Combinatorial numbers in binary recurrences (Q1046812)

Under the combinatorial numbers in the title are meant the Fibonacci (denoted by F), Lucas (L), Pell (P) or associated Pell (Q) numbers. Three main theorem of the paper contain effective finiteness results on the solubility of equation (1) \(p(x)=U_n\), \(n\geq2, x\in\mathbb Z\), where \(p(x)\) is one of the polynomials \(S_k(x)=\sum_{i=1}^{x-1}i^k\), \(T_k(x)=\sum_{i=1}^{x-1}(-i)^k\), \(\Pi_k(x)=\prod_{i=x}^{x+k-1}i\), \({x\choose k}\), or a certain polynomial of degree 4, and \(U_n=AU_{n-1}+BU_{n-2}\), \(n\geq2,A,B\in\mathbb Z\) is a binary sequence. Theorem 1: Let \(k\geq2\) and \(p(x)\in\{S_k(x),T_k(x),\Pi_k(x),{x\choose k}\}\). If \(k=2\) or \(p(x)\in\{S_2(x),\Pi_3(x),{x\choose 3}\}\), then further assume that \(B=1\). Then the solutions \(n,x\) of equation (1) satisfy \(\max(n,| x| )<c_0(U,k)\), where \(c_0(U,k)\) is an effectively computable constant depending only on \(U\) and \(k\). The second main result is based on tools (algorithms written in Magma) and results on curves of genus 1. It says that using the previous notation, suppose that \(p(x)=(a(x+b)^4+c(x+b)^2+d)/e\), \(a,b,c,d,e\in\mathbb Z\) and that \(8aDd(2ad-c^2)\neq -64a^2C\pm e^2-c^4D\) with \(D=A^2+4B\) and \(C=U_1^2-AU_0U_1-BU_0^2\), then equation (1) has only finitely many solutions \(n,x\) and these solutions can be effectively determined. In the third result there are tabulated (again with a support of Magma) all solutions of (1) for \(U\in\{F,L,P,Q\}\) and \(p(x)\in\left\{S_1(s),S_2(x),S_3(x),T_2(x),T_4(x),\Pi_2(x),\Pi_3(x),\Pi_4(x),{x\choose 2},{x\choose 3},{x\choose 4} \right\}\).