Periodicity of balancing numbers (Q397031): Difference between revisions

The balancing numbers originally introduced by \textit{A. Behera} and \textit{G. K. Panda} [Fibonacci Q. 37, No. 2, 98--105 (1999; Zbl 0962.11014)] as solutions of a Diophantine equation on triangular numbers possess many interesting properties. Many of these properties are comparable to certain properties of Fibonacci numbers, while some others are more interesting. While studying the periodicity of Fibonacci numbers, \textit{D. D. Wall} [Am. Math. Mon. 67, 525--532 (1960; Zbl 0101.03201)] conjectured that there may be some prime \(p\) such that the period of the Fibonacci sequence modulo \(p\) might be equal to the period of the sequence modulo \(p^2\), although he could not find a counter example in the first 10 000 natural numbers. Recently, \textit{A.-S. Elsenhans} and \textit{J. Jahnel} [(2010), \url{arxiv:1006.0824v1})] extended this search in primes up to \(10^{14}\) but could not find any such prime. The periodicity of balancing numbers modulo primes and modulo terms of certain sequences exhibits interesting results, again, some of them are identical with corresponding results of Fibonacci numbers, while some others are more fascinating. An important observation concerning the periodicity of balancing numbers is that, the period of this sequence coincides with the modulus of congruence if the modulus is any power of 2. There are three known primes (\(13, 31\) and \(1546463\)) for which the period of the sequence of balancing numbers modulo each prime is equal to the period modulo its square, while for the Fibonacci sequence, till date no such prime is available. For other interesting details see the paper.