The Membership Problem for Hypergeometric Sequences with Rational Parameters

Klara Nosan, Amaury Pouly, Mahsa Shirmohammadi, James Worrell

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

We investigate the Membership Problem for hypergeometric sequences: given a hypergeometric sequence unn=0 of rational numbers and a target tQ, decide whether t occurs in the sequence. We show decidability of this problem under the assumption that in the defining recurrence p(n)un = q(n)un-1, the roots of the polynomials p(x) and q(x) are all rational numbers. Our proof relies on bounds on the density of primes in arithmetic progressions. We also observe a relationship between the decidability of the Membership problem (and variants) and the Rohrlich-Lang conjecture in transcendence theory.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationISSAC 2022 - Proceedings of the 2022 International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation47th International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation, ISSAC 2022
EditorsAmir Hashemi
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages381-389
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9781450386883
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Jul 2022
Externally publishedYes
Event47th International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation, ISSAC 2022 - Virtual, Online, France
Duration: 4 Jul 20227 Jul 2022

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation, ISSAC

Conference

Conference47th International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation, ISSAC 2022
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityVirtual, Online
Period4/07/227/07/22

Keywords

  • decidability
  • hypergeometric sequences
  • reachability
  • skolem problem

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The Membership Problem for Hypergeometric Sequences with Rational Parameters'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this