Monochromatic Solutions for Multi-Term Unknowns

Given integers \(k\ge 2\), \(n \ge 2\), \(m \ge 2\) and \( a_1,a_2,\ldots ,a_m \in {\mathbb {Z}}{\backslash }{\{0\}}\), and let \(f(z)= \sum _{j=0}^{n}c_jz^j\) be a polynomial of integer coefficients with \(c_n>0\) and \((\sum _{i=1}^ma_i)|f(z)\) for some integer z. For a k-coloring of \([N]=\{1,2,\ldots ,N\}\), we say that there is a monochromatic solution of the equation \(a_1x_1+a_2x_2+\cdots +a_mx_m=f(z)\) if there exist pairwise distinct \(x_1,x_2,\ldots ,x_m\in [N]\) all of the same color such that the equation holds for some \(z\in \mathbb {Z}\). Problems of this type are often referred to as Ramsey-type problems. In this paper, it is shown that if \(a_i>0\) for \(1\le i\le m\), then there exists an integer \(N_0=N(k,m,n)\) such that for \(N\ge N_0\), each k-coloring of [N] contains a monochromatic solution \(x_1,x_2,\ldots ,x_m\) of the equation \(a_1x_1+a_2x_2+ \cdots +a_mx_m= f(z)\). Moreover, if n is odd and there are \(a_i\) and \(a_j\) such that \(a_ia_j<0\) for some \(1 \le i\ne j\le m\), then the assertion holds similarly.     

On the Real Roots of $$\sigma $$-Polynomials

The \(\sigma \)-polynomial is given by \(\sigma (G,x) = \sum _{i=\chi (G)}^{n} a_{i}(G)\, x^{i}\), where \(a_{i}(G)\) is the number of partitions of the vertices of G into i nonempty independent sets. These polynomials are closely related to chromatic polynomials, as the chromatic polynomial of G is given by \(\sum _{i=\chi (G)}^{n} a_{i}(G)\, x(x-1) \ldots (x-(i-1))\). It is known that the closure of the real roots of chromatic polynomials is precisely \(\{0,~1\} \bigcup [32/27,\infty )\), with \((-\infty ,0)\), (0, 1) and (1, 32 / 27) being maximal zero-free intervals for roots of chromatic polynomials. We ask here whether such maximal zero-free intervals exist for \(\sigma \)-polynomials, and show that the only such interval is \([0,\infty )\)—that is, the closure of the real roots of \(\sigma \)-polynomials is \((-\infty ,0]\).     

Upper and lower fast Khintchine spectra in continued fractions

For an irrational number \(x\in [0,1)\), let \(x=[a_1(x), a_2(x),\ldots ]\) be its continued fraction expansion. Let \(\psi : \mathbb {N} \rightarrow \mathbb {N}\) be a function with \(\psi (n)/n\rightarrow \infty \) as \(n\rightarrow \infty \). The (upper, lower) fast Khintchine spectrum for \(\psi \) is defined as the Hausdorff dimension of the set of numbers \(x\in (0,1)\) for which the (upper, lower) limit of \(\frac{1}{\psi (n)}\sum _{j=1}^n\log a_j(x)\) is equal to 1. The fast Khintchine spectrum was determined by Fan, Liao, Wang, and Wu. We calculate the upper and lower fast Khintchine spectra. These three spectra can be different.     

One-sided invertibility of discrete operators and their applications

For \(p\in [1,\infty ]\), we establish criteria for the one-sided invertibility of binomial discrete difference operators \({{\mathcal {A}}}=aI-bV\) on the space \(l^p=l^p(\mathbb {Z})\), where \(a,b\in l^\infty \), I is the identity operator and the isometric shift operator V is given on functions \(f\in l^p\) by \((Vf)(n)=f(n+1)\) for all \(n\in \mathbb {Z}\). Applying these criteria, we obtain criteria for the one-sided invertibility of binomial functional operators \(A=aI-bU_\alpha \) on the Lebesgue space \(L^p(\mathbb {R}_+)\) for every \(p\in [1,\infty ]\), where \(a,b\in L^\infty (\mathbb {R}_+)\), \(\alpha \) is an orientation-preserving bi-Lipschitz homeomorphism of \([0,+\infty ]\) onto itself with only two fixed points 0 and \(\infty \), and \(U_\alpha \) is the isometric weighted shift operator on \(L^p(\mathbb {R}_+)\) given by \(U_\alpha f= (\alpha ^\prime )^{1/p}(f\circ \alpha )\). Applications of binomial discrete operators to interpolation theory are given.     

