arXiv subjects

Steven J. Miller

Publications and source records attributed to Steven J. Miller.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

A characterization of prime $v$-palindromes

An integer $n\geq 1$ is a $v$-palindrome if it is not a multiple of $10$, nor a decimal palindrome, and such that the sum of the prime factors and corresponding exponents larger than $1$ in the prime factorization of $n$ is equal to that of the integer formed by reversing the decimal digits of $n$. For example, if we take 198 and its reversal 891, their prime factorizations are $198 = 2\cdot 3^2\cdot 11$ and $891 = 3^4\cdot 11$ respectively, and summing the numbers appearing in each factorization both give 18. This means that $198$ and $891$ are $v$-palindromes. We establish a characterization of prime $v$-palindromes: they are precisely the larger of twin prime pairs of the form $(5 \cdot 10^m - 3, 5 \cdot 10^m - 1)$, and thus standard conjectures on the distribution of twin primes imply that there are only finitely many prime $v$-palindromes.

math.NT↗

arXiv2023

Schreier Multisets and the $s$-step Fibonacci Sequences

Inspired by the surprising relationship (due to A. Bird) between Schreier sets and the Fibonacci sequence, we introduce Schreier multisets and connect these multisets with the $s$-step Fibonacci sequences, defined, for each $s\geqslant 2$, as: $F^{(s)}_{2-s} = \cdots = F^{(s)}_0 = 0$, $F^{(s)}_1 = 1$, and $F^{(s)}_{n} = F^{(s)}_{n-1} + \cdots + F^{(s)}_{n-s}, \mbox{ for } n\geqslant 2$. Next, we use Schreier-type conditions on multisets to retrieve a family of sequences which satisfy a recurrence of the form $a(n) = a(n-1) + a(n-u)$, with $a(n) = 1$ for $n = 1,\ldots, u$. Finally, we study nonlinear Schreier conditions and show that these conditions are related to integer decompositions, each part of which is greater than the number of parts raised to some power.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Extending the support of $1$- and $2$-level densities for cusp form $L$-functions under square-root cancellation hypotheses

The Katz-Sarnak philosophy predicts that the behavior of zeros near the central point in families of $L$-functions agrees with that of eigenvalues near 1 of random matrix ensembles. Under GRH, Iwaniec, Luo and Sarnak showed agreement in the one-level densities for cuspidal newforms with the support of the Fourier transform of the test function in $(-2, 2)$. They increased the support further under a square-root cancellation conjecture, showing that a ${\rm GL}(1)$ estimate led to additional agreement between number theory and random matrix theory. We formulate a two-dimensional analog and show it leads to improvements in the two-level density. Specifically, we show that a square-root cancellation of certain classical exponential sums over primes increases the support of the test functions such that the main terms in the $1$- and $2$-level densities of cuspidal newforms averaged over bounded weight $k$ (and fixed level $1$) converge to their random matrix theory predictions. We also conjecture a broad class of such exponential sums where we expect improvement in the case of arbitrary $n$-level densities, and note that the arguments in [ILS] yield larger support than claimed.

math.NT↗

arXiv2023

Benfordness of Measurements Resulting from Box Fragmentation

We make progress on a conjecture made by [DM], which states that the $d$-dimensional frames of $m$-dimensional boxes resulting from a fragmentation process satisfy Benford's law for all $1 \leq d \leq m$. We provide a sufficient condition for Benford's law to be satisfied, namely that the maximum product of $d$ sides is itself a Benford random variable. Motivated to produce an example of such a fragmentation process, we show that processes constructed from log-uniform proportion cuts satisfy the maximum criterion for $d=1$.

