When a page, represented by the interval $[0,1],$ is folded right over left $ n$ times, the right-hand fold contains a sequence of points. We specify these points and the order in which they appear in each fold. We also determine exactly where in the folded structure any point in $[0,1]$ appears and, given any point on the bottom line of the structure, which point lies at each level above it.

We generalize the greedy and lazy $\beta $ -transformations for a real base $\beta $ to the setting of alternate bases ${\boldsymbol {\beta }}=(\beta _0,\ldots ,\beta _{p-1})$ , which were recently introduced by the first and second authors as a particular case of Cantor bases. As in the real base case, these new transformations, denoted $T_{{\boldsymbol {\beta }}}$ and $L_{{\boldsymbol {\beta }}}$ respectively, can be iterated in order to generate the digits of the greedy and lazy ${\boldsymbol {\beta }}$ -expansions of real numbers. The aim of this paper is to describe the measure-theoretical dynamical behaviors of $T_{{\boldsymbol {\beta }}}$ and $L_{{\boldsymbol {\beta }}}$ . We first prove the existence of a unique absolutely continuous (with respect to an extended Lebesgue measure, called the p-Lebesgue measure) $T_{{\boldsymbol {\beta }}}$ -invariant measure. We then show that this unique measure is in fact equivalent to the p-Lebesgue measure and that the corresponding dynamical system is ergodic and has entropy $({1}/{p})\log (\beta _{p-1}\cdots \beta _0)$ . We give an explicit expression of the density function of this invariant measure and compute the frequencies of letters in the greedy ${\boldsymbol {\beta }}$ -expansions. The dynamical properties of $L_{{\boldsymbol {\beta }}}$ are obtained by showing that the lazy dynamical system is isomorphic to the greedy one. We also provide an isomorphism with a suitable extension of the $\beta $ -shift. Finally, we show that the ${\boldsymbol {\beta }}$ -expansions can be seen as $(\beta _{p-1}\cdots \beta _0)$ -representations over general digit sets and we compare both frameworks.

We obtain an effective analytic formula, with explicit constants, for the number of distinct irreducible factors of a polynomial $f \in \mathbb {Z}[x]$ . We use an explicit version of Mertens’ theorem for number fields to estimate a related sum over rational primes. For a given $f \in \mathbb {Z}[x]$ , our result yields a finite list of primes that certifies the number of distinct irreducible factors of f.

We investigate, for given positive integers a and b, the least positive integer $c=c(a,b)$ such that the quotient $\varphi (c!\kern-1.2pt)/\varphi (a!\kern-1.2pt)\varphi (b!\kern-1.2pt)$ is an integer. We derive results on the limit of $c(a,b)/(a+b)$ as a and b tend to infinity and show that $c(a,b)>a+b$ for all pairs of positive integers $(a,b)$ , with the exception of a set of density zero.

Merca [‘Congruence identities involving sums of odd divisors function’, Proc. Rom. Acad. Ser. A Math. Phys. Tech. Sci. Inf. Sci.22(2) (2021), 119–125] posed three conjectures on congruences for specific convolutions of a sum of odd divisor functions with a generating function for generalised m-gonal numbers. Extending Merca’s work, we complete the proof of these conjectures.

We establish a family of q-supercongruences modulo the cube of a cyclotomic polynomial for truncated basic hypergeometric series. This confirms a weaker form of a conjecture of the present authors. Our proof employs a very-well-poised Karlsson–Minton type summation due to Gasper, together with the ‘creative microscoping’ method introduced by the first author in recent joint work with Zudilin.

The article focuses on the evaluation of convolution sums $${W_k}(n): = \mathop \sum \nolimits_{_{m < {n \over k}}} \sigma (m)\sigma (n - km)$$ involving the sum of divisor function $$\sigma (n)$$ for k =21, 33, and 35. In this article, our aim is to obtain certain Eisenstein series of level 21 and use them to evaluate the convolution sums for level 21. We also make use of the existing Eisenstein series identities for level 33 and 35 in evaluating the convolution sums for level 33 and 35. Most of the convolution sums were evaluated using the theory of modular forms, whereas we have devised a technique which is free from the theory of modular forms. As an application, we determine a formula for the number of representations of a positive integer n by the octonary quadratic form $$(x_1^2 + {x_1}{x_2} + ax_2^2 + x_3^2 + {x_3}{x_4} + ax_4^2) + b(x_5^2 + {x_5}{x_6} + ax_6^2 + x_7^2 + {x_7}{x_8} + ax_8^2)$$, for (a, b)=(1, 7), (1, 11), (2, 3), and (2, 5).

