Almost Squares in Arithmetic Progression

It is proved that a product of four or more terms of positive integers in arithmetic progression with common difference a prime power is never a square. More general results are given which completely solve (1.1) with gcd(n, d)=1, k3 and 1<d104.     

Diophantine Equations and Bernoulli Polynomials

Given m, n 2, we prove that, for sufficiently large y, the sum 1 ⁿ +···+ y ⁿ is not a product of m consecutive integers. We also prove that for m n we have 1 ^m +···+ x ^m 1 ⁿ +···+ y ⁿ , provided x, y are sufficiently large. Among other auxiliary facts, we show that Bernoulli polynomials of odd index are indecomposable, and those of even index are almost indecomposable, a result of independent interest.     

Universally bad integers and the 2-adics

In his 1964 paper, de Bruijn (Math. Comp. 18 (1964) 537) called a pair (a,b) of positive odd integers good, if , where is the set of nonnegative integers whose 4-adic expansion has only 0's and 1's, otherwise he called the pair (a,b) bad. Using the 2-adic integers we obtain a characterization of all bad pairs. A positive odd integer u is universally bad if (ua,b) is bad for all pairs of positive odd integers a and b. De Bruijn showed that all positive integers of the form u=2^k+1 are universally bad. We apply our characterization of bad pairs to give another proof of this result of de Bruijn, and to show that all integers of the form u=φ_p^k(4) are universally bad, where p is prime and φ_n(x) is the nth cyclotomic polynomial. We consider a new class of integers we call de Bruijn universally bad integers and obtain a characterization of such positive integers. We apply this characterization to show that the universally bad integers u=φ_p^k(4) are in fact de Bruijn universally bad for all primes p>2. Furthermore, we show that the universally bad integers φ_2^k(4), and more generally, those of the form 4^k+1, are not de Bruijn universally bad.     

Ramanujan-Göllnitz-Gordon Continued Fraction

We derive many new identities involving the Ramanujan-Göllnitz-Gordon continued fraction H(q). These include relations between H(q) and H(q ⁿ ) , which are established using modular equations of degree n. We also evaluate explicitly H(q) at for various positive integers n. Using results of M. Deuring, we show that are units for all positive integers n.     

Almost perfect powers in consecutive integers (II)

Let k ≥ 4 be an integer. We find all integers of the form by^l where l ≥ 2 and the greatest prime factor of b is at most k (i.e. nearly a perfect power) such that they are also products of k consecutive integers with two terms omitted.     

Factorizations of complete multipartite graphs into generalized cubes

For a positive integer d, the usual d‐dimensional cube Q_d is defined to be the graph (K₂)^d, the Cartesian product of d copies of K₂. We define the generalized cube Q(K_k, d) to be the graph (K_k)^d for positive integers d and k. We investigate the decomposition of the complete multipartite graph K into factors that are vertex‐disjoint unions of generalized cubes Q(K_k, d_i), where k is a power of a prime, n and j are positive integers with j ≤ n, and the d_i may be different in different factors. We also use these results to partially settle a problem of Kotzig on Q_d‐factorizations of K_n. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 33: 144–150, 2000     

New Quasi-Newton Equation and Related Methods for Unconstrained Optimization

In unconstrained optimization, the usual quasi-Newton equation is B _k+1 s _k=y _k, where y _k is the difference of the gradients at the last two iterates. In this paper, we propose a new quasi-Newton equation, , in which is based on both the function values and gradients at the last two iterates. The new equation is superior to the old equation in the sense that better approximates ² f(x _k+1)s _k than y _k. Modified quasi-Newton methods based on the new quasi-Newton equation are locally and superlinearly convergent. Extensive numerical experiments have been conducted which show that the new quasi-Newton methods are encouraging.     

