u.ac.jp
Yohei Tachiya, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Hirosaki University, Hirosaki,
Japan.
Email: tachiya@cc.hirosaki-u.ac.jp
Combinatorial Number Theory, 123136 De Gruyter 2013
Chapter 9
Abstract. PARTIZAN EUCLID is a game based on the Euclidean algorithm. The outcome of any
position .p; q/ is determined by a single path of the game tree; this path has connections to the
furthest integer continued fraction of p=q. We convert the question of Who wins? to a word
problem, then give a list of reductions that reduces the word/position to one of 9 positions.
Keywords. Combinatorial Games, Partizan Euclid.
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010. 91A46.
9.1 Introduction
Suggested by Euclid [3] and Richard K. Guy, the game of PARTIZAN EUCLID is
played by two players, Left and Right, and starts with a pair of positive integers .p; q/
with p > q. Let p D kq C t where 0 t < q. If q j p (i.e., t D 0), then the game
is over; otherwise, Left moves to .q; t / and Right moves to .q; q t /. The game may
seem trivial as there is only one move available for each player. However, as we shall
show, answering the question Who wins? reveals some of the interesting structure
of the game. We would like to answer the question of who wins in the disjunctive sum
of this game, but this appears to be difficult. See the last section for a discussion of
that problem.
In the (impartial) game EUCLID, which is also played with .p; q/, a pair of positive
integers, a player is allowed to remove any multiple of the smaller from the larger
provided the remainder is positive. Lengyel [7] reports that Schwartz first found that
EUCLID is the sequential sum [10] of nim-heaps: given .p; q/, suppose the normal
continued fraction of pq is a1 ; a2 ; : : : ; an (an > 1, except if Fibonacci numbers are
involved); then the EUCLID position .p; q/ corresponds to playing the sequential sum
of NIM with nim-heaps a1 ; a2 ; : : : ; an . EUCLID has attracted much attention and has
been generalized (see, e.g., [4, 5]). PARTIZAN EUCLID is related to nearest and farthest
integer continued fractions (NICF and FICF) (see [8]).
In the case of both NICFs and FICFs we write rational numbers as a sum or differ-
ence of an integer and a rational less than 1. For example, the FICF for 11 8 is obtained
by rewriting, noting that
11 1 11
8 D2 8=5
, since 2 is further away from 8 than 1;
124 Neil A. McKay and Richard J. Nowakowski
8 1
5 D1C 5=3
, since 1 is further away than 2;
5 1
3 D1C 3=2
, since 1 is further away than 2;
3 1 1
2 D2 2=1
D1C 2=1
, since 1 and 2 are equally distant.
We are not interested in the continued fraction itself but in noting that during the cal-
culation (i) integer subtract fraction corresponds to a move by Right and (ii) fraction
subtract integer corresponds to a Left move. We will use the word rl le to represent
this where e is the common move to .2; 1/. Section 9.2 reports on the structure of the
game tree and shows there is one path, the path obtained from the FICF algorithm, that
determines the whole game tree.
For example, in Figure 9.1 the path formed by the moves (edges)
Right Left Left
.11; 8/ ! .8; 5/ ! .5; 3/ ! .3; 2/
is the important path. Why is it important? Nontrivial parts of the tree that are not on
that path are isomorphic to parts rooted on the path; .8; 3/0 is isomorphic to .5; 3/0 ,
.5; 2/0 is isomorphic to .3; 2/, and .3; 1/ is isomorphic to .2; 1/. All the infor-
mation needed to determine the outcome and value of .11; 8/ is found on this path.
A game tree (position) is represented as a word from the alphabet r; l ending in e.
In Lemma 9.13, we find reduction rules that preserve the outcome class of the word,
moreover, any word reduces to one of just 9 words each with length at most 4. This can
be accomplished in time linear in the length of the corresponding FICF. Unfortunately,
these reductions most of the time do not preserve the value.
We will denote a game position as E.p; q/. Also, we will use p%q for p mod q.
We try to present a sufficient amount of game theory to make the paper self-con-
tained (with the exception of the last two sections). For terms not defined in the pa-
per we follow [1]. A position, say h, is defined in terms of its options as follows:
h D hL jhR . For example, where t D p%q, E.p; q/ D E.q; t /jE.q; q t /. The
outcome of a position is Left, Right, Next or Previous depending on (under perfect
play), respectively, whether Left can win going first and second, Right can win going
first and second, the next player to move wins regardless if this Left or Right, the next
player cannot win regardless if this Left or Right. We phrase this more formally.