Let $p=3n+1$ be a prime with $n\in \mathbb {N}=\{0,1,2,\ldots \}$ and let $g\in \mathbb {Z}$ be a primitive root modulo p. Let $0<a_1<\cdots <a_n<p$ be all the cubic residues modulo p in the interval $(0,p)$ . Then clearly the sequence $a_1 \bmod p,\, a_2 \bmod p,\ldots , a_n \bmod p$ is a permutation of the sequence $g^3 \bmod p,\,g^6 \bmod p,\ldots , g^{3n} \bmod p$ . We determine the sign of this permutation.

Let $k\geqslant 1$ be a natural number and $\omega _k(n)$ denote the number of distinct prime factors of a natural number n with multiplicity k. We estimate the first and second moments of the functions $\omega _k$ with $k\geqslant 1$ . Moreover, we prove that the function $\omega _1(n)$ has normal order $\log \log n$ and the function $(\omega _1(n)-\log \log n)/\sqrt {\log \log n}$ has a normal distribution. Finally, we prove that the functions $\omega _k(n)$ with $k\geqslant 2$ do not have normal order $F(n)$ for any nondecreasing nonnegative function F.

We prove that if $A \subseteq [X,\,2X]$ and $B \subseteq [Y,\,2Y]$ are sets of integers such that gcd (a, b) ⩾ D for at least δ|A||B| pairs (a, b) ε A × B then $|A||B|{ \ll _{\rm{\varepsilon }}}{\delta ^{ - 2 - \varepsilon }}XY/{D^2}$ . This is a new result even when δ = 1. The proof uses ideas of Koukoulopoulos and Maynard and some additional combinatorial arguments.

We define a family $\mathcal {B}(t)$ of compact subsets of the unit interval which provides a filtration of the set of numbers whose continued fraction expansion has bounded digits. We study how the set $\mathcal {B}(t)$ changes as the parameter t ranges in $[0,1]$ , and see that the family undergoes period-doubling bifurcations and displays the same transition pattern from periodic to chaotic behaviour as the family of real quadratic polynomials. The set $\mathcal {E}$ of bifurcation parameters is a fractal set of measure zero and Hausdorff dimension $1$ . The Hausdorff dimension of $\mathcal {B}(t)$ varies continuously with the parameter, and we show that the dimension of each individual set equals the dimension of the corresponding section of the bifurcation set $\mathcal {E}$ .

Let $g \geq 2$ be an integer. A natural number is said to be a base-g Niven number if it is divisible by the sum of its base-g digits. Assuming Hooley’s Riemann hypothesis, we prove that the set of base-g Niven numbers is an additive basis, that is, there exists a positive integer $C_g$ such that every natural number is the sum of at most $C_g$ base-g Niven numbers.

Let S be the sum-of-digits function in base 2, which returns the number of 1s in the base-2 expansion of a nonnegative integer. For a nonnegative integer t, define the asymptotic density

$${c_t} = \mathop {\lim }\limits_{N \to \infty } {1 \over N}|\{ 0 \le n < N:s(n + t) \ge s(n)\} |.$$

We continue the research of the relation $\hspace {1mm}\widetilde {\mid }\hspace {1mm}$ on the set $\beta \mathbb {N}$ of ultrafilters on $\mathbb {N}$ , defined as an extension of the divisibility relation. It is a quasiorder, so we see it as an order on the set of $=_{\sim }$ -equivalence classes, where $\mathcal {F}=_{\sim }\mathcal {G}$ means that $\mathcal {F}$ and $\mathcal {G}$ are mutually $\hspace {1mm}\widetilde {\mid }$ -divisible. Here we introduce a new tool: a relation of congruence modulo an ultrafilter. We first recall the congruence of ultrafilters modulo an integer and show that $=_{\sim }$ -equivalent ultrafilters do not necessarily have the same residue modulo $m\in \mathbb {N}$ . Then we generalize this relation to congruence modulo an ultrafilter in a natural way. After that, using iterated nonstandard extensions, we introduce a stronger relation, which has nicer properties with respect to addition and multiplication of ultrafilters. Finally, we introduce a strengthening of $\hspace {1mm}\widetilde {\mid }\hspace {1mm}$ and show that it also behaves well with respect to the congruence relation.