Steady vortex rings with swirl in an ideal fluid: asymptotics for some solutions in exterior domains

In this paper, the axisymmetric flow in an ideal fluid outside the infinite cylinder (rd) where (r, , z) denotes the cylindrical co-ordinates in ³ is considered. The motion is with swirl (i.e. the -component of the velocity of the flow is non constant). The (non-dimensional) equation governing the phenomenon is (Pd) displayed below. It is known from e.g. [9] that for the problem without swirl (f _q = 0 in (f)) in the whole space, as the flux constant k tends to 1) dist(0z, A) = O(k ^1/2); diam A = O(exp(–c ₀ k ^3/2));2) k^1/2)_k converges to a vortex cylinder U _m (see (1.2)).We show that for the problem with swirl, as k , 1) holds; if m q + 2 then 2) holds and if m > q + 2 it holds with U _q+2 instead of U _m. Moreover, these results are independent of f ₀, f _q and d > 0.     

About smoothness of solutions of the heat equations in closed,smooth space‐time domains

We consider the probabilistic solutions of the heat equation u = u + f in D, where D is a bounded domain in ?² = {(x¹, x²)} of class C^2k. We give sufficient conditions for u to have k^th‐order continuous derivatives with respect to (x¹, x²) in D? for integers k ≥ 2. The equation is supplemented with C^2k boundary data, and we assume that f ? C^2(k?1). We also prove that our conditions are sharp by examples in the border cases. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Qualitative properties of solutions of integral equations

In this paper we study a linear integral equation in which the kernel fails to satisfy standard conditions yielding qualitative properties of solutions. Thus, we begin by following the standard idea of differentiation to obtain . The investigation frequently depends on x^′(t)+C(t,t)x(t)=0 being uniformly asymptotically stable. When that property fails to hold, the investigator must turn to ad hoc methods. We show that there is a way out of this dilemma. We note that if C(t,t) is bounded, then for k>0 the equation resulting from x^′+kx will have a uniformly asymptotically stable ODE part and the remainder can often be shown to be a harmless perturbation. The study is also continued to the pair x^″+kx^′.     

One more square root law for Brownian motion and its application to SPDEs

It is proved that there is a function p(c)0 such that p(c)>0 if c is large enough, and (a.s.) for any t[0,1], the trajectory of Brownian motion after time t is contained in a parallel shift of the box [0,2^{– k} ]×[0,c2^{– k /2}] for all k belonging to a set with lower density p(c). This law of square root helps show that solutions of one-dimensional SPDEs are Hölder continuous up to the boundary.The work was partially supported by NSF Grant DMS-0140405 Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 60G17, 35K05, 60H15     

The reverse spelling of an FPrt-universal word in two letters

ForX a set the expression Prt(X) denotes the composition monoid of all functionsf X ×X. Fork a positive integer the letterk denotes also the set of all nonnegative integers less thank. Whenk > 1 the expression r_k denotes the connected injective element {<i, i + 1>i k – 1} in Prt (k). We show for every word w=w(x,y) in a two-letter alphabet that if the equation w(x, y)=r_k has a solution =y) ²Prt(k) then ¯w(x,y)=r_k also has a solution in²Prt(k), where ¯w is the word obtained by spelling the wordw backwards. It is a consequence of this theorem that if for every finite setX and for everyf Prt(X) the equation w(x,y)=f has a solution in²Prt(X) then for every suchX andf the equation ¯w(x, y)=f has a solution in²Prt(X).Presented by J. Mycielski.     

Properties of Integers and Finiteness Conditions for Semigroups

Let h and k be integers greater than 1; we prove that the following statements are equivalent: 1) the direct product of h copies of the additive semigroup of non-negative integers is not k-repetitive; 2) if the direct product of h finitely generated semigroups is k-repetitive, then one of them is finite. Using this and some results of Dekking and Pleasants on infinite words, we prove that certain repetitivity properties are finiteness conditions for finitely generated semigroups.     