A position E.p; q/ will be called standard if q < p < 2q. All positions E.p; q/
with q > 2 are equivalent to some standard position (which is reachable with repeated
applications of Lemma 9.3). Notably E.2; 1/ is not standard, and positions of the form
E.k; 1/ are neither standard nor equivalent to some standard position. A follower of
a standard position may not be standard. For example, E.3; 2/ has only one proper
follower, E.2; 1/, which is not standard.
Lemma 9.4. Let g D E.p; q/ and t D p%q. If t 6D 0 then g has exactly one standard
option except when q D 2t (i.e. E.3; 2/). Moreover;
if 2t > q, then exactly g L is standard;
if 0 < 2t < q; then exactly gR is standard.
Corollary 9.7. Let p > q with p D kq C t , 0 < t < q and let g D E.p; q/:
if 2t > q; then g D g L jgLL ;
if 2t < q; then g D g RL jgR .
We note the similarity of Lemma 9.4 and Corollary 9.7. In Corollary 9.7, the two
options are the standard option and its left option. The case 2t > q is when the lower
integer is the farthest integer when calculating the FICF and 2t < q is when the
higher integer is the farthest.
This motivates our next definition, the signature of a position, in which we high-
light the important option at each stage. Recall that when we refer to E.p; q/ we are
assuming that gcd.p; q/ D 1.
Definition 9.8. Let g D E.p; q/. The signature of g, denoted Sg , is defined as fol-
lows. If q D 1 then Sg D , the empty word. If q D 2 then Sg D e. Otherwise, let h
be the standard option from g. If gL D h then Sg D lSh . If gR D h then Sg D rSh .
The position g and the standard positions that are successively the standard option
(as per Lemma 9.4) starting from g are the spine of g.
For example, if g D E.12; 7/ then the signature of g is lrle and the spine of g
is E.12; 7/; E.7; 5/; E.5; 3/; E.3; 2/. Often, we will write the signature with super-
scripts; for example, S D l l lrrl l lre is the same as S D l 3 r 2 l 3 e.
If two positions have the same signature then they have the same game tree. We
use signatures liberally to represent positions. Furthermore, we use f to denote the
position g where Sg D Sf .
The position E.3; 2/ is the unique standard position with signature e. This position
is at the bottom of every spine for every position other than E.k; 1/ and E.2k C 1; 2/
for k 2.
Theorem 9.9. Let g be a PARTIZAN EUCLID position. Every follower of g not of the
form E.k; 1/ is equivalent to some position on the spine of g.
Proof. A position is on its spine, so we only need consider proper followers. If the
length of the signature is 0 then there are no proper followers. If the length of the sig-
nature is 1; then Sg D e and g D E.3; 2/; where the only proper follower is E.2; 1/.
We proceed by induction on the length of signature. If the length of the signature is
at least 2, then the standard option is on the spine; the nonstandard option is (by The-
orem 9.6) either gL D g RL or g R D gLL , which is the left option of the standard
128 Neil A. McKay and Richard J. Nowakowski
option and is by induction on the spine of the standard option or of the form E.k; 1/. As
the spine of the standard option is part of the spine of g, this completes the proof.
Corollary 9.10. Consider the position g, and let k represent an unfixed nonnegative
integer.
We can write Sg as either r k le or r k e; Lefts move has signature e or , respec-
tively.
We can also write Sg as either re, lr k le, or lr k e; Rights move has signature
e, e, or , respectively.
In the examples below, we repeatedly use Theorem 9.6, but using Corollary 9.10
one can easily jump from the leftmost term in a line of equalities to the rightmost. Let
g D l lrle then
e D e L je R D j;
le D le L jle R D ejle LL D eje L D ej;
rle D rle L jrle R D rle RL jle D le L jle D ejle;
lrle D lrle L jlrle R D rlejlrle LL D rlejrle L D rlejrle RL
D le L je D rleje;
l lrle D l lrle L jl lrle R D lrlejl lrle LL D lrlejlrle L D lrlejrle:
The paired outcome of a position g (or signature Sg ) is the pair .o.g L /; o.g//, denoted
by po.g/ or po.Sg /. For example, if Sg D e, then po.g/ D po.e/ D .P ; N /. Note
that po./ is not defined.
The paired outcome of a position depends upon which option is standard and the
paired outcome of that option.
Lemma 9.11. If Sg D lSh then po.g/ D .o.h/; o.h/jo.hL //. If Sg D rSh then
po.g/ D .o.hL /; o.hL /jo.h//.
That is, the paired outcome of a position with a standard option is determined by the
paired outcome of the standard option. We use l and r to denote functions on paired
outcomes; we write l po.Sg / to mean po.l Sg / and r po.Sg / to mean po.r Sg /.
