On Fermat and Mersenne numbers expressible as product of two \(k\)-Fibonacci numbers (Q2127744): Difference between revisions

The sequence of \(k\)-Fibonacci numbers \((F_n^{(k)})_{n\ge -(k-2)}\) satisfies the recurrence \(F_{n}^{(k)}=F_{n-1}^{(k)}+\cdots+F_{n-k}^{(k)}\) for all \(n\ge 2\) with values \(0,0,\ldots,0,1\) (a string of \(k-1\) zeros). In the paper under review the authors show that the Diophantine equation \(F_n^{(k)}F_m^{(k)}=2^a\pm 1\) has no solutions in positive integers \(n,m,k,a\) with \(3\le m\le n\) and \(k\ge 2\). The proof uses Baker's method to show that in the above equation \(n<4.21\cdot 10^{28} k^8 (\log k)^5\). Then the authors use reduction techniques to show that when \(k\le 360\), the equation has no solutions. In the remaining range they use the fact that \(F_n^{(k)}\) is exponentially close to \(2^{n-2}\) (but smaller than or equal to \(2^{n-2}-1\)), to get a contradiction in an elementary way.