The diamond is the complete graph on four vertices minus one edge; $P_n$ and $C_n$ denote the path and cycle on n vertices, respectively. We prove that the chromatic number of a $(P_6,C_4,\mbox {diamond})$-free graph G is no larger than the maximum of 3 and the clique number of G.

For a fixed integer h, the standard orthogonality relations for Ramanujan sums $c_r(n)$ give an asymptotic formula for the shifted convolution $\sum _{n\le N} c_q(n)c_r(n+h)$. We prove a generalised formula for affine convolutions $\sum _{n\le N} c_q(n)c_r(kn+h)$. This allows us to study affine convolutions $\sum _{n\le N} f(n)g(kn+h)$ of arithmetical functions $f,g$ admitting a suitable Ramanujan–Fourier expansion. As an application, we give a heuristic justification of the Hardy–Littlewood conjectural asymptotic formula for counting Sophie Germain primes.

Let $(x_n)_{n\geq 0}$ be a linear recurrence of order $k\geq 2$ satisfying $x_n=a_1x_{n-1}+a_2x_{n-2}+\cdots +a_kx_{n-k}$ for all integers $n\geq k$, where $a_1,\ldots ,a_k,x_0,\ldots , x_{k-1}\in \mathbb {Z},$ with $a_k\neq 0$. Sanna [‘The quotient set of k-generalised Fibonacci numbers is dense in $\mathbb {Q}_p$’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc. 96(1) (2017), 24–29] posed the question of classifying primes p for which the quotient set of $(x_n)_{n\geq 0}$ is dense in $\mathbb {Q}_p$. We find a sufficient condition for denseness of the quotient set of the kth-order linear recurrence $(x_n)_{n\geq 0}$ satisfying $ x_{n}=a_1x_{n-1}+a_2x_{n-2}+\cdots +a_kx_{n-k}$ for all integers $n\geq k$ with initial values $x_0=\cdots =x_{k-2}=0,x_{k-1}=1$, where $a_1,\ldots ,a_k\in \mathbb {Z}$ and $a_k=1$. We show that, given a prime p, there are infinitely many recurrence sequences of order $k\geq 2$ whose quotient sets are not dense in $\mathbb {Q}_p$. We also study the quotient sets of linear recurrence sequences with coefficients in certain arithmetic and geometric progressions.

Let $\varphi _1,\ldots ,\varphi _r\in {\mathbb Z}[z_1,\ldots z_k]$ be integral linear combinations of elementary symmetric polynomials with $\text {deg}(\varphi _j)=k_j\ (1\le j\le r)$, where $1\le k_1<k_2<\cdots <k_r=k$. Subject to the condition $k_1+\cdots +k_r\ge \tfrac {1}{2}k(k-~1)+2$, we show that there is a paucity of nondiagonal solutions to the Diophantine system $\varphi _j({\mathbf x})=\varphi _j({\mathbf y})\ (1\le j\le r)$.

Let a, b, c be fixed coprime positive integers with $\min \{ a,b,c \}>1$. Let $N(a,b,c)$ denote the number of positive integer solutions $(x,y,z)$ of the equation $a^x + b^y = c^z$. We show that if $(a,b,c)$ is a triple of distinct primes for which $N(a,b,c)>1$ and $(a,b,c)$ is not one of the six known such triples, then $c>10^{18}$, and there are exactly two solutions $(x_1, y_1, z_1)$, $(x_2, y_2, z_2)$ with $2 \mid x_1$, $2 \mid y_1$, $z_1=1$, $2 \nmid y_2$, $z_2>1$, and, taking $a<b$, we must have $a=2$, $b \equiv 1 \bmod 12$, $c \equiv 5\, \mod 12$, with $(a,b,c)$ satisfying further strong restrictions. These results support a conjecture put forward by Scott and Styer [‘Number of solutions to $a^x + b^y = c^z$’, Publ. Math. Debrecen 88 (2016), 131–138].

We settle a part of the conjecture by Bandini and Valentino [‘On the structure and slopes of Drinfeld cusp forms’, Exp. Math. 31(2) (2022), 637–651] for $S_{k,l}(\Gamma _0(T))$ when $\mathrm {dim}\ S_{k,l}(\mathrm {GL}_2(A))\leq 2$. We frame and check the conjecture for primes $\mathfrak {p}$ and higher levels $\mathfrak {p}\mathfrak {m}$, and show that a part of the conjecture for level $\mathfrak {p} \mathfrak {m}$ does not hold if $\mathfrak {m}\ne A$ and $(k,l)=(2,1)$.

Motivated by the p-adic approach in two of Mahler’s problems, we obtain some results on p-adic analytic interpolation of sequences of integers $(u_n)_{n\geq 0}$. We show that if $(u_n)_{n\geq 0}$ is a sequence of integers with $u_n = O(n)$ which can be p-adically interpolated by an analytic function $f:\mathbb {Z}_p\rightarrow \mathbb {Q}_p$, then $f(x)$ is a polynomial function of degree at most one. The case $u_n=O(n^d)$ with $d>1$ is also considered with additional conditions. Moreover, if X and Y are subsets of $\mathbb {Z}$ dense in $\mathbb {Z}_p$, we prove that there are uncountably many p-adic analytic injective functions $f:\mathbb {Z}_p\to \mathbb {Q}_p$, with rational coefficients, such that $f(X)=Y$.

