Recurrence Relations for $S$-Legal Index Difference Sequences

TL;DR

This paper introduces a generalized sequence based on index differences, exploring its growth and recurrence relations, extending concepts from Fibonacci and Fibonacci Quilt sequences.

Contribution

It defines the $S$-legal index difference sequence and analyzes its growth and recurrence properties for various sets $S$, broadening understanding of such combinatorial sequences.

Findings

Many $S$-LID sequences follow simple recurrence relations.

The growth behavior of $S$-LID sequences depends on the set $S$.

Certain families of $S$ produce predictable sequence patterns.

Abstract

Zeckendorf's Theorem implies that the Fibonacci number $F_n$ is the smallest positive integer that cannot be written as a sum of non-consecutive previous Fibonacci numbers. Catral et al. studied a variation of the Fibonacci sequence, the Fibonacci Quilt sequence: the plane is tiled using the Fibonacci spiral, and integers are assigned to the squares of the spiral such that each square contains the smallest positive integer that cannot be expressed as the sum of non-adjacent previous terms. This adjacency is essentially captured in the differences of the indices of each square: the $i$-th and $j$-th squares are adjacent if and only if $|i - j| \in \{1, 3, 4\}$ or $\{i, j\} = \{1, 3\}$. We consider a generalization of this construction: given a set of positive integers $S$, the $S$-legal index difference ($S$-LID) sequence $(a_n)_{n=1}^\infty$ is defined by letting $a_n$ to be the smallest positive integer that cannot be written as $\sum_{\ell \in L} a_\ell$ for some set $L \subset [n-1]$ with $|i - j| \notin S$ for all $i, j \in L$. We discuss our results governing the growth of $S$-LID sequences, as well as results proving that many families of sets $S$ yield $S$-LID sequences which follow simple recurrence relations.