Irrational numbers associated to sequences without geometric progressions

Melvyn B. Nathanson, Kevin O'Bryant

Published 2013-07-30Version 1

Let s and k be integers with s \geq 2 and k \geq 2. Let g_k^{(s)}(n) denote the cardinality of the largest subset of the set {1,2,..., n} that contains no geometric progression of length k whose common ratio is a power of s. Let r_k(\ell) denote the cardinality of the largest subset of the set {0,1,2,\ldots, \ell -1\} that contains no arithmetric progression of length k. The limit \[ \lim_{n\rightarrow \infty} \frac{g_k^{(s)}(n)}{n} = (s-1) \sum_{m=1}^{\infty} \left(\frac{1}{s} \right)^{\min \left(r_k^{-1}(m)\right)} \] exists and converges to an irrational number.