Apéry-Style Irrationality Proofs via Linear Recurrences

UnsolvedNumber theory
Construction - Finite
Breakthrough

About the problem

In 1979, Apéry proved that \(\zeta(3)\) is irrational. At its core, the proof uses a particular recurrence relation, shown below. When initialized two different ways, this gives a pair of series that can be configured to converge “quickly” to \(\zeta(3)\). This fast convergence suffices for a proof of irrationality.

\[n^3 u_n = (34n^3- 51n^2 + 27n - 5) u_{n-1} - (n-1)^3 u_{n-2}\]

The aim of this problem is to find analogous recurrences and initializations that can be used to prove the irrationality of other “famous” constants.

Prompt

The prompt is posed independently for each of the following target constants: ζ(5), ζ(7), Catalan's constant, the Calegari-Dimitrov-Tang constant, and the Euler-Mascheroni constant γ.

The goal of this problem is to prove the irrationality of a particular real number in a specific way.

Let k be an integer with 1 ≤ k ≤ 25, and let P_0(x), ..., P_k(x) be polynomials with integer coefficients, each of degree at most 25, where P_k(n) ≠ 0 for n ≥ k. Let α = (α_0, ..., α_{k-1}) and β = (β_0, ..., β_{k-1}) be tuples of integers.

Let (a_n) and (b_n) denote the sequences defined by the recurrence P_k(n)*u_n = P_{k-1}(n)*u_{n-1} + ... + P_0(n)*u_{n-k} for n ≥ k, when initialized with α and β respectively.

Let L_n denote lcm(1,2,...,n) and let B_n = (L_n)^m*b_n, where m is a fixed positive integer.

Let X be a real number. It is known that if the following hold, then X is irrational.

1. a_n is an integer for all n ≥ 0.

2. B_n is an integer for all n ≥ 0.

3. X ≠ b_n / a_n for all n ≥ 0.

4. |b_n - a_n*X| ≤ C*ρ^n*e^{-mn} for all n ≥ 0, where C and ρ are positive real numbers and ρ < 1.

Your task is to find P_i, α, β, and m that establish the irrationality of ___ in this way.

Your answer is verified numerically, as follows. Conditions 1-4 are checked for all 0 ≤ n < 650, with condition 4 checked using the fixed values C = 100 and ρ = 0.95. An answer that satisfies condition 4 only with a larger C or ρ is rejected; in particular, note that scaling α and β by a common factor scales C by that factor. In addition, every integer in the submission — each polynomial coefficient and each entry of α and β — may have at most 100 decimal digits. Conditions 1 and 2 are checked exactly, but condition 4 is checked in floating point against a value of X carrying 6000 decimal digits. This bounds how sharply the linear form may converge: if |b_n - a_n*X| falls below (|a_n| + |b_n|)*10^-5990 at some tested n, the computed value cannot be distinguished from zero and the answer is rejected. For a typical certificate, where |b_n - a_n*X| is of order 1/a_n, this accommodates m up to about 10. m > 21 is rejected immediately, since no certificate with this m could be checked given this precision.