Lengths of words in transformation semigroups generated by digraphs

Given a simple digraph D on n vertices (with \(n\ge 2\)), there is a natural construction of a semigroup of transformations \(\langle D\rangle \). For any edge (a, b) of D, let \(a\rightarrow b\) be the idempotent of rank \(n-1\) mapping a to b and fixing all vertices other than a; then, define \(\langle D\rangle \) to be the semigroup generated by \(a \rightarrow b\) for all \((a,b) \in E(D)\). For \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \), let \(\ell (D,\alpha )\) be the minimal length of a word in E(D) expressing \(\alpha \). It is well known that the semigroup \(\mathrm {Sing}_n\) of all transformations of rank at most \(n-1\) is generated by its idempotents of rank \(n-1\). When \(D=K_n\) is the complete undirected graph, Howie and Iwahori, independently, obtained a formula to calculate \(\ell (K_n,\alpha )\), for any \(\alpha \in \langle K_n\rangle = \mathrm {Sing}_n\); however, no analogous non-trivial results are known when \(D \ne K_n\). In this paper, we characterise all simple digraphs D such that either \(\ell (D,\alpha )\) is equal to Howie–Iwahori’s formula for all \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \), or \(\ell (D,\alpha ) = n - \mathrm {fix}(\alpha )\) for all \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \), or \(\ell (D,\alpha ) = n - \mathrm {rk}(\alpha )\) for all \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \). We also obtain bounds for \(\ell (D,\alpha )\) when D is an acyclic digraph or a strong tournament (the latter case corresponds to a smallest generating set of idempotents of rank \(n-1\) of \(\mathrm {Sing}_n\)). We finish the paper with a list of conjectures and open problems.     

On the eigenvalues and spectral radius of starlike trees

Let \(k\ge 1\) and \(n_1,\ldots ,n_k\ge 1\) be some integers. Let \(S(n_1,\ldots ,n_k)\) be a tree T such that T has a vertex v of degree k and \(T{\setminus } v\) is the disjoint union of the paths \(P_{n_1},\ldots ,P_{n_k}\), that is \(T{\setminus } v\cong P_{n_1}\cup \cdots \cup P_{n_k}\) so that every neighbor of v in T has degree one or two. The tree \(S(n_1,\ldots ,n_k)\) is called starlike tree, a tree with exactly one vertex of degree greater than two, if \(k\ge 3\). In this paper we obtain the eigenvalues of starlike trees. We find some bounds for the largest eigenvalue (for the spectral radius) of starlike trees. In particular we prove that if \(k\ge 4\) and \(n_1,\ldots ,n_k\ge 2\), then \(\frac{k-1}{\sqrt{k-2}}<\lambda _1(S(n_1,\ldots ,n_k))<\frac{k}{\sqrt{k-1}}\), where \(\lambda _1(T)\) is the largest eigenvalue of T. Finally we characterize all starlike trees that all of whose eigenvalues are in the interval \((-2,2)\).     