Random walks supported on random points ofZ/nZ

Summary This paper considers random walks on the integers modn supported onk points and asks how long does it take for these walks to get close to uniformly distributed. Ifk is a constant, Greenhalgh showed that at least some constant timesn ^2/(k–1) steps are necessary to make the distance of the random walk from the uniform distribution small; here we show that ifn is prime, some constant timesn ^2/(k–1) steps suffice to make this distance small for almost all choices ofk points. The proof uses the Upper Bound Lemma of Diaconis and Shahshahani and some averaging techniques. This paper also explores some cases wherek varies withn. In particular, ifk=(logn) ^a , we find different kinds of results for different values ofa, and these results disprove a conjecture of Aldous and Diaconis.Research Supported in Part by a Rackham Faculty Fellowship at the University of Michigan     

Onp-adic functions preserving Haar measure

Let {a _n } _n ^=0/ be a uniformly distributed sequence ofp-adic integers. In the present paper we study continuous functions close to differentiable ones (with respect to thep-adic metric); for these functions, either the sequence {f(a _n )} _n ^=0/ is uniformly distributed over the ring ofp-adic integers or, for all sufficiently largek, the sequences {f _k (_k(a_n))} _n ^=0/ are uniformly distributed over the residue class ring modp ^k , where _k is the canonical epimorphism of the ring ofp-adic integers to the residue class ring modp ^k andf _k is the function induced byf on the residue class ring modp ^k (i.e.,f k _(x) =f( _k (x)) (modp ^k )). For instance, these functions can be used to construct generators of pseudorandom numbers.Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 63, No. 6, pp. 935–950, June, 1998.In conclusion, the author wishes to express his deep gratitude to V. S. Anashin for permanent attention to this research and for support.     

Difference sets and inverting the difference operator

For a setA of non-negative numbers, letD(A) (the difference set ofA) be the set of nonnegative differences of elements ofA, and letD ^k be thek-fold iteration ofD. We show that for everyk, almost every set of non-negative integers containing 0 arises asD ^k (A) for someA. We also give sufficient conditions for a setA to be the unique setX such that 0X andD ^k (X)=D ^k (A). We show that for eachm there is a setA such thatD(X)=D(A) has exactly 2 ^m solutionsX with 0X.This work was supported by grants DMS 92-02833 and DMS 91-23478 from the National Science Foundation. The first author acknowledges the support of the Hungarian National Science Foundation under grants, OTKA 4269, and OTKA 016389, and the National Security Agency (grant No. MDA904-95-H-1045).Lee A. Rubel died March 25, 1995. He is very much missed by his coauthors.     

On the order of the error in discretization methods for weakly singular second kind non-smooth solutions

In general, second kind Volterra integral equations with weakly singular kernels of the formk(t,s)(t –s)^– posses solutions which have discontinuous derivatives att=0. A discrete Gronwall inequality is employed to prove that, away from the origin, the error in product integration and collocation schemes for these equations is of order 2-.     

The Asymptotic Stability of x(n + k) + ax(n) + bx(n-l) = 0

We established necessary and sufficient conditions for the asymptotic stability of the difference equation where the coefficients a and b are real numbers and k and l are nonnegative integers.     

A bound on the chromatic number using the longest odd cycle length

It is known that for every integer k ≥ 4, each k‐map graph with n vertices has at most kn ? 2k edges. Previously, it was open whether this bound is tight or not. We show that this bound is tight for k = 4, 5. We also show that this bound is not tight for large enough k (namely, k ≥ 374); more precisely, we show that for every and for every integer , each k‐map graph with n vertices has at most edges. This result implies the first polynomial (indeed linear) time algorithm for coloring a given k‐map graph with less than 2k colors for large enough k. We further show that for every positive multiple k of 6, there are infinitely many integers n such that some k‐map graph with n vertices has at least edges. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 55: 267–290, 2007     

A pointwise convergence for Sobolev space functions

Let 1<p<∞, and k,m be positive integers such that 0(k−2m)pn. Suppose ΩRⁿ is an open set, and Δ is the Laplacian operator. We will show that there is a sequence of positive constants c_j such that for every f in the Sobolev space W^k,p(Ω), for all xΩ except on a set whose Bessel capacity B_k−2m,p is zero.