arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Serban Raianu.
We show that the four best-known substitutions used to integrate secant rely on different rational parametrizations of conic sections, coming from stereographic projections. We also investigate other possible explanations for the four substitutions, as well as connections between the buildups leading to them.
It is shown that $c=-29/16$ is the unique rational number of smallest denominator, and the unique rational number of smallest numerator, for which the map $f_c(x) = x^2+c$ has a rational periodic point of period $3$. Several arithmetic conditions on the set of all such rational numbers $c$ and the rational orbits of $f_c(x)$ are proved. A graph on the numerators of the rational $3$-periodic points of maps $f_c$ is considered which reflects connections between solutions of norm equations from the cubic field of discriminant $-23$.
Our main source of inspiration was a talk by Hendrik Lenstra on harmonic numbers, which are numbers whose only prime factors are two or three. Gersonides proved 675 years ago that one can be written as a difference of harmonic numbers in only four ways: 2-1, 3-2, 4-3, and 9-8. We investigate which numbers other than one can or cannot be written as a difference of harmonic numbers and we look at their connection to the $abc$-conjecture. We find that there are only eleven numbers less than 100 that cannot be written as a difference of harmonic numbers (we call these $ndh$-numbers). The smallest $ndh$-number is 41, which is also Euler's largest lucky number and is a very interesting number. We then show there are infinitely many $ndh$-numbers, some of which are the primes congruent to $41$ modulo $48$. For each Fermat or Mersenne prime we either prove that it is an $ndh$-number or find all ways it can be written as a difference of harmonic numbers. Finally, as suggested by Lenstra in his talk, we interpret Gersonides' theorem as "The $abc$-conjecture is true on the set of harmonic numbers" and we expand the set on which the $abc$-conjecture is true by adding to the set of harmonic numbers the following sets (one at a time): a finite set of $ndh$-numbers, the infinite set of primes of the form $48k+41$, the set of Fermat primes, and the set of Mersenne primes.
We give a possible explanation for the mystery of a missing number in the statement of a problem that asks for the non-negative integers to be partitioned into three subsets. We interpret the missing number as one of the clues that can lead to a more standard solution to the problem, using only congruence modulo five, and we give the details to the new solution, which is based on an algorithm inspired by noticing alternating differences between sums of elements of the same rank in the three sets. Our new solution is equivalent to the partition consisting of numbers with remainders one or three modulo five, two or four modulo five, and multiples of five, which we call the standard partition. We then find all other similar statements with the same pattern of sums, we apply the algorithm to them, and we describe all the partitions obtained, up to a certain equivalence. There are $279936$ different such statements, they produce twenty different partitions (other than the standard one) whose sets of the first five columns are not permutations of each other, and only one of them (the one produced by the original statement of the problem we study) is equivalent to the standard partition. Finally, we construct infinitely many partitions equivalent to the standard one, and we give a possible generalization and a sample partition problem asking for the non-negative integers to be partitioned into four sets.
We provide a very short approach to several fundamental results for Hopf algebras with nonzero integrals. Besides being short, our approach is the first to prove the bijectivity of the antipode without using the uniqueness of the integrals of Hopf algebras and to obtain the uniqueness of integrals as a corollary in a way similar to the classical theory of the Haar measure on compact groups.
For $A$ a Hopf algebra of arbitrary dimension over a field $K$, it is well-known that if $A$ has nonzero integrals, or, in other words, if the coalgebra $A$ is co-Frobenius, then the space of integrals is one-dimensional and the antipode of $A$ is bijective. Bulacu and Caenepeel recently showed that if $H$ is a dual quasi-Hopf algebra with nonzero integrals, then the space of integrals is one-dimensional, and the antipode is injective. In this short note we show that the antipode is bijective.
We compute liftings of the Nichols algebra of a Yetter-Drinfeld module of Cartan type $B_2$ subject to the small restriction that the diagonal elements of the braiding matrix are primitive $n$th roots of 1 with odd $n\neq 5$. As well, we compute the liftings of a Nichols algebra of Cartan type $A_2$ if the diagonal elements of the braiding matrix are cube roots of 1; this case was not completely covered in previous work of Andruskiewitsch and Schneider. We study the problem of when the liftings of a given Nichols algebra are quasi-isomorphic. The Appendix (with I. Rutherford) contains a generalization of the quantum binomial formula. This formula was used in the computation of liftings of type $B_2$ but is also of interest independent of these results.