There are 4 4 D 16 ordered pairs of outcome classes. However, as stated in
Lemma 9.1, there are relationships between the outcome of a position and the outcome
of its options; there are only eight ordered pairs that are paired outcomes of positions.
Figure 9.2 has a vertex for each of the eight paired outcomes. The directed edges
labelled l and r from a paired outcome, say x, lead to l x and r x, respectively.
The outcome of a position is given by the paired outcome of the signature. Provided
we know the paired outcome of some suffix of the signature, we can find the paired
outcome of the next larger suffix using Figure 9.2 and eventually the desired paired
outcome. As e is the suffix of every nonempty signature, we only need to know that
po.e/ D po.E.3; 2// D .P ; N / is where we start and to read the signature from the
right starting after e.
We have now described a relatively efficient method to determine the outcome of a
position given its signature, but we give a better way to determine the outcome than a
walk through the graph for each letter in the signature.
Just as l and r are functions on paired outcomes, we use words (denoted by Greek
letters) from l; r such as D lrr as functions on paired outcomes in the natural
way where x D l r r x. For any such , po.Sh / D po.Sh /.
We give reduction rules by which we can simplify a word (signature) that preserves
outcome, in the sense that if two positions have the same reduced signature then they
have the same outcome. The main goal of this section is to prove Theorem 9.15, in
which we give a short list of words to which any signature will reduce.
Proof. In this proof we make extensive use of Figure 9.2. The most common use is to
find a vertex with the desired paired outcome then look up the paired outcomes reached
by the directed edges. For the first four rules, we need to show that these equation holds
for all paired outcomes x.
Rule 1: we apply l to each x three times to observe that we return to the x with
which we started.
Rule 2: following two edges marked r and, regardless, the second edge is a loop.
Rule 3: following three edges marked r, l and r results in .L; L/ or .R; R/ so the
first part of the signature it is irrelevant.
Rule 4: following the walk with edges marked rl lrl lr either (i) goes once around
the 6-cycle in Figure 9.2 ending at the starting vertex; (ii) or if the starting vertex is
.L; L/ or .R; R/ then remains at .L; L/ or .R; R/ respectively; (iii) starts at .L; N /
or .R; P / then the first r-edge goes to .L; L/, .R; R/ respectively. In all cases the
effect of following the last r edge in the walk is the same as following the first.
Rule 5: obvious from the figure.
Rule 6: from .P ; N / the walk l, l, r ends at .R; R/ and any further edges do not
change the paired outcome.
Rule 7: obvious from the figure.
Sg o.g/ g
P E.2; 1/
e N E.3; 2/
re L E.4; 3/
le R E.5; 3/
l le P E.8; 5/
lre N E.7; 4/
rlre L E.10; 7/
rl le R E.11; 8/
l lre P E.11; 7/
Theorem 9.15. There are nine irreducible words: , e, re, le, l le, lre, rlre, l lre,
and rl le.
Proof of Theorem 9.15. The irreducible words that do not end in e are easy to list and
count with the help of Lemma 9.16; such words have at most 3 rs. In what follows,
and are one of either , l, or l l.
Words with 3 rs are of the form rlrl lr, of which there are 3.
Words with 2 rs are of the form rl lr or rlr, of which there are 12.
Words with 1 r are of the form r, of which there are 9.
Words with no r are of the form , of which there are 3.
There are a total of 27 such words. The only irreducible signatures are among the
set containing these strings but with a trailing e appended, and the empty word.
We show that 19 of the 27 strings reduce to the remaining 8: e, le, l le, re, lre,
l lre, rl le and rlre.
132 Neil A. McKay and Richard J. Nowakowski
9.3.1 Algorithm
We present an algorithm that efficiently determines the outcome of a PARTIZAN EUCLID
position.
Step 0. Let S be the signature of E.p; q/. Let S 0 be the empty string.
Step 1. If S is nonempty, remove the first letter of S and add it to the end of S 0 ; go to
Step 2. Otherwise, go to Step 3.
Step 2. If you added l to S 0 , use Rule 1 on the suffix of S 0 if applicable. Go to
Step 1.
If you added r to S 0 , use Rule 2, 3, or 4 on the suffix of S 0 if applicable;
at most one will apply. Go to Step 1.
If you added e to S 0 , use Rule 5, 6, or 7 on the suffix of S 0 if applicable,
at most one will apply. If you applied Rule 5 or 7, then use Rule 1 if
applicable. Go to Step 3.
Step 3. The outcome of E.p; q/ is the outcome of S 0 given in Table 9.1.
Reductions occur at the end of the word and the application of a reduction does
not cause another reduction, except possibly in Step 2: part 3, with an l l l reduction.