Space–Time Fractional Equations and the Related Stable Processes at Random Time

In this paper, we consider the general space–time fractional equation of the form \(\sum _{j=1}^m \lambda _j \frac{\partial ^{\nu _j}}{\partial t^{\nu _j}} w(x_1, \ldots , x_n ; t) = -c^2 \left( -\varDelta \right) ^\beta w(x_1, \ldots , x_n ; t)\), for \(\nu _j \in \left( 0,1 \right] \) and \(\beta \in \left( 0,1 \right] \) with initial condition \(w(x_1, \ldots , x_n ; 0)= \prod _{j=1}^n \delta (x_j)\). We show that the solution of the Cauchy problem above coincides with the probability density of the n-dimensional vector process \(\varvec{S}_n^{2\beta } \left( c^2 \mathcal {L}^{\nu _1, \ldots , \nu _m} (t) \right) \), \(t>0\), where \(\varvec{S}_n^{2\beta }\) is an isotropic stable process independent from \(\mathcal {L}^{\nu _1, \ldots , \nu _m}(t)\), which is the inverse of \(\mathcal {H}^{\nu _1, \ldots , \nu _m} (t) = \sum _{j=1}^m \lambda _j^{1/\nu _j} H^{\nu _j} (t)\), \(t>0\), with \(H^{\nu _j}(t)\) independent, positively skewed stable random variables of order \(\nu _j\). The problem considered includes the fractional telegraph equation as a special case as well as the governing equation of stable processes. The composition \(\varvec{S}_n^{2\beta } \left( c^2 \mathcal {L}^{\nu _1, \ldots , \nu _m} (t) \right) \), \(t>0\), supplies a probabilistic representation for the solutions of the fractional equations above and coincides for \(\beta = 1\) with the n-dimensional Brownian motion at the random time \(\mathcal {L}^{\nu _1, \ldots , \nu _m} (t)\), \(t>0\). The iterated process \(\mathfrak {L}^{\nu _1, \ldots , \nu _m}_r (t)\), \(t>0\), inverse to \(\mathfrak {H}^{\nu _1, \ldots , \nu _m}_r (t) =\sum _{j=1}^m \lambda _j^{1/\nu _j} \, _1H^{\nu _j} \left( \, _2H^{\nu _j} \left( \, _3H^{\nu _j} \left( \ldots \, _{r}H^{\nu _j} (t) \ldots \right) \right) \right) \), \(t>0\), permits us to construct the process \(\varvec{S}_n^{2\beta } \left( c^2 \mathfrak {L}^{\nu _1, \ldots , \nu _m}_r (t) \right) \), \(t>0\), the density of which solves a space-fractional equation of the form of the generalized fractional telegraph equation. For \(r \rightarrow \infty \) and \(\beta = 1\), we obtain a probability density, independent from t, which represents the multidimensional generalization of the Gauss–Laplace law and solves the equation \(\sum _{j=1}^m \lambda _j w(x_1, \ldots , x_n) = c^2 \sum _{j=1}^n \frac{\partial ^2}{\partial x_j^2} w(x_1, \ldots , x_n)\). Our analysis represents a general framework of the interplay between fractional differential equations and composition of processes of which the iterated Brownian motion is a very particular case.     

The Gray image of constacyclic codes over the finite chain ring $$F_{p^m}[u]/\langle u^k\rangle $$

Let \(\mathbb {F}_{p^m}\) be a finite field of cardinality \(p^m\), where p is a prime, and k, N be any positive integers. We denote \(R_k=F_{p^m}[u]/\langle u^k\rangle =F_{p^m}+uF_{p^m}+\cdots +u^{k-1}F_{p^m}\) (\(u^k=0\)) and \(\lambda =a_0+a_1u+\cdots +a_{k-1}u^{k-1}\) where \(a_0, a_1,\ldots , a_{k-1}\in F_{p^m}\) satisfying \(a_0\ne 0\) and \(a_1=1\). Let r be a positive integer satisfying \(p^{r-1}+1\le k\le p^r\). First we define a Gray map from \(R_k\) to \(F_{p^m}^{p^r}\), then prove that the Gray image of any linear \(\lambda \)-constacyclic code over \(R_k\) of length N is a distance preserving linear \(a_0^{p^r}\)-constacyclic code over \(F_{p^m}\) of length \(p^rN\). Furthermore, the generator polynomials for each linear \(\lambda \)-constacyclic code over \(R_k\) of length N and its Gray image are given respectively. Finally, some optimal constacyclic codes over \(F_{3}\) and \(F_{5}\) are constructed.     

On the restricted partition function

For a vector \(\mathbf a = (a_1,\ldots ,a_r)\) of positive integers, we prove formulas for the restricted partition function \(p_{\mathbf a}(n): = \) the number of integer solutions \((x_1,\dots ,x_r)\) to \(\sum _{j=1}^r a_jx_j=n\) with \(x_1\ge 0, \ldots , x_r\ge 0\) and its polynomial part.     

Generating Hyperbolic Singularities in Semitoric Systems Via Hopf Bifurcations

Let \((M,\Omega )\) be a connected symplectic 4-manifold and let \(F=(J,H) :M\rightarrow \mathbb {R}^2\) be a completely integrable system on M with only non-degenerate singularities. Assume that F does not have singularities with hyperbolic blocks and that \(p_1,\ldots ,p_n\) are the focus–focus singularities of F. For each subset \(S=\{i_1,\ldots ,i_j\}\), we will show how to modify F locally around any \(p_i, i \in S\), in order to create a new integrable system \(\widetilde{F}=(J, \widetilde{H}) :M \rightarrow \mathbb {R}^2\) such that its classical spectrum \(\widetilde{F}(M)\) contains j smooth curves of singular values corresponding to non-degenerate transversally hyperbolic singularities of \(\widetilde{F}\). Moreover the focus–focus singularities of \(\widetilde{F}\) are precisely \(p_i\), \(i \in \{1,\ldots ,n\} \setminus S\). The proof is based on Eliasson’s linearization theorem for non-degenerate singularities, and properties of the Hamiltonian Hopf bifurcation.     