math.PR↗

arXiv2023

Distinct Angles and Angle Chains in Three Dimensions

In 1946, Erdős posed the distinct distance problem, which seeks to find the minimum number of distinct distances between pairs of points selected from any configuration of $n$ points in the plane. The problem has since been explored along with many variants, including ones that extend it into higher dimensions. Less studied but no less intriguing is Erdős' distinct angle problem, which seeks to find point configurations in the plane that minimize the number of distinct angles. In their recent paper "Distinct Angles in General Position," Fleischmann, Konyagin, Miller, Palsson, Pesikoff, and Wolf use a logarithmic spiral to establish an upper bound of $O(n^2)$ on the minimum number of distinct angles in the plane in general position, which prohibits three points on any line or four on any circle. We consider the question of distinct angles in three dimensions and provide bounds on the minimum number of distinct angles in general position in this setting. We focus on pinned variants of the question, and we examine explicit constructions of point configurations in $\mathbb{R}^3$ which use self-similarity to minimize the number of distinct angles. Furthermore, we study a variant of the distinct angles question regarding distinct angle chains and provide bounds on the minimum number of distinct chains in $\mathbb{R}^2$ and $\mathbb{R}^3$.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2023

On Benford's Law and the Coefficients of the Riemann Mapping Function for the Exterior of the Mandelbrot Set

We investigate Benford's law in relation to fractal geometry. Basic fractals, such as the Cantor set and Sierpinski triangle are obtained as the limit of iterative sets, and the unique measures of their components follow a geometric distribution, which is Benford in most bases. Building on this intuition, we aim to study this distribution in more complicated fractals. We examine the Laurent coefficients of a Riemann mapping and the Taylor coefficients of its reciprocal function from the exterior of the Mandelbrot set to the complement of the unit disk. These coefficients are 2-adic rational numbers, and through statistical testing, we demonstrate that the numerators and denominators are a good fit for Benford's law. We offer additional conjectures and observations about these coefficients. In particular, we highlight certain arithmetic subsequences related to the coefficients' denominators, provide an estimate for their slope, and describe efficient methods to compute them.

math.CV↗

arXiv2023

Sums of Reciprocals of Recurrence Relations

There is a growing literature on sums of reciprocals of polynomial functions of recurrence relations with constant coefficients and fixed depth, such as Fibonacci and Tribonacci numbers, products of such numbers, and balancing numbers (numbers $n$ such that the sum of the integers less than $n$ equals the sum of the $r$ integers immediately after, for some $r$ which is called the balancer of $n$; If $n$ is included in the summation, we have the cobalancing numbers, and $r$ is called the cobalancer of $n$). We generalize previous work to reciprocal sums of depth two recurrence sequences with arbitrary coefficients and the Tribonacci numbers, and show our method provides an alternative proof of some existing results. We define $(a,b)$ balancing and cobalancing numbers, where $a$ and $b$ are constants that multiply the left-hand side and right-hand side respectively, and derive recurrence relations describing these sequences. We show that for balancing numbers, the coefficients $(3,1)$ is unique such that every integer is a $(3,1)$ balancing number, and proved there does not exist an analogous set of coefficients for cobalancing numbers. We also found patterns for certain coefficients that have no balancing or cobalancing numbers.

math.NT↗

arXiv2022

Virus Dynamics on $k$-Level Starlike Graphs

Becker, Greaves-Tunnell, Kontorovich, Miller, Ravikumar, and Shen determined the long term evolution of virus propagation behavior on a hub-and-spoke graph of one central node and $n$ neighbors, with edges only from the neighbors to the hub (a $2$-level starlike graph), under a variant of the discrete-time SIS (Suspectible Infected Suspectible) model. The behavior of this model is governed by the interactions between the infection and cure probabilities, along with the number $n$ of $2$-level nodes. They proved that for any $n$, there is a critical threshold relating these rates, below which the virus dies out, and above which the probabilistic dynamical system converges to a non-trivial steady state (the probability of infection for each category of node stabilizes). For $a$, the probability at any time step that an infected node is not cured, and $b$, the probability at any time step that an infected node infects its neighbors, the threshold for the virus to die out is $b \leq (1-a)/\sqrt{n}$. We extend this analysis to $k$-level starlike graphs for $k \geq 3$ (each $(k-1)$-level node has exactly $n_k$ neighbors, and the only edges added are from the $k$-level nodes) for infection rates above and below the critical threshold of $(1-a)/\sqrt{n_1+n_2+\dots+n_{k-1}}$. We do this by first analyzing the dynamics of nodes on each level of a $3$-level starlike graph, then show that the dynamics of the nodes of a $k$-level starlike graph are similar, enabling us to reduce our analysis to just $3$ levels, using the same methodology as the $3$-level case.

