A note on $p$-adic valuations of the Schenker sums

Piotr Miska

Published 2014-01-08Version 1

A prime number $p$ is called a Schenker prime if there exists such $n\in\mathbb{N}_+$ that $p\nmid n$ and $p\mid a_n$, where $a_n = \sum_{j=0}^{n}\frac{n!}{j!}n^j$ is so-called Schenker sum. T. Amdeberhan, D. Callan and V. Moll formulated two conjectures concerning $p$-adic valuations of $a_n$ in case when $p$ is a Schenker prime. In particular, they asked whether for each $k\in\mathbb{N}_+$ there exists the unique positive integer $n_k<p^k$ such that $v_p(a_{m\cdot 5^k + n_k})\geq k$ for each nonnegative integer $m$. We prove that for every $k\in\mathbb{N}_+$ the inequality $v_5(a_n)\geq k$ has exactly one solution modulo $5^k$. This confirms the first conjecture stated by the mentioned authors. Moreover, we show that if $37\nmid n$ then $v_{37}(a_n)\leq 1$, what means that the second conjecture stated by the mentioned authors is not true.