On $$(\ell,m)$$-regular partitions with distinct parts

Let \(a_{\ell ,m}(n)\) denote the number of \((\ell ,m)\)-regular partitions of a positive integer n into distinct parts, where \(\ell \) and m are relatively primes. In this paper, we establish several infinite families of congruences modulo 2 for \(a_{3,5}(n)\). For example,

$$\begin{aligned} a_{3, 5}\left(2^{6\alpha +4}5^{2\beta }n+\frac{ 2^{6\alpha +3}5^{2\beta +1}-1}{3}\right) \equiv 0 , \end{aligned}$$

where \(\alpha , \beta \ge 0\).

     

Structural Properties of Word Representable Graphs

Given a word \(w=w_1w_2\cdots w_n\) of length n over an ordered alphabet \(\Sigma _k\), we construct a graph \(G(w)=(V(w), E(w))\) such that V(w) has n vertices labeled \(1, 2,\ldots , n\) and for \(i, j \in V(w)\), \((i, j) \in E(w)\) if and only if \(w_iw_j\) is a scattered subword of w of the form \(a_{t}a_{t+1}\), \(a_t \in \Sigma _k\), for some \(1 \le t \le k-1\) with the ordering \(a_t<a_{t+1}\). A graph is said to be Parikh word representable if there exists a word w over \(\Sigma _k\) such that \(G=G(w)\). In this paper we characterize all Parikh word representable graphs over the binary alphabet in terms of chordal bipartite graphs. It is well known that the graph isomorphism (GI) problem for chordal bipartite graph is GI complete. The GI problem for a subclass of (6, 2) chordal bipartite graphs has been addressed. The notion of graph powers is a well studied topic in graph theory and its applications. We also investigate a bipartite analogue of graph powers of Parikh word representable graphs. In fact we show that for G(w), \(G(w)^{[3]}\) is a complete bipartite graph, for any word w over binary alphabet.     

Classifying First Extremal Points for a Fractional Boundary Value Problem with a Fractional Boundary Condition

Let \(n\in \mathbb {N}\), \(n\ge 2\), \(\beta >0\) fixed, and \(0<b\le \beta \). For \(n-1<\alpha \le n\), we look to classify extremal points for the fractional differential equation \(D_{0^+}^{\alpha }u+p(t) u=0\), satisfying the boundary conditions \(u^{(i)}(0)=0\), \(i=0,\ldots ,n-2\), \(D_{0^+}^\gamma u(b)=0\), where p(t) is a continuous nonnegative function on \([0,\beta ]\) which does not vanish identically on any nondegenerate compact subinterval of \([0,\beta ]\). Using the theory of Krein and Rutman, first extremal points of this boundary value problem are classified. As an application, the results are applied, along with a fixed-point theorem, to show the existence of a solution of a nonlinear fractional boundary value problem.     

Packing chromatic number versus chromatic and clique number

The packing chromatic number \(\chi _{\rho }(G)\) of a graph G is the smallest integer k such that the vertex set of G can be partitioned into sets \(V_i\), \(i\in [k]\), where each \(V_i\) is an i-packing. In this paper, we investigate for a given triple (a, b, c) of positive integers whether there exists a graph G such that \(\omega (G) = a\), \(\chi (G) = b\), and \(\chi _{\rho }(G) = c\). If so, we say that (a, b, c) is realizable. It is proved that \(b=c\ge 3\) implies \(a=b\), and that triples \((2,k,k+1)\) and \((2,k,k+2)\) are not realizable as soon as \(k\ge 4\). Some of the obtained results are deduced from the bounds proved on the packing chromatic number of the Mycielskian. Moreover, a formula for the independence number of the Mycielskian is given. A lower bound on \(\chi _{\rho }(G)\) in terms of \(\Delta (G)\) and \(\alpha (G)\) is also proved.     

