1

I was wondering about

$$f(0) = 1$$

$$f(n+1) = (a n + b) f(n) + c \sum_{i=0}^{n} f(i) f(n-i)$$

for given positive integers $a,b,c$.

How fast does this grow ?

Such equations occur often and are somewhere between the recurrence equation of factorial and of the Catalan numbers.

In fact I can get a closed form for them. But that might not be the easiest way to get a growth rate.

Getting the closed form directly relates to why this occurs; it is related to combinatorics, calculus and differential equations.

Just like we get the generating taylor series for the Catalan numbers we get a similar equation here :

$$c(x) = 1 + c x c(x)^2 + a x c'(x) + b x c(x)$$

For instance look at this calculus problem and related comment I found here on MSE :


An integral involving Airy functions $\int_0^\infty\frac{x^p}{\operatorname{Ai}^2 x + \operatorname{Bi}^2 x}\mathrm dx$

https://math.stackexchange.com/a/525096/39261

$$\mathcal{K}(3n)=\frac{\pi^2}{6\cdot64^n}a_{2n},$$ where $a_n$ is the sequence defined recursively as follows: $$a_0=1,\ \ a_{n+1}=(6\,n+4)\,a_n+\sum\limits_{i=0}^n a_i\,a_{n-i}$$


Here $a=6,b=4,c=1$

and we get the generating taylor series $c(x)$ :

$$c(x) = 1 + x c(x)^2 + 6 x c'(x) + 4 x c(x)$$

We can solve this differential equation and get "this monster" :

$$c(x) = -(6 (k_1 (-2/3 e^{-(2 x)/3} x^{7/6} U(23/24, 13/6, (2 x)/3) - 23/36 e^{-(2 x)/3} x^{7/6} U(47/24, 19/6, (2 x)/3) + 7/6 e^{-(2 x)/3} x^{1/6} U(23/24, 13/6, (2 x)/3)) - 1/6 e^(-(2 x)/3) x^{1/6} (4 x L_{-47/24}^{13/6}((2 x)/3) + (4 x - 7) L_{-23/24}^{7/6}((2 x)/3))))/(-k_1 e^{-(2 x)/3} x^{7/6} U(23/24, 13/6, (2 x)/3) - e^{-(2 x)/3} x^{7/6} L_{-23/24}^{7/6}((2 x)/3))$$

where $L$ is the associated Laguerre polynomial and $U$ is the confluent hypergeo function of the second kind.

But it seems nontrivial to me how fast this function (the taylor coefficients of $c(x)$ ) grows ? What are good asymptotics ?

Do we need to resort to general techniques or is this specific case open for a specific strategy ?

Can we get around needing to solve the differential equation for the generating function ? Since it seems not so easy to me ?


so far the main question.

I couldnt help wondering about fractional derivatives. And ramanujans master theorem.

Since we seem to have

An integral involving Airy functions $\int_0^\infty\frac{x^p}{\operatorname{Ai}^2 x + \operatorname{Bi}^2 x}\mathrm dx$

$K(3n)$ is given by the n'th coefficient of $c(x)$.

Maybe it is true that

$K(s) =$ the s'th coefficient of $c(x)$ in the sense of fractional derivatives.

This is just a comment. I am aware of different ideas of fractional calculus ...

mick
  • 17,886
  • 1
    Don't use $c$ for both a constant and a function. Use capital letters for generating functions (which I infer from your post $c(x)$ is, but you don't specifically say it is.) – Thomas Andrews Aug 10 '24 at 23:32
  • 1
    You may try an $f(n) \sim M\cdot \frac{{\Gamma (\alpha n + \beta )}}{{K^{\gamma n + \delta } }}$ ansatz. – Gary Aug 12 '24 at 00:52
  • yeah you guys are right. – mick Aug 12 '24 at 01:11
  • 1
    If you're interested: For negative arguments, the sum would be empty (aka $=0$), which would give us $f\left( n + 1 \right) = \left( a \cdot n + b \right) \cdot f\left( n \right)$ what would be solved by $f\left( n \right) = \text{constant} \cdot a^{n - 1} \cdot \frac{\Gamma\left( 1 + \frac{b}{a} + n - 1 \right)}{\Gamma\left( 1 + \frac{b}{a} \right)} \wedge n < 0$. Assuming this holds for $n = 0$ and using $f\left( 0 \right) = 1$ gives $f\left( n \right) = b \cdot a^{n-1}\cdot\frac{\Gamma\left( 1 + \frac{b}{a} + n - 1 \right)}{\Gamma\left( 1 + \frac{b}{a} \right)} \wedge n \leq 0$. – The Art Of Repetition Aug 12 '24 at 05:11
  • @KevinDietrich Thanks but I do not agree that is how sums work for negative index ... Maybe ramanujans master theorem or the integral work better ... – mick Aug 18 '24 at 23:28

0 Answers0