Integer parts of powers of rational numbers (Q2571071)

The present paper deals with the following problem: prove that for every rational number \(a>1\), the sequence of positive integers \(([a^n])_{n\geq 1}\) contains infinitely many composite numbers. Here, \([x]\) denotes the integer part of the real number \(x\). A first contribution to this problem is due to \textit{W. Forman} and \textit{H. N. Shapiro} [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 20, 561--573 (1967; Zbl 0149.29302)] who fix the cases \(a=3/2\) and \(a=4/3\). The main result of this paper is as follows. Set \({\mathcal P}(2)=\{2\}\), \({\mathcal P}(3)={\mathcal P}(4)=\{2,3\}\), \({\mathcal P}(6)={\mathcal P}(4/3)=\{2,3,5\}\), \({\mathcal P}(3/2)=\{2,5,7,11\}\), and \({\mathcal P}(5/4)=\{2,3,7,11,13\}\), Let \(\xi\) be a positive real number and let \(a\in\{2,3,4,6,3/2,4/3,5/4\}\). Then, the sequence \(([\xi a^n])_{n\geq 1}\) contains infinitely many elements divisible by at least one of the set \({\mathcal P}(a)\). Of course, it immediately follows that such sequence contains infinitely many composite numbers.