math.DS↗

arXiv2022

Bounding the Order of Vanishing of Cuspidal Newforms via the nth Centered Moments

Building on the work of Iwaniec, Luo and Sarnak, we use the $n$-level density to bound the probability of vanishing to order at least $r$ at the central point for families of cuspidal newforms of prime level $N \to \infty$, split by sign. There are three methods to improve bounds on the order of vanishing: optimizing the test functions, increasing the support, and increasing the $n$-level density studied. Previous work determined the optimal test functions for the $1$ and $2$-level densities in certain support ranges, leading to marginal improvements in bounds and making it not a productive avenue for further research. Similarly the support has been increased as far as possible, and further progress is shown to be related to delicate and difficult conjectures in number theory. Thus we concentrate on the third method, and study the higher centered moments (which are similar to the $n$-level densities but combinatorially easier). We find the level at each rank for which the bounds on the order of vanishing is the best, thus producing world-record bounds on the order of vanishing to rank at least $r$ for every $r > 2$ (for example, our bounds for vanishing to order at least 5 or at least 6 are less than half the previous bounds, a significant improvement). Additionally, we explicitly calculate the optimal test function for the $1$-level density from previous work and compare it to the naive test functions for higher levels. In doing so, we find that the optimal test function for certain levels are not the optimal for other levels, and some test functions may outperform others for some levels but not in others. Finally, we explicitly calculate the integrals needed to determine the bounds, doing so by transforming an $n$-dimensional integral to a $1$-dimensional integral and greatly reducing the computation cost in the process.

math.NT↗

arXiv2022

Winning Strategies for Generalized Zeckendorf Game

Zeckendorf proved that every positive integer $n$ can be written uniquely as the sum of non-adjacent Fibonacci numbers; a similar result holds for other positive linear recurrence sequences. These legal decompositions can be used to construct a game that starts with a fixed integer $n$, and players take turns using moves relating to a given recurrence relation. The game eventually terminates in a unique legal decomposition, and the player who makes the final move wins. For the Fibonacci game, Player $2$ has the winning strategy for all $n>2$. We give a non-constructive proof that for the two-player $(c, k)$-nacci game, for all $k$ and sufficiently large $n$, Player $1$ has a winning strategy when $c$ is even and Player $2$ has a winning strategy when $c$ is odd. Interestingly, the player with the winning strategy can make a mistake as early as the $c + 1$ turn, in which case the other player gains the winning strategy. Furthermore, we proved that for the $(c, k)$-nacci game with players $p \ge c + 2$, no player has a winning strategy for any $n \ge 3c^2 + 6c + 3$. We find a stricter lower boundary, $n \ge 7$, in the case of the three-player $(1, 2)$-nacci game. Then we extend the result from the multiplayer game to multialliance games, showing which alliance has a winning strategy or when no winning strategy exists for some special cases of multialliance games.

math.NT↗

arXiv2022

Generalizing the German Tank Problem

The German Tank Problem dates back to World War II when the Allies used a statistical approach to estimate the number of enemy tanks produced or on the field from observed serial numbers after battles. Assuming that the tanks are labeled consecutively starting from 1, if we observe $k$ tanks from a total of $N$ tanks with the maximum observed tank being $m$, then the best estimate for $N$ is $m(1 + 1/k) - 1$. We explore many generalizations. We looked at the discrete and continuous one dimensional case. We explored different estimators such as the $L$\textsuperscript{th} largest tank, and applied motivation from portfolio theory and studied a weighted average; however, the original formula was the best. We generalized the problem in two dimensions, with pairs instead of points, studying the discrete and continuous square and circle variants. There were complications from curvature issues and that not every number is representable as a sum of two squares. We often concentrated on the large $N$ limit. For the discrete and continuous square, we tested various statistics, finding the largest observed component did best; the scaling factor for both cases is $(2k+1)/2k$. The discrete case was especially involved because we had to use approximation formulas that gave us the number of lattice points inside the circle. Interestingly, the scaling factors were different for the cases. Lastly, we generalized the problem into $L$ dimensional squares and circles. The discrete and continuous square proved similar to the two dimensional square problem. However, for the $L$\textsuperscript{th} dimensional circle, we had to use formulas for the volume of the $L$-ball, and had to approximate the number of lattice points inside it. The formulas for the discrete circle were particularly interesting, as there was no $L$ dependence in the formula.

