cp's OEIS Frontend

Are there any other fixed points after 0, 1, 7, 8 and 2556? (A328110, see also A351087 and A351088).

Out of the 30030 initial terms, 19220 are multiples of 5. (See A327865).

Proof that a(n) is even if and only if n is a multiple of 4: Consider Charlie Neder's Feb 25 2019 comment in A235992. As A276086 is never a multiple of 4, and as it toggles the parity, we only need to know when A001222(A276086(n)) = A276150(n) is even. The condition for that is given in the latter sequence by David A. Corneth's Feb 27 2019 comment. From this it also follows that A166486 gives similarly the parity of terms of A342002, A351083 and A345000. See also comment in A327858. - Antti Karttunen, May 01 2022

The scatter plot shows an interesting structure.

The terms are essentially the "wild" or "unherited" part of the arithmetic derivative (A003415) of those natural numbers (A048103) that are not immediately beyond all hope of reaching zero by iteration (as the terms of A100716 are), ordered by the primorial base expansion of n as in A276086. Sequence A342018 shows the positions of the terms here that have just moved to the "no hope" region, while A342019 shows how many prime powers in any term have breached the p^p limit. Note that the results are same as for A327860(n), as the division by "regular part", A328572(n) does not affect the "wild part" of the arithmetic derivative of A276086(n). - Antti Karttunen, Mar 12 2021

I decided to name this sequence in honor of Lithuanian artist Mikalojus Čiurlionis, 1875 - 1911, as the scatter plot of this sequence reminds me thematically of his work "Pyramid sonata", with similar elements: fractal repetition in different scales and high tension present, discharging as lightning. Like Čiurlionis's paintings, this sequence has many variations, see the Formula and Crossrefs sections. - Antti Karttunen, Apr 30 2022

Sequence contains only terms of A048103.

Proof that A046337 gives the positions of even terms: see Charlie Neder's Feb 25 2019 comment in A235992 and recall that A276086 is never a multiple of 4, as it is a permutation of A048103, and furthermore it toggles the parity. See also comment in A327860. - Antti Karttunen, May 01 2022

Sequence contains only terms of A048103.

Are there fixed points other than 1, 2, 10, 15, 5005? (There are none in the range 5006 .. 402653184.) See A369650.

Records occur at n = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 18, 27, 32, 48, 64, 80, 144, 224, 256, 336, 448, 480, 512, 1728, ... (see also A131117).

a(n) and n are never multiples of 9 at the same time, thus the fixed points certainly exclude any terms of A008591. For a proof, consider my comment in A047257 and that A003415(9*n) is always a multiple of 3. - Antti Karttunen, Feb 08 2024

This sequence can be used for filtering certain primorial base related sequences, because it matches only with any such sequence b that can be computed as b(n) = f(A276086(n)), where f(n) is any function that depends only on the prime signature of n (some of these are listed under the index entry for "sequences computed from exponents in ...").

Matching in this context means that the sequence a matches with the sequence b iff for all i, j: a(i) = a(j) => b(i) = b(j). In other words, iff the sequence b partitions the natural numbers to the same or coarser equivalence classes (as/than the sequence a) by the distinct values it obtains.

Any such sequence should match where the result is computed from the nonzero digits (that may also be > 9) in the primorial base representation of n, but does not depend on their order. Some of these are listed on the last line of the Crossrefs section.

The terms of this sequence are currently known only up to n=23, with the value of a(24) still being uncertain. For the tentative values of the later terms, see sequence A328324 which gives upper bounds for these terms, many of which are very likely also exact values for them.

As A051903(A003415(n)) >= A051903(n)-1, it means that it takes always at least A051903(n) steps to a prime if iterating solely with A003415.

Some known values and upper bounds from n=24 onward:

a(24) <= 11.

a(25) = 4.

a(26) = 7.

a(27) <= 22.

a(33) = 4.

a(39) = 4.

a(40) = 5.

a(42) = 3.

a(44) <= 10.

a(45) = 5.

a(46) = 5.

a(48) = 9.

a(49) = 6.

a(50) = 6.

a(55) = 7.

a(74) = 5.

a(77) = 6.

a(80) <= 18.

a(111) = 6.

a(112) = 8.

a(125) <= 9.

a(240) = 7.

a(625) <= 10.

a(875) = 8.

From Antti Karttunen, Feb 20 2022: (Start)

a(2556) <= 20.

a(5005) <= 19.

What is the value of a(128), and is A328324(128) well-defined?

When I created this sequence, I conjectured that by applying two simple arithmetic operations "arithmetic derivative" (A003415) and "primorial base exp-function" (A276086) in some combination, and starting from any positive integer, we could always reach zero (via a prime and 1).

At the first sight it seems almost certain that the conjecture holds, as it is always possible at every step to choose from two options (which very rarely meet, see A351088), leading to an exponentially growing search tree, and also because A276086 always jumps out of any dead-end path with p^p-factors (dead-end from the arithmetic derivative's point of view). However, it should be realized that one can reach the terms of either A157037 or A327978 with a single step of A003415 only from squarefree numbers (or respectively, cubefree numbers that are not multiples of 4, see A328234), and in general, because A003415 decreases the maximal exponent of the prime factorization (A051903) at most by one, if the maximal exponent in the prime factorization of n is large, there is a correspondingly long path to traverse if we take only A003415-steps in the iteration, and any step could always lead with certain probability to a p^p-number. Note that the antiderivatives of primorials with a square factor seem quite rare, see A351029.

And although taking a A276086-step will always land us to a p^p-free number (which a priori is not in the obvious dead-end path of A003415, although of course it might eventually lead to one), it (in most cases) also increases the magnitude of number considerably, that tends to make the escape even harder. Particularly, in the majority of cases A276086 increases the maximal exponent (which in the preimage is A328114, "maximal digit value used when n is written in primorial base"), so there will be even a longer journey down to squarefree numbers when using A003415. See the sequences A351067 and A351071 for the diminishing ratios suggesting rapidly diminishing chances of successfully reaching zero from larger terms of A276086. Also, the asymptotic density of A276156 is zero, even though A351073 may contain a few larger values.

On the other hand, if we could prove that by (for example) continuing upwards with any p^p-path of A003415 we could eventually reach with a near certainty a region of numbers with low values of A328114 (i.e., numbers with smallish digits in primorial base, like A276156), then the situation might change (see also A351089). However, a few empirical runs seemed to indicate otherwise.

For all of the above reasons, I now conjecture that there are natural numbers from which it is not possible to reach zero with any combination of steps. For example 128 or 5^5 = 3125.

(End)