As such, Step 2 finishes in constant time (as do Steps 1 and 3). Step 1 takes about as
long as the Euclidean algorithm. Steps 1 and 2 have to be performed at most p times;
Steps 0 and 3 are each performed once.
By Lemma 9.16, S 0 reaches a length of at most 8, as demonstrated by l lrl lrl l.
That is, if at any point the length of S 0 is 9, then it will be irreducible in the next step.
In the algorithm as given above, S is computed in full at the beginning, for ease of
description. However, we can easily modify our algorithm to be an on-line algorithm
by computing the next letter of S as we need it to add to S 0 . In that case, to run the
algorithm we store at most 3 integers no larger than p and a string of length at most 9.
Chapter 9 Outcomes of Partizan Euclid 133
All signatures in Table 9.1 starting with r are in L or R. The reductions (from
Lemma 9.13) change signatures starting with r to shorter signatures starting with r or
to le, which is in R.
If o.g/ 2 N ; P , then Sg is (in which case g is not standard), e (in which case
2p
3 D q), or starts with l. As g is standard, if t D p%q, then t D p q and q > p2 .
For the signature to start with l, we need 2t > q, which is 2.p q/ > q or 2p 3 > q;
combining this with q > p2 gives the result.
Lemma 9.13 can be restated in terms of positions in the game.
For (1). Let E.a Cb; a/ D e and consider E.5a C3b; 3a C2b/. First suppose a >
b; the consecutive left options E.3aC2b; 2aCb/, E.2aCb; aCb/, and E.aCb; a/ are
standard and are on the spine so E.5a C 3b; 3a C 2b/ D l l le. By Rule 1, o.E.5a C
3b; 3a C 2b// D o.E.a C b; a//. Now suppose a < b; from E.5a C 3b; 3a C 2b/,
both E.3a C 2b; 2a C b/, E.2a C b; a C b/ are still on the spine, and now E.a C b; b/
is, too. Since E.a C b; a/ D P , then by Theorem 9.6 o.E.a C b; b/L / D P , and thus
o.E.2aCb; aCb// D L. Now o.E.3aC2b; 2aCb/L / D o.E.2aCb; aCb// D L,
and again by Theorem 9.6 o.E.3a C 2b; 2a C b/R / D o.E.a C b; a// D P , thus
o.E.3aC2b; 2aCb// D N . Finally, o.E.5aC3b; 3aC2b/L / D o.E.3aC2b; 2aC
b// D N , and again by Theorem 9.6, o.E.5a C 3b; 3a C 2b/R / D o.E.2a C b; a C
b// D L, and thus o.E.5a C 3b; 3a C 2b// D P .
For (2): Since a > 2b then E.2a C b; a C b/ D lre, where the left option is
E.a C b; a/ and its right option is E.a; a b/, they are both standard and on the
spine. The left option of E.2a C 3b; a C 2b/ is E.a C 2b; a C b/ and its right option is
E.a C b; a/; again both on the spine. Thus E.2a C 3b; a C 2b/ D lrre. Therefore,
from Lemma 9.13, o.E.2a C 3b; a C 2b// D o.E.2a C b; a C b//.
134 Neil A. McKay and Richard J. Nowakowski
For some families of positions (signatures) we can give the value easily. Obser-
vations 9.21 and 9.22 happen to correspond to the extreme cases of the Euclidean
algorithm.
Observation 9.21. Positions of the form E.k C 1; k/ have value C .k 2/" for
k 2.
It seems unlikely that we would find a heuristic method to play a sum; we expect
a solution would require first computing the values of the summands and a method to
play on a sum of such values (see [1] for more on values). Values are harder to calculate
and there are few easy reductions of the signature that allow short cuts. However, we
present a general rule that we have found.
Note from Corollary 9.10 that a Left move from a position whose signature has
at least one l in it removes exactly one l, and a Right move from a position whose
signature has at least two ls in it removes exactly one r or exactly two ls.
Observation 9.23. Let two positions g and h have signatures lr a le and lr b le;
respectively. If r a le D r b le and e D e; then g D h.
q D 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
p D 10 6j2 3=2 2 0 1 0 2 0 0 0
11 7j2 0 3 0 4 3 0 4 0
12 8j2 2j2 1 0 3 1 1 0
13 9j2 0 2 3 0 5 4
14 10j2 3j2 3 0 0 2
15 11j2 0 3=2 0 0
Canonical forms become messy with even small values of p and q. Atomic weights
(see [1]) are an approximation to the value of a position. The atomic weights of Ta-
ble 9.2 were generated by CGSuite [9]. (In version 1.0 of CGSuite, PARTIZAN EUCLID
is used as an example, and tables of both canonical forms and atomic weights can be
easily generated.)
