2-adic congruences of Nörlund numbers and of Bernoulli numbers of the second kind (Q1281635): Difference between revisions

The (rational) numbers \(B_n^{(n)}\), \(b_n\) mentioned in the title are defined by the formal power series \[ \sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{B_n^{(n)}}{n!} t^n=\frac{t}{(1+t)\log(1+t)} \] (Nörlund numbers) and \[ \sum_{n=0}^\infty b_n t^n=\frac{t}{\log(1+t)} \] (Bernoulli numbers of the second kind), respectively. The main results are the \(2\)-adic congruences \[ C_n:=(-1)^n 2^n B_n^{(n)}/n!+1 \equiv 0 \pmod{2^{[n/2]+1}} \] and \[ c_n:=(-1)^n 2^n b_n-1 \equiv 0 \pmod{2^{[n/2]+1}}, \] where \([x]\) denotes the integer part of \(x\). These congruences improve the mod \(8\) congruences of \textit{F. T. Howard} [see Theorem 5.3 in Applications of Fibonacci Numbers, Vol. 5, 355-366 (1993; Zbl 0805.11023)]. Furthermore, the congruences are best possible unless \(n \equiv 2\pmod 4\), \(n\equiv 0\pmod 4\), respectively. The author uses essentially the non-archimedean \(2\)-adic metric and starts with the nice results \[ \sum_{n=0}^\infty C_n=0,\qquad \sum_{n=0}^\infty c_n=-2. \]