Screw discrete dynamical systems and their applications to exact slow NIM (Q6611084)

The authors consider a particular discrete dynamical system described below. They prove that it is ``quasi-periodic'' and an exact description of its behavior is carried on. For particular values of the parameters, they also show that such screw dynamical system are applicable to impartial games.\N\NFix integers \(n, k, \ell\) such that \(0 < k < n\), \(1 < \ell\), and consider an integer (but not necessarily non-negative) \(n\)-vector \(x = (x_1,\ldots,x_n)\). The vector \(x\) is defined up to a permutation of its entries. So, assume monotonicity: \(x_1\leq\cdots\leq x_n\). Denote by \(m(x)\) the number of entries of \(x\) that are multiple of \(\ell\). If \(m(x)\geq n-k\), choose the smallest \(n-k\) of such entries. If \(m(x) < n-k\), choose all \(m(x)\) such entries, if any, and add the \(n-k-m(x)\) largest entries of \(x\). In both cases the choice is not necessarily unique. To make it well-defined, the authors add the following tie-breaking rule: choosing the smallest (or largest) among several equal entries always take the rightmost one, that is, \(x_i\) with the largest \(i\). The chosen \(n-k\) entries of \(x\) will be called \textit{bearish} and their indices -- \textit{bears}, while the remaining k will be called \textit{bullish} and their indices -- \textit{bulls}.\N\NFor any feasible \(n, k, \ell\), define a discrete dynamical system by the following rule. Given an integer vector \(x\), consider a move \(x\to x'\) such that \(n-k\) bearish entries of \(x\) do not change, while \(k\) bullish entries are reduced by \(1\). This provides (unique) move \(x\to x'\) and (unique) sequence \(S = (x = x_0 \to x_1 \to\cdots\to x_j\to \cdots)\).