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Practical central binomial coefficients

Article in Quaestiones Mathematicae · June 2020

DOI: 10.2989/16073606.2020.1775156

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 PRACTICAL CENTRAL BINOMIAL COEFFICIENTS

CARLO SANNA†

Abstract. A practical number is a positive integer n such that all positive integers less than
n can be written as a sum of distinct divisors
of n. Leonetti and Sanna proved that, as
x → +∞, the central binomial coefficient 2n n
is a practical number for all positive integers
n ≤ x but at most O(x0.88097 ) exceptions. We improve this result by reducing the number of
exceptions to exp C(log x)4/5 log log x , where C > 0 is a constant.

1. Introduction
A practical number is a positive integer n such that all positive integers less than n can be
written as a sum of distinct divisors of n. Practical numbers were defined by Srinivasan [15],
althought they were already used by Fibonacci to decompose rational numbers as sums of
unit fractions [12, pag. 121]. Estimates for the counting function of practical numbers were
given by Hausman and Shapiro [3], Tenenbaum [16], Margenstern [8], Saias [13], and, lastly,
Weingartner [17], who proved that the number of practical numbers up to x is asymptotic to
cx/ log x, as x → +∞, where c = 1.33607 . . . [18], settling a conjecture of Margenstern [8].
In analogy with Goldbach’s conjecture and prime triplet conjecture, Melfi [10] proved that
every positive even integer is the sum of two practical numbers, and that there are infinitely
many triples (n, n + 2, n + 4) of practical numbers. Moreover, Melfi [9] proved that every
Lucas sequence (Un (P, Q)) satisfying some mild conditions contains infinitely many practical
numbers, and Sanna [14] showed that Un (P, Q) is practical for at least P,Q x/ log x positive
integers n ≤ x, as x → +∞; and asked for a nontrivial upper bound.
Leonetti and Sanna [7] studied binomial coefficients that are practical

numbers. They proved
that, for fixed ε > 0 and as x → +∞, all binomial coefficients nk , with 0 ≤ k ≤ n ≤ x,
−1
are practical numbers but at most Oε x2−(2 log 2−ε)/ log log x exceptions. Furthermore, they

showed that the central binomial coefficient 2n

n is a practical number for all positive integers
n ≤ x but at most O(x0.88097 ) exceptions. In this note, we give the following improvement of
the last result.
Theorem 1.1. For x ≥ 3 the central binomial coefficient 2n


n is a practical number for all
4/5


positive integers n ≤ x but at most exp C(log x) log log x exceptions, where C > 0 is a
constant.
We remark that (as already pointed out in [7]), likely, there are only finitely many positive
2n


integers n such that n is not a practical number, but proving so could be out of reach.
In fact, if n is a power of 2 whose base 3 representation does not contain the digit 2, then 2n


n
is not a practical number [7, Proposition 2.1]. However, establishing whether there are finitely
or infinitely many such powers of 2 is an open problem [2, 4, 6, 11].

2. Preliminaries
We need some preliminary results.
Lemma 2.1. If d is a practical number and n is a positive integer divisible by d and having
all prime factors not exceeding 2d, then n is a practical number.
2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary: 11B65, Secondary: 11N25.
Key words and phrases. central binomial coefficient; practical number.
† C. Sanna is a member of the INdAM group GNSAGA.
1
2 C. SANNA

Proof. See [7, Lemma 2.2]. 

For every positive integer n, let s2 (n) be the number of nonzero binary digits of n.
2n


Lemma 2.2. For every positive integer n, the exponent of 2 in the prime factorization of n
is equal to s2 (n).
Proof. A result of Kummer [5] says that for every prime number p and for all positive integers
m, n the exponent of p in the prime factorization of m+n


n is equal to the number of carries in
the addition m + n done in base p. If m = n and p = 2 then we get the desired claim. 
Lemma 2.3. We have
1
 

log 2 +o(1) ε log(1/ε)
# n ≤ x : s2 (n) ≤ ε(log n/ log 2 + 1) ≤ x ,
uniformly as ε log x → +∞ and ε → 0+ .
Proof. Put N := blog x/ log 2 + 1c and k := dε(log n/ log 2 + 1)e. Then
C := # n ≤ x : s2 (n) ≤ ε(log n/ log 2 + 1) ≤ # n < 2N : s2 (n) ≤ k ,
 

where the right-hand side is the number of binary strings of length N having at most k nonzero
bits (including n = 0 to the count). Therefore,
k   k k
Nj kj N j eN k
   
X N X X
C≤ ≤ = < < e(1−log ε)(ε(log x/ log 2+1)+1) ,
j j! j! k k
j =0 j =0 j =0

and the claim follows recalling that ε log x → +∞ and ε → 0+ . 

The following result of Erdős and Kolesnik is the key to the proof of Theorem 1.1.
Theorem 2.4. There exist constants c1 , c2 > 0 such that, for all integers m, n, r with
1/4
(log m)3

2 ≤ m ≤ n/2 and 1 ≤ r ≤ c1 ,
(log n)2 log log n
n
there exist at least c2 rm1/r /(4r log m) prime numbers p ∈ [m1/r , n1/r ] such that pr ||


m .
Proof. See [1, Theorem 2]. 
Corollary 2.1. There exists a constant c3 > 0 such that, for all integers n, r with
 1/4
log n
n ≥ 3 and 1 ≤ r ≤ c3 ,
log log n
there exists a prime number p ∈ [n1/r , (2n)1/r ] such that pr || 2n


n .
Proof. The claim follows by replacing m and n with n and 2n, respectively, in Theorem 2.4. 

3. Proof of Theorem 1.1

Fix C > max (5 log 2)−1 , (2/c3 )4 , where c3 is the constant of Corollary 2.1. Assume that x

is sufficiently large and put E := exp C(log x)4/5 log log x and ε := (log x)−1/5 . Let n ≤ x be

a positive integer and let v be the exponent of 2 in the prime factorization of 2n

n . Since
1 1
ε log(1/ε) log x = (log x)4/5 log log x < C(log x)4/5 log log x,
log 2 5 log 2
from Lemma 2.2 and Lemma 2.3 we get that 2v ≤ nε for less than 21 E choices of n. Hence,
we can assume that 2v > nε and n > 12 E, which excludes at most E positive integers not
exceeding x. Then, since n > 21 E and x is sufficiently large, we have
!4
log n log( 12 E) 2(log x)1/5
> > C(log x)4/5 > .
log log n log log( 12 E) c3
 PRACTICAL CENTRAL BINOMIAL COEFFICIENTS 3

Therefore, $  1/4 %
log n 1
r := c3 > .
log log n ε
Thanks to Corollary 2.1, there exists a prime number p ∈ [n1/r , (2n)1/r ] such that pr divides
2n v


n . Now 2 is a practical number, because all powers of 2 are practical numbers. Morever,
since
p ≤ (2n)1/r < (2n)ε < 2v+1 ,
from Lemma 2.1 it follows that 2v pr is a practical number. Finally, 2v pr divides 2n

v r
n , 2 p ≥ 2n,
and all prime factors of n are not exceeding 2n, hence Lemma 2.1 yields that 2n
2n



n is a
practical number. The proof is complete.

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Politecnico di Torino, Department of Mathematical Sciences

Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy
Email address: [email protected]

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