For any Liouville number $\alpha $, all of the following are transcendental numbers: ${e}^\alpha $, $\log _{e}\alpha $, $\sin \alpha $, $\cos \alpha $, $\tan \alpha $, $\sinh \alpha $, $\cosh \alpha $, $\tanh \alpha $, $\arcsin \alpha $ and the inverse functions evaluated at $\alpha $ of the listed trigonometric and hyperbolic functions, noting that wherever multiple values are involved, every such value is transcendental. This remains true if ‘Liouville number’ is replaced by ‘U-number’, where U is one of Mahler’s classes of transcendental numbers.

We prove several finite product-sum identities involving the q-binomial coefficient, one of which is used to prove an amazing identity of Gauss. We then use this identity to evaluate certain quadratic Gauss sums and, together with known properties of quadratic Gauss sums, we prove the quadratic reciprocity law for the Jacobi symbol. We end our article with a new proof of Jenkins’ lemma, a lemma analogous to Gauss’ lemma. This article aims to show that Gauss’ amazing identity and the properties of quadratic Gauss sums are sufficient to establish the quadratic reciprocity law for the Jacobi symbol.

We investigate uniform upper bounds for the number of powerful numbers in short intervals $(x, x + y]$. We obtain unconditional upper bounds $O({y}/{\log y})$ and $O(\kern1.3pt y^{11/12})$ for all powerful numbers and $y^{1/2}$-smooth powerful numbers, respectively. Conditional on the $abc$-conjecture, we prove the bound $O({y}/{\log ^{1+\epsilon } y})$ for squarefull numbers and the bound $O(\kern1.3pt y^{(2 + \epsilon )/k})$ for k-full numbers when $k \ge 3$. These bounds are related to Roth’s theorem on arithmetic progressions and the conjecture on the nonexistence of three consecutive squarefull numbers.

For a positive integer $r\geq 2$, a natural number n is r-free if there is no prime p such that $p^r\mid n$. Asymptotic formulae for the distribution of r-free integers in the floor function set $S(x):=\{\lfloor x/ n \rfloor :1\leq n\leq x\}$ are derived. The first formula uses an estimate for elements of $S(x)$ belonging to arithmetic progressions. The other, more refined, formula makes use of an exponent pair and the Riemann hypothesis.

A partition $\lambda $ of n is said to be nearly self-conjugate if the Ferrers graph of $\lambda $ and its transpose have exactly $n-1$ cells in common. The generating function of the number of such partitions was first conjectured by Campbell and recently confirmed by Campbell and Chern (‘Nearly self-conjugate integer partitions’, submitted for publication). We present a simple and direct analytic proof and a combinatorial proof of an equivalent statement.

Gagola and Lewis [‘A character theoretic condition characterizing nilpotent groups’, Comm. Algebra 27 (1999), 1053–1056] proved that a finite group G is nilpotent if and only if $\chi (1)^{2}$ divides $\lvert G:\textrm {ker}\,\chi \rvert $ for every irreducible character $\chi $ of G. The theorem was later generalised by using monolithic characters. We generalise the theorem further considering only strongly monolithic characters. We also give some criteria for solvability and nilpotency of finite groups by their strongly monolithic characters.

The codegree of an irreducible character $\chi $ of a finite group G is $|G : \ker \chi |/\chi (1)$. We show that the Ree group ${}^2G_2(q)$, where $q = 3^{2f+1}$, is determined up to isomorphism by its set of codegrees.

We characterise the existence of certain (weakly) compact multipliers of the second dual of symmetric abstract Segal algebras in both the group algebra $L^{1}(G)$ and the Fourier algebra $A(G)$ of a locally compact group G.

We show that there is no nontrivial idempotent in the reduced group $\ell ^p$-operator algebra $B^p_r(F_n)$ of the free group $F_n$ on n generators for each positive integer n.

For amenable discrete groupoids $\mathcal {G}$ and row-finite directed graphs E, let $(\mathcal {G},E)$ be a self-similar groupoid and let $C^*(\mathcal {G}, E)$ be the associated $C^*$-algebra. We introduce a weaker faithfulness condition than those in the existing literature that still guarantees that $C^*(\mathcal {G})$ embeds in $C^*(\mathcal {G}, E)$. Under this faithfulness condition, we prove a gauge-invariant uniqueness theorem.

We provide a geometric interpretation of the well-known A3w condition for regularity in optimal transport.

Suppose M is a complex projective manifold of dimension $\geq 2$, V is the support of an ample divisor in M and U is an open set in M that intersects each irreducible component of V. We show that a pluriharmonic map $f:M\to N$ into a Kähler manifold N is holomorphic whenever $f\vert _{V\,\cap \, U}$ is holomorphic.