Distribution and upper bound of mimic numbers

Importance: Medium ✭✭
Author(s): Bhattacharyya, M.
Recomm. for undergrads: yes
Prize: Not yet declared
Posted by: facility_cttb@i...
on: June 20th, 2009
Problem  

Let the notation $ a|b $ denote ''$ a $ divides $ b $''. The mimic function in number theory is defined as follows [1].

Definition   For any positive integer $ \mathcal{N} = \sum_{i=0}^{n}\mathcal{X}_{i}\mathcal{M}^{i} $ divisible by $ \mathcal{D} $, the mimic function, $ f(\mathcal{D} | \mathcal{N}) $, is given by,

$$ f(\mathcal{D} | \mathcal{N}) = \sum_{i=0}^{n}\mathcal{X}_{i}(\mathcal{M}-\mathcal{D})^{i} $$

By using this definition of mimic function, the mimic number of any non-prime integer is defined as follows [1].

Definition   The number $ m $ is defined to be the mimic number of any positive integer $ \mathcal{N} = \sum_{i=0}^{n}\mathcal{X}_{i}\mathcal{M}^{i} $, with respect to $ \mathcal{D} $, for the minimum value of which $ f^{m}(\mathcal{D} | \mathcal{N}) = \mathcal{D} $.

Given these two definitions and a positive integer $ \mathcal{D} $, find the distribution of mimic numbers of those numbers divisible by $ \mathcal{D} $.

Again, find whether there is an upper bound of mimic numbers for a set of numbers divisible by any fixed positive integer $ \mathcal{D} $.


Bibliography

*[1] Malay Bhattacharyya, Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and U Maulik, Non-primes are recursively divisible, Acta Universitatis Apulensis 19 (2009).


* indicates original appearance(s) of problem.