No label defined (Q4807908)

Let \(\mathbb{N}\) denote the set of all non-negative integers. For \(k \in \mathbb{N}\) define \(\beta(k) \in \mathbb{N}\) by \(\beta(k)=\text{min}\{ i-\nu(i)-1 \;| \;k<i \}\), which is called the Schwarzenberger number, where \(\nu(i)\) denotes the integer such that \(i=2^{\nu(i)}(2b+1), \;b \in \mathbb{N}\). The authors [cf. Stable extendibility of vector bundles over real projective spaces and bounds for the Schwarzenberger numbers \(\beta(k)\), preprint (2003)] effectively use this number to answer the problem of determining the stable extendibility of \(k\)-dimensional vector bundles over real projective spaces. The purpose of this paper is to determine the value of \(\beta(k)\) and to use this result to prove directly the inequalities \(k-\alpha(k) \leq \beta(k) \leq k\) given in the paper above where \(\alpha(k)\) is the number of the non-zero terms of the 2-adic expanssion of \(k\). But this value is in fact expressed by means of the form \(i-\nu(i)-1\) and the caluculation seems not necessarily simple. In the final section the authors make a list of \(\beta(k)\) for \(1 \leq k \leq 45\) together with the ones of the related numbers \(S(n,n)\) and \(T(n,[n/2]+1)\) for \(1 \leq n \leq 11\).