Let p be a prime and let x be a p-adic integer. We prove two supercongruences for truncated series of the form

$$\begin{align*}\sum_{k=1}^{p-1} \frac{(x)_k}{(1)_k}\cdot \frac{1}{k}\sum_{1\le j_1\le\cdots\le j_r\le k}\frac{1}{j_1^{}\cdots j_r^{}}\quad\mbox{and}\quad \sum_{k=1}^{p-1} \frac{(x)_k(1-x)_k}{(1)_k^2}\cdot \frac{1}{k}\sum_{1\le j_1\le\cdots\le j_r\le k}\frac{1}{j_1^{2}\cdots j_r^{2}}\end{align*}$$

For a polynomial $f(x)\in\mathbb{Q}[x]$ and rational numbers c, u, we put $f_c(x)\coloneqq f(x)+c$, and consider the Zsigmondy set $\calZ(f_c,u)$ associated to the sequence $\{f_c^n(u)-u\}_{n\geq 1}$, see Definition 1.1, where $f_c^n$ is the n-st iteration of fc. In this paper, we prove that if u is a rational critical point of f, then there exists an Mf > 0 such that $\mathbf M_f\geq \max_{c\in \mathbb{Q}}\{\#\calZ(f_c,u)\}$.

For any prime p, let $y(p)$ denote the smallest integer y such that every reduced residue class (mod p) is represented by the product of some subset of $\{1,\dots ,y\}$ . It is easy to see that $y(p)$ is at least as large as the smallest quadratic nonresidue (mod p); we prove that $y(p) \ll _\varepsilon p^{1/(4 \sqrt e)+\varepsilon }$ , thus strengthening Burgess’ classical result. This result is of intermediate strength between two other results, namely Burthe’s proof that the multiplicative group (mod p) is generated by the integers up to $O_\varepsilon (p^{1/(4 \sqrt e)+\varepsilon })$ , and Munsch and Shparlinski’s result that every reduced residue class (mod p) is represented by the product of some subset of the primes up to $O_\varepsilon (p^{1/(4 \sqrt e)+\varepsilon })$ . Unlike the latter result, our proof is elementary and similar in structure to Burgess’ proof for the least quadratic nonresidue.

The level of distribution of a complex-valued sequence $b$ measures the quality of distribution of $b$ along sparse arithmetic progressions $nd+a$. We prove that the Thue–Morse sequence has level of distribution $1$, which is essentially best possible. More precisely, this sequence gives one of the first nontrivial examples of a sequence satisfying a Bombieri–Vinogradov-type theorem for each exponent $\theta <1$. This result improves on the level of distribution $2/3$ obtained by Müllner and the author. As an application of our method, we show that the subsequence of the Thue–Morse sequence indexed by $\lfloor n^c\rfloor$, where $1 < c < 2$, is simply normal. This result improves on the range $1 < c < 3/2$ obtained by Müllner and the author and closes the gap that appeared when Mauduit and Rivat proved (in particular) that the Thue–Morse sequence along the squares is simply normal.

Given a positive integer M and $q \in (1, M+1]$ we consider expansions in base q for real numbers $x \in [0, {M}/{q-1}]$ over the alphabet $\{0, \ldots , M\}$ . In particular, we study some dynamical properties of the natural occurring subshift $(\boldsymbol{{V}}_q, \sigma )$ related to unique expansions in such base q. We characterize the set of $q \in \mathcal {V} \subset (1,M+1]$ such that $(\boldsymbol{{V}}_q, \sigma )$ has the specification property and the set of $q \in \mathcal {V}$ such that $(\boldsymbol{{V}}_q, \sigma )$ is a synchronized subshift. Such properties are studied by analysing the combinatorial and dynamical properties of the quasi-greedy expansion of q. We also calculate the size of such classes as subsets of $\mathcal {V}$ giving similar results to those shown by Blanchard [ 10 ] and Schmeling in [ 36 ] in the context of $\beta $ -transformations.

We construct eta-quotient representations of two families of q-series involving the Rogers–Ramanujan continued fraction by establishing related recurrence relations. We also display how these eta-quotient representations can be utilised to dissect certain q-series identities.