Figure 9.3. Graph showing mean atomic weights of positions against ratio of p to q.
136 Neil A. McKay and Richard J. Nowakowski
The mean values of atomic weights show some regularity on a large scale; see Fig-
ure 9.3, where the figure is cut off above 25, removing the points corresponding to
E.k C 1; k/ for k > 27.
In addition to the variation of the means of atomic weights of positions there is great
complexity among the atomic weights, which include positions such as 6j9 12 , z3 ,
8*, and 7jj6j5.
Question 9.25. Is there an efficient way to determine the atomic weight of a position
from its signature?
Acknowledgments. The authors wish to thank the NSERC for financial support.
References
[1] M. H. Albert, R. J. Nowakowski, and D. Wolfe, Lessons in Play, A. K. Peters, Ltd.,
Nattick, MA., 2007.
[2] E. R. Berlekamp, J. H. Conway, and R. K. Guy, Winning ways for your mathematical
plays, vol. 1, A. K. Peters, Ltd., 2001.
[3] A. J. Cole and A. J. T. Davie, A game based on the Euclidean algorithm and a winning
strategy for it, Math. Gaz. 53 (1969), 354357.
[4] D. Collins, Variations on a theme of Euclid, Integers, 5 (2005), #G3.
[5] D. Collins and T. Lengyel, The game of 3-Euclid, Discrete Mathematics 308 (2008),
11301136.
[6] J. H. Conway, On Numbers and Games, 2nd edn., A. K. Peters, Ltd., 2001.
[7] T. Lengyel, A Nim-type game and continued fractions, Fibonacci Quart. 41 (2003), 310
320.
[8] O. Perron, Die Lehre von den Kettenbrchen, B.G. Teubner, Leipzig and Berlin, 1913.
[9] A. N. Siegel, Combinatorial Game Suite, http://cgsuite.sourceforge.net/, 2000, A soft-
ware tool for investigating games, last accessed 6/2013.
[10] W. Stromquist and D. Ullman, Sequential compounds of combinatorial games, Theoret.
Comput. Sci. 119 (1993), 311321.
Author information
Neil A. McKay, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Dalhousie University, Halifax,
Nova Scotia, Canada.
Email: nmckay@mathstat.dal.ca
Chapter 10
Abstract. It is shown that statistics on the wreath product groups, Ck oSn , can be interpreted in
terms of natural statistics on lecture hall partitions. Lecture hall theory is applied to prove dis-
tribution results for statistics on Ck o Sn . Finally, some new statistics on Ck o Sn are introduced,
inspired by lecture hall theory, and their distributions are derived.
Keywords. Partitions, Lecture Hall, Wreath Product Group.
Mathematics Subject Classification 2010. 05A17, 52B11.
10.1 Introduction
The purpose of this note is to show that statistics on the wreath product Ck o Sn of a
cyclic group Ck , of order k, and the symmetric group Sn , can be interpreted in terms
of natural statistics on lecture hall partitions. We demonstrate that lecture hall theory
can be used to prove results about the distribution of statistics on Ck oSn . We introduce
some new statistics on Ck oSn , inspired by lecture hall partitions, including a quadratic
version of flag-major index, and prove distribution results for these statistics.
This chapter is organized as follows. In Section 10.2, we define the s-lecture hall par-
titions and state a few useful results. Section 10.3 is devoted to statistics of interest on
the wreath product groups and a very brief discussion of what is known. Section 10.4
introduces s-inversion sequences, which will be used to relate statistics on Ck o Sn to
statistics on lecture hall partitions.
Section 10.5 describes a bijection between .k; 2k; : : : ; nk/-inversion sequences and
Ck o Sn that allows statistics to be translated from one domain to another.
Section 10.6 reviews recent work of Savage and Schuster [13] relating inversion
sequences to lecture hall partitions. This work was developed with the intention of
extending work on permutation statistics to a more general setting.
Section 10.7 is the heart of the chapter. We prove there a theorem which allows us
to apply the tools of Section 10.6 to Ck o Sn . This contains our main results relating
statistics such as descent, flag-major index and flag-inversion number to statistics on
lecture hall partitions, also proving an EulerMahonian distribution result.
138 Thomas W. Pensyl and Carla D. Savage
In Section 10.8 we define a new statistic lhall on Ck oSn and derive its surprisingly
nice distribution.
In Section 10.9, we are led to define a distorted version of the descent statistic on
Ck o Sn , that reveals an even closer connection to lecture hall partitions.