Spectrality of infinite convolutions with three-element digit sets

Let \(0< \rho <1\) and let \(\{a_n, b_n\}_{n=1}^\infty \) be a sequence of integers with bounded from upper and lower. Associated with them there exists a unique Borel probability measure \(\mu _{\rho , \{0, a_n, b_n\}}\) generated by the following infinite convolution product

$$\begin{aligned} \mu _{\rho , \{0, a_n, b_n\}}=\delta _{\rho \{0, a_1, b_1\}} *\delta _{\rho ^2 \{0, a_2, b_2\}} *\delta _{\rho ^3 \{0, a_3, b_3\}} *\cdots \end{aligned}$$

in the weak convergence, where \(\delta _E=\frac{1}{\# E}\sum _{e \in E} \delta _e\) and \(\hbox {gcd}(a_n, b_n)=1\) for all \(n \in {{\mathbb {N}}}\). In this paper, we show that \(L^2(\mu _{\rho , \{0, a_n, b_n\}})\) admits an exponential orthonormal basis if and only if \(\rho ^{-1} \in 3{{\mathbb {N}}}\) and  \(\{a_n, b_n\} \equiv \{1, 2\} \ (\mathrm {mod} \ 3)\) for all \(n \in {{\mathbb {N}}}\).

     

Diagonalization of the Finite Hilbert Transform on Two Adjacent Intervals

We continue the study of stability of solving the interior problem of tomography. The starting point is the Gelfand–Graev formula, which converts the tomographic data into the finite Hilbert transform (FHT) of an unknown function f along a collection of lines. Pick one such line, call it the x-axis, and assume that the function to be reconstructed depends on a one-dimensional argument by restricting f to the x-axis. Let \(I_1\) be the interval where f is supported, and \(I_2\) be the interval where the Hilbert transform of f can be computed using the Gelfand–Graev formula. The equation to be solved is \(\left. {\mathcal {H}}_1 f=g\right| _{I_2}\), where \({\mathcal {H}}_1\) is the FHT that integrates over \(I_1\) and gives the result on \(I_2\), i.e. \({\mathcal {H}}_1: L^2(I_1)\rightarrow L^2(I_2)\). In the case of complete data, \(I_1\subset I_2\), and the classical FHT inversion formula reconstructs f in a stable fashion. In the case of interior problem (i.e., when the tomographic data are truncated), \(I_1\) is no longer a subset of \(I_2\), and the inversion problems becomes severely unstable. By using a differential operator L that commutes with \({\mathcal {H}}_1\), one can obtain the singular value decomposition of \({\mathcal {H}}_1\). Then the rate of decay of singular values of \({\mathcal {H}}_1\) is the measure of instability of finding f. Depending on the available tomographic data, different relative positions of the intervals \(I_{1,2}\) are possible. The cases when \(I_1\) and \(I_2\) are at a positive distance from each other or when they overlap have been investigated already. It was shown that in both cases the spectrum of the operator \({\mathcal {H}}_1^*{\mathcal {H}}_1\) is discrete, and the asymptotics of its eigenvalues \(\sigma _n\) as \(n\rightarrow \infty \) has been obtained. In this paper we consider the case when the intervals \(I_1=(a_1,0)\) and \(I_2=(0,a_2)\) are adjacent. Here \(a_1 < 0 < a_2\). Using recent developments in the Titchmarsh–Weyl theory, we show that the operator L corresponding to two touching intervals has only continuous spectrum and obtain two isometric transformations \(U_1\), \(U_2\), such that \(U_2{\mathcal {H}}_1 U_1^*\) is the multiplication operator with the function \(\sigma (\lambda )\), \(\lambda \ge (a_1^2+a_2^2)/8\). Here \(\lambda \) is the spectral parameter. Then we show that \(\sigma (\lambda )\rightarrow 0\) as \(\lambda \rightarrow \infty \) exponentially fast. This implies that the problem of finding f is severely ill-posed. We also obtain the leading asymptotic behavior of the kernels involved in the integral operators \(U_1\), \(U_2\) as \(\lambda \rightarrow \infty \). When the intervals are symmetric, i.e. \(-a_1=a_2\), the operators \(U_1\), \(U_2\) are obtained explicitly in terms of hypergeometric functions.     

