On the l.c.m. of shifted Fibonacci numbers

TL;DR

This paper extends the asymptotic analysis of the least common multiple of Fibonacci numbers to shifted sequences, including periodic and random sign variations, revealing new growth constants and probabilistic expectations.

Contribution

It proves asymptotic formulas for the LCM of shifted Fibonacci sequences with periodic and random sign patterns, introducing effectively computable constants and probabilistic expectations.

Findings

Asymptotic growth of LCM for shifted Fibonacci sequences with periodic signs.

Explicitly computable rational constants for the growth rate.

Expected LCM growth for sequences with random sign patterns.

Abstract

Let $(F_n)_{n \geq 1}$ be the sequence of Fibonacci numbers. Guy and Matiyasevich proved that \begin{equation*} \log \operatorname{lcm} (F_1, F_2, \dots, F_n) \sim \frac{3 \log \alpha}{\pi^2} \cdot n^2 \quad \text{as } n \to +\infty, \end{equation*} where $\operatorname{lcm}$ is the least common multiple and $\alpha := \big(1 + \sqrt{5}) / 2$ is the golden ratio. We prove that for every periodic sequence $\mathbf{s} = (s_n)_{n \geq 1}$ in $\{-1,+1\}$ there exists an effectively computable rational number $C_{\mathbf{s}} > 0$ such that \begin{equation*} \log \operatorname{lcm} (F_3 + s_3, F_4 + s_4, \dots, F_n + s_n) \sim \frac{3 \log \alpha}{\pi^2} \cdot C_\mathbf{s} \cdot n^2 , \quad \text{as } n \to +\infty . \end{equation*} Moreover, we show that if $(s_n)_{n \geq 1}$ is a sequence of independent uniformly distributed random variables in $\{-1,+1\}$ then \begin{equation*} \mathbb{E}\big[\log \operatorname{lcm} (F_3 + s_3, F_4 + s_4, \dots, F_n + s_n)\big] \sim \frac{3 \log \alpha}{\pi^2} \cdot \frac{15 \operatorname{Li}_2(1 / 16)}{2} \cdot n^2 , \quad \text{as } n \to +\infty , \end{equation*} where $\operatorname{Li}_2$ is the dilogarithm function.