A few words about notation: Z is the set of integers, R the set of real numbers, Sn
the set of permutations of n elements; j D 1; 2; : : : ; j , where 0 D ;; n q D
.1 q n /=.1 q/; and for x D .x1 ; x2 ; : : : ; xn /, jxj D x1 C x2 C C xn .
For a sequence s D si i1 of positive integers, the s-lecture hall partitions are the
elements of the set
.s/ n 1 2 n
Ln D 2 Z 0 :
s1 s2 sn
.1;2;3;4/
For example, .0; 1; 3; 4/ 2 Ln , but .0; 1; 3; 4/ 62 L.1;3;5;7/
n , since 3=5 > 4=7.
.1;2;:::;n/
The original lecture hall partitions Ln D Ln were introduced by Bousquet-
Mlou and Eriksson in [3], where they showed that
X Y
n
1
y jj D : (10.1)
1 y 2i1
2Ln iD1
In [4] they proved the following refinement, which will be useful in the present work.
Theorem 10.1 (Refined lecture hall theorem [4]). For any nonnegative integer n,
X Y
n
1 C qy i
jdej jj
q y D ; (10.2)
1 q 2 y nCi
2Ln iD1
If the largest part in a lecture hall partition in Ln is constrained, we have the follow-
ing:
and X
q d1 =1eCd2 =2eCd3 =3e D 1 C 3q C 3q 2 C q 3 D 2 3q :
2L3 I 3 3
10.3 Statistics on Ck o Sn
An element 2 Sn is a bijection W n ! n , and we write D .1 ; : : : ; n /,
to mean that .i / D i . A descent in 2 Sn is a position i 2 n 1 such that
i > iC1 . The set of all descents of is Des and des D jDes j. The inversion
number of is
inv D .i; j / j 1 i < j n and i > j :
des D jDes j
X
comaj D .n i /
i2Des
X
n
fmaj D k comaj i
iD1
X
n
finv D inv C i i :
iD1
Relations of the form (10.6), for general k, have been found only recently, starting with
Chow and Mansour [7] and Hyatt [10], sometimes with slightly different definitions
of Des or fmaj . Our intention here is to highlight our methods, which are quite novel,
and which allow us to prove new results like Equation (10.7).
The familiar inversion sequences associated with permutations are the elements of
.s/
In for s D .1; 2; : : : ; n/.
Chapter 10 Lecture Hall Partitions and the Wreath Products Ck o Sn 141
.3;6;9;12;15/
For e D .1; 3; 2; 2; 13/ 2 I5 , we have asc e D 3, amaj e D 10, jej D 21,
and lhp e D 81.
In this chapter, our focus is the sequence s D .k; 2k; : : : ; nk/, where k is a positive
.k;2k;:::;nk/
integer. Let In;k D In . We will require two new statistics on In;k :
n
X
ej
N.e/ D ;
j
j D1
.3;6;9;12;15/
For e D .1; 3; 2; 2; 13/ 2 I5 , N.e/ D 4 and Ifmaj e D 26.
Lemma 10.3. For positive integer n, the mapping W Sn ! In;1 defined by ./ D
t D .t1 ; t2 ; : : : ; tn /, where
ti D j 2 i 1 j j > i
Theorem 10.4. For each pair of integers .n; k/ with n 1, k 1, there is a bijection
W Ck o Sn ! In;k
Clearly, . / 2 In;k . Since Ck o Sn and In;k have the same cardinality, to show that
is a bijection, it suffices to show that is onto. Let e D .e1 ; : : : ; en / 2 In;k . Define
D .1 ; : : : n / by i D bei =i c. Then 2 0; 1; : : : ; k 1n . Define t D .t1 ; : : : tn /
by ti D ei i i . Then t 2 In;1 . Finally, let D 1 .t / 2 Sn . Then 2 Ck o Sn
and 1 .e/ D .
To prove properties (10.8) through (10.12), observe first that tn D n n , so prop-
erty (10.11) holds. It is clear from the definition of that Equation (10.12) is true.
Chapter 10 Lecture Hall Partitions and the Wreath Products Ck o Sn 143
Also, note that bei =i c D i since 0 ti < i and property (10.9) holds. So property
(10.10) will follow once we prove Equation (10.8). By Lemma 10.3, since t D ./,
we know that Asc t D Des , so it remains to show Asc e D Des .