math.PR↗

arXiv2022

Towards the Gaussianity of Random Zeckendorf Games

Zeckendorf proved that any positive integer has a unique decomposition as a sum of non-consecutive Fibonacci numbers, indexed by $F_1 = 1, F_2 = 2, F_{n+1} = F_n + F_{n-1}$. Motivated by this result, Baird, Epstein, Flint, and Miller defined the two-player Zeckendorf game, where two players take turns acting on a multiset of Fibonacci numbers that always sums to $N$. The game terminates when no possible moves remain, and the final player to perform a move wins. Notably, studied the setting of random games: the game proceeds by choosing an available move uniformly at random, and they conjecture that as the input $N \to \infty$, the distribution of random game lengths converges to a Gaussian. We prove that certain sums of move counts is constant, and find a lower bound on the number of shortest games on input $N$ involving the Catalan numbers. The works Baird et al. and Cuzensa et al. determined how to achieve a shortest and longest possible Zeckendorf game on a given input $N$, respectively: we establish that for any input $N$, the range of possible game lengths constitutes an interval of natural numbers: every game length between the shortest and longest game lengths can be achieved. We further the study of probabilistic aspects of random Zeckendorf games. We study two probability measures on the space of all Zeckendorf games on input $N$: the uniform measure, and the measure induced by choosing moves uniformly at random at any given position. Under both measures that in the limit $N \to \infty$, both players win with probability $1/2$. We also find natural partitions of the collection of all Zeckendorf games of a fixed input $N$, on which we observe weak convergence to a Gaussian in the limit $N \to \infty$. We conclude the work with many open problems.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Optimal Point Sets Determining Few Distinct Angles

We characterize the largest point sets in the plane which define at most 1, 2, and 3 angles. For $P(k)$ the largest size of a point set admitting at most $k$ angles, we prove $P(2)=5$ and $P(3)=5$. We also provide the general bounds of $k+2 \leq P(k) \leq 6k$, although the upper bound may be improved pending progress toward the Weak Dirac Conjecture. Notably, it is surprising that $P(k)=Θ(k)$ since, in the distance setting, the best known upper bound on the analogous quantity is quadratic and no lower bound is well-understood.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Sum and Difference Sets in Generalized Dihedral Groups

Given a group $G$, we say that a set $A \subseteq G$ has more sums than differences (MSTD) if $|A+A| > |A-A|$, has more differences than sums (MDTS) if $|A+A| < |A-A|$, or is sum-difference balanced if $|A+A| = |A-A|$. A problem of recent interest has been to understand the frequencies of these type of subsets. The seventh author and Vissuet studied the problem for arbitrary finite groups $G$ and proved that almost all subsets $A\subseteq G$ are sum-difference balanced as $|G|\to\infty$. For the dihedral group $D_{2n}$, they conjectured that of the remaining sets, most are MSTD, i.e., there are more MSTD sets than MDTS sets. Some progress on this conjecture was made by Haviland et al. in 2020, when they introduced the idea of partitioning the subsets by size: if, for each $m$, there are more MSTD subsets of $D_{2n}$ of size $m$ than MDTS subsets of size $m$, then the conjecture follows. We extend the conjecture to generalized dihedral groups $D=\mathbb{Z}_2\ltimes G$, where $G$ is an abelian group of size $n$ and the nonidentity element of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ acts by inversion. We make further progress on the conjecture by considering subsets with a fixed number of rotations and reflections. By bounding the expected number of overlapping sums, we show that the collection $\mathcal S_{D,m}$ of subsets of the generalized dihedral group $D$ of size $m$ has more MSTD sets than MDTS sets when $6\le m\le c_j\sqrt{n}$ for $c_j=1.3229/\sqrt{111+5j}$, where $j$ is the number of elements in $G$ with order at most $2$. We also analyze the expectation for $|A+A|$ and $|A-A|$ for $A\subseteq D_{2n}$, proving an explicit formula for $|A-A|$ when $n$ is prime.

