School of Mathematics
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Abstracts
Primes generated by recurrence sequences

Graham Everest, Shaun Stevens, Duncan Tamsett, Tom Ward
Preprint (December 2004), Amer. Math. Monthly, to appear. dvi pdf or arXiv:math.NT/0412079

Abstract. We consider primitive divisors of terms of integer sequences defined by quadratic polynomials. Apart from some small counterexamples, when a term has a primitive divisor, that primitive divisor is unique. It seems likely that the number of terms with a primitive divisor has a natural density. We discuss heuristic arguments to suggest a value for that density and prove upper and lower bounds for the number of terms with a primitive divisor.

 
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