Note first that e1 D 1 C t1 D 1 , since t1 D 0. Thus,
If i 6D iC1 , then i 2 Des if and only if i < iC1 . But if i < iC1 , then
i i.i C 1/ i 2 C 1 D i C 1 > 0;
i i.i C 1/ C i 2 D i 0
P.s/
n is a convex, simplicial polytope with the n C 1 vertices:
A multivariate function, fn.s/ .t I q; y; z/, was used in [13] to enumerate lattice points in
.s/
t Pn according to statistics significant in the theory of lecture hall partitions:
X C
fn.s/ .t I q; y; z/ D q jdes j y jj z j ./ j ;
2tP.s/
n \Z
n
where
1 2 n
des D ; ;:::; ; (10.13)
s1 s2 sn
1 2 n
C ./ D s1 1 ; s2 2 ; : : : ; sn n : (10.14)
s1 s2 sn
The following theorems show the connection between statistics on s-inversion se-
quences and statistics on s-lecture hall partitions.
Theorem 10.5 ([13]). For any sequence s of positive integers, and any positive inte-
ger n,
P
X e2I.s/
x asc e q amaj e y lhp e z j e j
.s/ t
fn .t I q; y; z/ x D Qn n
ni y si C1 CCsn /
: (10.15)
t0 iD0 .1 xq
Theorem 10.6 ([13]). For any sequence s of positive integers, and any positive inte-
ger n,
P
X e2I.s/
x asc e q amaj e y lhp e z j e j
jdejs jj j C ./ j dn =sn e
q y z x D Qn1n : (10.16)
ni y si C1 CCsn /
.s/
2Ln iD0 .1 xq
Chapter 10 Lecture Hall Partitions and the Wreath Products Ck o Sn 145
Then,
P
X
t e2In;k x asc e q amaj e y lhp e z j e j w N.e/
fn;k .t I q; y; z; w/ x D Qn : (10.22)
t0 iD0 .1 xq ni y k.n.nC1/i.iC1//=2 /
146 Thomas W. Pensyl and Carla D. Savage
Proof. If w D 1, this is just the case s D .k; 2k; : : : ; nk/ of Theorem 10.5. To include
w, we appeal to the combinatorial proof of (10.15) in Theorem 10.5 which was pre-
sented in [13]. In that proof, 2 .t Pn;k \Zn / is associated with the inversion sequence
kC ./, which, by definition, is in In;k . It suffices to check that jk ./j D N.kC .//:
Xn
C i k di =.i k/e i
N.k .// D
i
iD1
Xn
D bk di =.i k/e i =i c
iD1
Xn
D .k di =.i k/e di =i e/
iD1
D jk dek de1 j D jk ./j:
P C
jde1 j y jj z j k ./j from Equation
Proof. For t > 0, let H.t / D 2ktPn;1 \ Zn q
(10.23), with H.0/ D 1. Then for t > 0, since
n n n
2 Ln I D t D 2 Ln I t 2 Ln I t 1
nk nk nk
D k t Pn;1 \ Zn k.t 1/Pn;1 \ Zn ;
we have
X C X X C
q jdej y jj z j k ./j x dn =.nk/e D xt q jdej y jj z j k ./j
l m
2Ln t0 n
2Ln I nk Dt
X
D1C .H.t / H.t 1//x t
t1
X X
D1C H.t /x t H.t 1/x t
t1 t1
X X
t
D H.t /x x H.t /x t
t0 t0
X
D .1 x/ H.t /x t :
t0
P
But t0 H.t /x t is the left-hand side of Equation (10.23), so we simply multiply the
right-hand side of Equation (10.23) by .1 x/ to complete the proof.
We can now apply these results to the wreath product groups. First, we have the
expected result that the pair .des ; fmaj / is EulerMahonian.
Reindex the product in the denominator and for the numerator, using the fact that by
Theorem 10.4, the distribution of .des ; fmaj / on Ck oSn is the same as the distribution
of .asc ; Ifmaj / on In;k .
In the left-hand side of equaqtion (10.25), the only dependence on k is in the exponent
of x, in a statistic involving only the last part of . We take this further in Section 10.9.
! !!
X nC1 i C1
D finv C k
2 2
i2Des e
D finv C kcobin
D lhall :
Y
dn=2e Y
bn=2c
D k.2i 1/ qy nC1i . 2 qy i ki q 2 y 2.ni /C1 /
iD1 iD1
So,
X Y
n Y
n
1 C qy i
lhall fmaj k.niC1/ k.n.nC1/i.iC1//=2
y q D .1q y / ;
1 q 2 y nCi
2Ck oSn iD1 iD1
which, after simplification, gives the theorem.
