On the Laxton group

Abstract: We redefine a multiplicative group structure on the set of equivalence classes of rational sequences satisfying a fixed linear recurrence of degree two, which was defined by R. R. Laxton in his paper "On groups of linear recurrences I" published in Duke Math. 36, 721--736 (1969). In the article, he also defined some natural subgroups of the group, and determined the structures of their quotient groups. However, he did not study the whole group itself. Nothing has been known about the structure of Laxton's whole group and its interpretation. The aims of this paper are to redefine Laxton's group in a natural way and determine the structure of the whole group itself, which clarifies Laxton's results on the quotient groups. According to our formulation by algebraic number theory method, we can simplify the proof of Laxton's results. Our definition also gives a natural interpretation of Laxton's results, and makes us possible to use the group to show various properties of such sequences.

Review text

In the paper under review, the authors study the Laxton group and redefine it in the natural way as follows. Let \(P\) and \(Q\neq 0\) be rational integers. Consider linear recurrence sequences associated to the characteristic polynomial \(f(t):=t^2-Pt+Q\). Namely, they are determined by the linear recurrence \(w_{n+2}=Pw_{n+1}-Qw_n\) and their first rational terms \(w_0\) and \(w_1\). Let \(\theta_1\) and \(\theta_2\) be the roots of \(f(t)\). Assume that \[ D:=\operatorname{disc}(f)=P^2-4Q=(\theta_1-\theta_2)^{2}\neq 0. \] Define an equivalence relation \(\sim^*\) on the set of the linear recurrence sequences. For \(\mathbf{w}=(w_n)\) and \(\mathbf{v}=(v_n)\), we write \(\mathbf{w} \sim^* \mathbf{v}\) if there exists \(\lambda \in \mathbb{Q}^{\times}\) and \(\nu \in \mathbb{Z}\) such that \(w_n=\lambda v_{n+\nu}\) for any \(n\in\mathbb{Z}\). \textit{R. R. Laxton} [Duke Math. J. 36, 721--736 (1969; Zbl 0226.10010); Pac. J. Math. 32, 173--179 (1970; Zbl 0226.10011)] considered the following quotient set using this equivalence relation. \begin{multline*} G^{*}(f):=\left\{(w_n)_{n\in\mathbb{Z}}\mid w_0, w_1\in\mathbb{Q} \text{ with } \Lambda(w_1,w_0)\neq 0, w_{n+2}-Pw_{n+1}+Qw_n=0 \right.\\ \left.\text{ for any } n\in \mathbb{Z}, \text{ and there exists } \nu \in \mathbb{Z} \text{ such that } w_k\in\mathbb{Z} \text{ for any } k\ge \nu \right\}/\sim^*, \end{multline*} where \(\Lambda(w_1, w_0):=w_1^2-Pw_0w_1+Qw_0^2\). Laxton introduced a multiplication on \(G^*(f)\) as follows. For classes \(\mathcal{W}\) and \(\mathcal{V} \in G^*(f)\), let \((w_n)\) and \((v_n)\) be representatives of the classes \(\mathcal{W}\) and \(\mathcal{V}\), respectively. The product \(\mathcal{W}\times \mathcal{V}\) of \(\mathcal{W}\) and \(\mathcal{V}\) is, then, defined by the class of \((u_n)\) with \[ u_n=(AC\theta_1^n-BD\theta_2^{n})/(\theta_1-\theta_2), \] where \(A=w_1-w_0\theta_2\), \(B=w_1-w_0\theta_1\), \(C=v_1-v_0\theta_2\), and \(D=v_1-v_0\theta_1\). \(G^*(f)\) is called the Laxton group. Furthermore, the authors determine the structure of the whole Laxton group, which clarifies Laxton's results on the quotient groups. This definition makes it possible to use the Laxton group to show various properties of rational sequences satisfying a fixed linear recurrence of degree two.

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