Sets of minimal distances and characterizations of class groups of Krull monoids

Let H be a Krull monoid with finite class group G such that every class contains a prime divisor. Then every non-unit \(a \in H\) can be written as a finite product of atoms, say \(a=u_1 \cdot \ldots \cdot u_k\). The set \(\mathsf L (a)\) of all possible factorization lengths k is called the set of lengths of a. There is a constant \(M \in \mathbb N\) such that all sets of lengths are almost arithmetical multiprogressions with bound M and with difference \(d \in \Delta ^* (H)\), where \(\Delta ^* (H)\) denotes the set of minimal distances of H. We study the structure of \(\Delta ^* (H)\) and establish a characterization when \(\Delta ^*(H)\) is an interval. The system \(\mathcal L (H) = \{ \mathsf L (a) \mid a \in H \}\) of all sets of lengths depends only on the class group G, and a standing conjecture states that conversely the system \(\mathcal L (H)\) is characteristic for the class group. We confirm this conjecture (among others) if the class group is isomorphic to \(C_n^r\) with \(r,n \in \mathbb N\) and \(\Delta ^*(H)\) is not an interval.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">b</Emphasis>-Generalized Skew Derivations on Lie Ideals

Let R be a non-commutative prime ring, Z(R) its center, Q its right Martindale quotient ring, C its extended centroid, \(F\ne 0\) an b-generalized skew derivation of R, L a non-central Lie ideal of R, \(0\ne a\in R\) and \(n\ge 1\) a fixed integer. In this paper, we prove the following two results:

1. 1.
   If R has characteristic different from 2 and 3 and \(a[F(x),x]^n=0\), for all \(x\in L\), then either there exists an element \(\lambda \in C\), such that \(F(x)=\lambda x\), for all \(x\in R\) or R satisfies \(s_4(x_1,\ldots ,x_4)\), the standard identity of degree 4, and there exist \(\lambda \in C\) and \(b\in Q\), such that \(F(x)=bx+xb+\lambda x\), for all \(x\in R\).
    
2. 2.
   If \(\mathrm{{char}}(R)=0\) or \(\mathrm{{char}}(R) > n\) and \(a[F(x),x]^n\in Z(R)\), for all \(x\in R\), then either there exists an element \(\lambda \in C\), such that \(F(x)=\lambda x\), for all \(x\in R\) or R satisfies \(s_4(x_1,\ldots ,x_4)\).
    

     

Counting polynomial subset sums

Let D be a subset of a finite commutative ring R with identity. Let \(f(x)\in R[x]\) be a polynomial of degree d. For a nonnegative integer k, we study the number \(N_f(D,k,b)\) of k-subsets S in D such that

$$\begin{aligned} \sum _{x\in S} f(x)=b. \end{aligned}$$

In this paper, we establish several bounds for the difference between \(N_f(D,k, b)\) and the expected main term \(\frac{1}{|R|}{|D|\atopwithdelims ()k}\), depending on the nature of the finite ring R and f. For \(R=\mathbb {Z}_n\), let \(p=p(n)\) be the smallest prime divisor of n, \(|D|=n-c \ge C_dn p^{-\frac{1}{d}}\,+\,c\) and \(f(x)=a_dx^d +\cdots +a_0\in \mathbb {Z}[x]\) with \((a_d, \ldots , a_1, n)=1\). Then

$$\begin{aligned} \left| N_f(D, k, b)-\frac{1}{n}{n-c \atopwithdelims ()k}\right| \le {\delta (n)(n-c)+(1-\delta (n))\left( C_dnp^{-\frac{1}{d}}+c\right) +k-1\atopwithdelims ()k}, \end{aligned}$$

answering an open question raised by Stanley (Enumerative combinatorics, 1997) in a general setting, where \(\delta (n)=\sum _{i\mid n, \mu (i)=-1}\frac{1}{i}\) and \(C_d=e^{1.85d}\). Furthermore, if n is a prime power, then \(\delta (n) =1/p\) and one can take \(C_d=4.41\). Similar and stronger bounds are given for two more cases. The first one is when \(R=\mathbb {F}_q\), a q-element finite field of characteristic p and f(x) is general. The second one is essentially the well-known subset sum problem over an arbitrary finite abelian group. These bounds extend several previous results.

     

On the Extremal Theory of Continued Fractions

Letting \(x=[a_1(x), a_2(x), \ldots ]\) denote the continued fraction expansion of an irrational number \(x\in (0, 1)\), Khinchin proved that \(S_n(x)=\sum \nolimits _{k=1}^n a_k(x) \sim \frac{1}{\log 2}n\log n\) in measure, but not for almost every \(x\). Diamond and Vaaler showed that, removing the largest term from \(S_n(x)\), the previous asymptotics will hold almost everywhere, this shows the crucial influence of the extreme terms of \(S_n (x)\) on the sum. In this paper we determine, for \(d_n\rightarrow \infty \) and \(d_n/n\rightarrow 0\), the precise asymptotics of the sum of the \(d_n\) largest terms of \(S_n(x)\) and show that the sum of the remaining terms has an asymptotically Gaussian distribution.