the same distribution as finv , Ifmaj , and jej, as expected. But the statistic lhall itself
also has a surprisingly simple distribution:
X Y
n
lhall
q D ki q 2.ni /C1 :
2Ck oSn iD1
Proof. Set q D 1 and y D q in the proof of the Theorem 10.12, but apply Equation
(10.1) instead of (10.2) to get
X Y
n
1 q k.iCCn/
q lhp e D
.1;2;:::;n/
1 q 2i1
e2In iD1
Y
bn=2c
1 q k.2i1/.niC1/ Y 1 q ki.2.ni/C1/
dn=2e
D
1 q 2i1 1 q 2.ni/C1
iD1 iD1
Y
n
D ki q 2.ni /C1 :
iD1
R.s/
n is a convex simplicial polytope, whose vertices are
s1 s2 sn s2 sn
.0; 0; : : : ; 0/ ; ; ;:::; ; 0; ; : : : ; ;
sn sn sn sn sn
s3 sn sn
0; 0; ; : : : ; ; : : : ; 0; 0; : : : ; 0; ;
sn sn sn
with rational (but not necessarily integer) coordinates. Let
X C
gn.s/ .t I q; y; z/ D q jdejk y jj z j k ./ j : (10.26)
2tR.s/
n \Z
n
The following theorems were proved in [11]. These are analogs of Theorems 10.5
and 10.6.
Chapter 10 Lecture Hall Partitions and the Wreath Products Ck o Sn 151
Theorem 10.14 ([11]). For any sequence s of positive integers, and positive integer n,
P
X e2I.s/
q amaj e y lhp e z j e j x sn asc een
.s/ t
gn .t I q; y; z/x D n
Q :
t0 .1 x/ n1 iD0 .1 x q
sn ni y si C1 CCsn /
Theorem 10.15 ([11]). For any sequence s of positive integers, and positive integer n,
P
X e2I.s/
q amaj e y lhp e z j e j x sn asc een
jdejs jj j sC ./ j n n
q y z x D Qn1 :
sn ni y si C1 CCsn /
.s/
2Ln iD0 .1 x q
We can specialize Theorems 10.14 and 10.15 to s D .k; 2k; : : : ; nk/ and modify
to track Ifmaj as in Theorem 10.7 and its corollaries. We should expect something
interesting because
R.1;2;:::;n/
n D R.2;4;:::;2n/
n D R.3;6;:::;3n/
n :
We get the following theorem, which is an analog of Theorem 10.7. The proof, which
is analog to that of Theorem 10.6, is omitted.
Then
P k nasc een q amaj e y lhp e z j e j w N.e/
X e2In;k x
t
gn;k .t I q; y; z; w/ x D Qn1 :
t0 .1 x/ iD0 .1 x k n q ni y k.n.nC1/i.iC1//=2 /
(10.28)
The following corollaries of Theorem 10.16 are analogs of Corollaries 10.8 and 10.9
with y D z D 1. Note that in the left-hand sides of the equations there is no depen-
dence on k.
Making use of Theorem 10.4 giving the correspondence between statistics on In;k
and on Ck o Sn , we have the following analogs of Theorems 10.10 and 10.11. First,
We need a result from [8].
Lemma 10.19 ([8]). For integers t 0 and n > 0, let j and i be the unique integers
satisfying t D j n C i , where j 0 and 0 i < n. Then,
X
q jdej D j C 1 ni
q j C 2 iq :
2tRn \Zn
X n1
X X
X n1 X
j C 1 ni
q j C 2 iq x nj Ci D q jdej x j nCi :
j 0 iD0 j 0 iD0 2.j nCi/Rn \ Zn
The Qn;k .x/ are referred to as inflated Eulerian polynomials in [11]. To contrast the
usual, Eulerian polynomials for Ck o Sn are
X
En;k .x/ D x des :
2Ck oSn
It is interesting that Qn;k .x/ is self-reciprocal, but in general En;k .x/ is not when
k > 2.
Acknowledgments. The second author would like to thank Matthias Beck, Benjamin
Braun, and Mattias Koeppe for discussions on Ehrhart theory and signed permutations.
Thanks also to the American Institute of Mathematics, where some of those discus-
sions were hosted. We are grateful to the referee for a careful reading of the manuscript
and for many helpful suggestions to improve the presentation.
154 Thomas W. Pensyl and Carla D. Savage
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Author information
Thomas W. Pensyl, Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University,
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.
Email: twpensyl@ncsu.edu
tractable, 92, 93, 98, 101, 103, 105, 106 Wythoffs game, 91, 92, 93, 101, 106,
Tsimerman, J., 6770 107
two-handed game, 2
Yap, H. P., 53
upper asymptotic density, 46
Vandehey, Joseph, 52 Z , 25
Zhao, Y., 7374
wreath product Ck o Sn , 137 zig-zag graph, 86