Generalizing Zeckendorf's Theorem to f-decompositions (1309.5599v1)

Abstract: A beautiful theorem of Zeckendorf states that every positive integer can be uniquely decomposed as a sum of non-consecutive Fibonacci numbers ${F_n}$, where $F_1 = 1$, $F_2 = 2$ and $F_{n+1} = F_n + F_{n-1}$. For general recurrences ${G_n}$ with non-negative coefficients, there is a notion of a legal decomposition which again leads to a unique representation, and the number of summands in the representations of uniformly randomly chosen $m \in [G_n, G_{n+1})$ converges to a normal distribution as $n \to \infty$. We consider the converse question: given a notion of legal decomposition, is it possible to construct a sequence ${a_n}$ such that every positive integer can be decomposed as a sum of terms from the sequence? We encode a notion of legal decomposition as a function $f:\N_0\to\N_0$ and say that if $a_n$ is in an "$f$-decomposition", then the decomposition cannot contain the $f(n)$ terms immediately before $a_n$ in the sequence; special choices of $f$ yield many well known decompositions (including base-$b$, Zeckendorf and factorial). We prove that for any $f:\N_0\to\N_0$, there exists a sequence ${a_n}_{n=0}^\infty$ such that every positive integer has a unique $f$-decomposition using ${a_n}$. Further, if $f$ is periodic, then the unique increasing sequence ${a_n}$ that corresponds to $f$ satisfies a linear recurrence relation. Previous research only handled recurrence relations with no negative coefficients. We find a function $f$ that yields a sequence that cannot be described by such a recurrence relation. Finally, for a class of functions $f$, we prove that the number of summands in the $f$-decomposition of integers between two consecutive terms of the sequence converges to a normal distribution.