math.NT↗

arXiv2022

Linear recurrences of order at most two in nontrivial small divisors and large divisors

For each positive integer $N$, define $$S'_N \ =\ \{1 < d < \sqrt{N}: d|N\}\mbox{ and }L'_N \ =\ \{\sqrt{N} < d < N : d|N\}.$$ Recently, Chentouf characterized all positive integers $N$ such that the set of small divisors $\{d\le \sqrt{N}: d|N\}$ satisfies a linear recurrence of order at most two. We nontrivially extend the result by excluding the trivial divisor $1$ from consideration, which dramatically increases the analysis complexity. Our first result characterizes all positive integers $N$ such that $S'_N$ satisfies a linear recurrence of order at most two. Moreover, our second result characterizes all positive $N$ such that $L'_N$ satisfies a linear recurrence of order at most two, thus extending considerably a recent result that characterizes $N$ with $L'_N$ being in an arithmetic progression.

math.NT↗

arXiv2022

Walking to Infinity on the Fibonacci Sequence

An interesting open problem in number theory asks whether it is possible to walk to infinity on primes, where each term in the sequence has one more digit than the previous. In this paper, we study its variation where we walk on the Fibonacci sequence. We prove that all walks starting with a Fibonacci number and the following terms are Fibonacci numbers obtained by appending exactly one digit at a time to the right have a length of at most two. In the more general case where we append at most a bounded number of digits each time, we give a formula for the length of the longest walk.

math.NT↗

arXiv2022

Determining optimal test functions for $2$-level densities

Katz and Sarnak conjectured a correspondence between the $n$-level density statistics of zeros from families of $L$-functions with eigenvalues from random matrix ensembles. In many cases the sums of smooth test functions, whose Fourier transforms are finitely supported, over scaled zeros in a family converge to an integral of the test function against a density $W_{n, G}$ depending on the symmetry $G$ of the family (unitary, symplectic or orthogonal). This integral bounds the average order of vanishing at the central point of the corresponding family of $L$-functions. We can obtain better estimates on this vanishing by finding better test functions to minimize the integral. We pursue this problem when $n=2$, minimizing \[ \frac{1}{Φ(0, 0)} \int_{{\mathbb R}^2} W_{2,G} (x, y) Φ(x, y) dx dy \] over test functions $Φ\colon {\mathbb R}^2 \to [0, \infty)$ with compactly supported Fourier transform. We study a restricted version of this optimization problem, imposing that our test functions take the form $ϕ(x) ψ(y)$ for some fixed admissible $ψ(y)$ and $\mathrm{supp}({\hat ϕ}) \subseteq [-1, 1]$. Extending results from the $1$-level case, namely the functional analytic arguments of Iwaniec, Luo and Sarnak and the differential equations method introduced by Freeman and Miller, we explicitly solve for the optimal $ϕ$ for appropriately chosen fixed test function $ψ$. The solution allows us to deduce strong estimates for the proportion of newforms of rank $0$ or $2$ in the case of $\mathrm{SO}(\mathrm{even})$, rank $1$ or $3$ in the case of $\mathrm{SO}(\mathrm{odd})$, and rank at most $2$ for $\mathrm{O}$, $\mathrm{Sp}$, and $\mathrm{U}$; our estimates are a significant strengthening of the best known estimates obtained with the $1$-level density. We conclude by discussing further improvements on estimates by the method of iteration.

math.NT↗

arXiv2022

Bounding Vanishing at the Central Point of Cuspidal Newforms

The Katz-Sarnak Density Conjecture states that zeros of families of $L$-functions are well-modeled by eigenvalues of random matrix ensembles. For suitably restricted test functions, this correspondence yields upper bounds for the families' order of vanishing at the central point. We generalize previous results on the $n$\textsuperscript{th} centered moment of the distribution of zeros to allow arbitrary test functions. On the computational side, we use our improved formulas to obtain significantly better bounds on the order of vanishing for cuspidal newforms, setting world records for the quality of the bounds. We also discover better test functions that further optimize our bounds. We see improvement as early as the $5$\textsuperscript{th} order, and our bounds improve rapidly as the rank grows (more than one order of magnitude better for rank 10 and more than four orders of magnitude for rank 50).

math.NT↗