Perfect powers in elliptic divisibility sequences

It is shown that there are finitely many perfect powers in an elliptic divisibility sequence whose first term is divisible by 2 or 3. For Mordell curves the same conclusion is shown to hold if the first term is greater than 1. Examples of Mordell curves and families of congruent number curves are given with corresponding elliptic divisibility sequences having no perfect power terms. The proofs combine primitive divisor results with modular methods for Diophantine equations.Comment: 16 page

Perfect powers in products of terms of elliptic divisibility sequences

Diophantine problems involving recurrence sequences have a long history and is an actively studied topic within number theory. In this paper, we connect to the field by considering the equation \begin{align*} B_mB_{m+d}\dots B_{m+(k-1)d}=y^\ell \end{align*} in positive integers $m,d,k,y$ with $\gcd(m,d)=1$ and $k\geq 2$, where $\ell\geq 2$ is a fixed integer and $B=(B_n)_{n=1}^\infty$ is an elliptic divisibility sequence, an important class of non-linear recurrences. We prove that the above equation admits only finitely many solutions. In fact, we present an algorithm to find all possible solutions, provided that the set of $\ell$-th powers in $B$ is given. (Note that this set is known to be finite.) We illustrate our method by an example.Comment: To appear in Bulletin of Australian Math Societ

Divisibility by 3 of even multiperfect numbers of abundancy 3 and 4

We say a number is flat if it can be written as a non-trivial power of 2 times an odd squarefree number. The power is the “exponent” and the number of odd primes the “length”. Let N be flat and 4-perfect with exponent a and length m. If a ≢ 1 mod 12, then a is even. If a is even and 3 ∤ N then m is also even. If a ≡ 1 mod 12 then 3 | N and m is even. If N is flat and 3-perfect and 3 ∤ N, then if a a ≡ 1 mod 12, a is even. If a ≡ 1 mod 12 then m is odd. If N is flat and 3 or 4-perfect then it is divisible by at least one Mersenne prime, but not all odd prime divisors are Mersenne. We also give some conditions for the divisibility by 3 of an arbitrary even 4-perfect number

On the degree of non-Markovianity of quantum evolution

We propose a new characterization of non-Markovian quantum evolution based on the concept of non-Markovianity degree. It provides an analog of a Schmidt number in the entanglement theory and reveals the formal analogy between quantum evolution and the entanglement theory: Markovian evolution corresponds to a separable state and non-Markovian one is further characterized by its degree. It enables one to introduce a non-Markovinity witness -- an analog of an entanglement witness -- and a family of measures -- an analog of Schmidt coefficients -- and finally to characterize maximally non-Markovian evolution being an analog of maximally entangled state. Our approach allows to classify the non-Markovianity measures introduced so far in a unified rigorous mathematical framework.Comment: 5 page