REVIEW
New integer sequence OEIS A392714 counts Wronskians: fast evaluation via late-growing permutations
Number Theory · Submitted 6 Oct 2026 · 24 references
Pith's verdict: Genuinely new sequence with exact values to p=18 via a clean subset recursion; the math holds up, the abstract over-claims an unpublished growth bound, and the tail c(15), c(18) need an independent run.
T0 · AI review
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Referee report
The paper
The paper claims
The alternating composition of 2p weighted differential operators on the line equals c(p) times the Wronskian of the weights, and the paper computes the universal integers c(p) exactly up to p = 18 as the new OEIS sequence A392714.
The reading
What carries the argument
The load-bearing object is the late-growing permutation set $\Phi_p\subseteq S_{2p-1}$ together with the closed formula (8) that expresses $c(p)$ through it. Late-growing permutations are those whose partial sums never exceed the partial sums of the average permutation; after the monomial substitution they are exactly the permutations whose iterated action keeps the exponent of $x$ nonnegative, so they replace the full group $S_{2p}$ in the alternating sum. Formula (8) reads $c(p)\prod_{k=0}^{2p-1}k! = \sum_{\sigma\in\Phi_p}(-1)^\sigma\prod_{k=1}^{2p-1}(E_k)_p$, where $E_k$ is the running exponent built by the right-to-left operator action and $(E_k)_p$ is the falling factorial. The decisive acceleration is Lemma 4.2: the exponent $E(A) = p + (p+1)|A| - \sum_{j\in A} j$ depends only on the set $A$ of labels still to be placed, never on their order, so the sum obeys the subset recursion $\Psi(A) = \sum_{e\in A,\ E(A\setminus\{e\})\geq p}(-1)^{\#\{f\in A:\ f>e\}}(E(A\setminus\{e\}))_p\,\Psi(A\setminus\{e\})$ with $\Psi(\{2,\dots,2p\}) = c(p)\prod_{k=0}^{2p-1}k!$. Memoising this recursion over bit masks and sweeping it modulo primes, with a Chinese Remainder Theorem reconstruction, is Algorithm 2; the underlying identity (2) is supported by the appendix's argument that antisymmetry plus the derivative budget of $2p^2$ forces the unique surviving Leibniz profile $\{0,1,\dots,N-1\}$, making the alternating sum proportional to the Wronskian.
Extended reading notes
Core claim
The central claim is identity (2): for any smooth $f$ and any weights, $A_p[w_1,\dots,w_N] = c(p)\cdot\mathrm{Wronsk}(w_1,\dots,w_N)\cdot\partial_x^p$, where $A_p$ is the signed sum $\sum_{\sigma\in S_{2p}}(-1)^\sigma w_{\sigma(1)}\partial_x^p\circ\cdots\circ w_{\sigma(N)}\partial_x^p$ and the Wronskian is the determinant of the matrix of iterated derivatives of the weights. The paper computes the universal constants by specialising to the monomials $1,x,\dots,x^{2p-1}$: after that substitution a permutation contributes precisely when it is late-growing, and the constant is the signed sum $c(p)\prod_{k=0}^{2p-1}k! = \sum_{\sigma\in\Phi_p}(-1)^\sigma\prod_{k=1}^{2p-1}(E_k)_p$ of falling factorials $(E)_p = E!/(E-p)! = E(E-1)\cdots(E-p+1)$. Evaluating this formula gives $c(1)=1$, $c(2)=2$, $c(3)=90$, $c(4)=586656$, and so on up to $c(18)\approx 4.881\times10^{462}$, a set of values that matches no existing entry in the OEIS and is therefore registered there as the new sequence A392714. The growth is $\log c(p) \simeq 2p^2\log p - bp^2 + o(p^2)$ with subleading constant $b\geq 2.6744$, and the algorithm that reaches $p=18$ exploits the fact that the recursion's state is just the set of not-yet-placed labels, stored as bit masks, with all arithmetic done modulo primes.
Load-bearing premise
Everything computed inherits from the appendix's assertion, in proving Theorem 1.1, that the coefficient of the unique surviving Leibniz profile {0,1,...,N-1} is a universal integer depending only on p and not on the test function or the weight functions; the appendix shows the profile is unique but does not work out the coefficient's universality in detail.
Editorial extensions
If this is right
- The exact integers c(p) for 1 ≤ p ≤ 18 are now the registered sequence A392714, and no existing OEIS entry matched the computed values, so the sequence is new to the registry.
- The fitted growth law predicts that c(19) through c(22) have about 532, 606, 685, and 770 decimal digits, so running the same algorithm on larger machines should produce the next exact values.
- Since log c(p) ~ 2p^2 log p, the constants outrun the factorial (2p)!; in the strongly homotopy Lie models that motivate identity (2), that super-exponential growth means the collective N-ary brackets at arity N > 4 are numerically suppressed relative to the binary Lie bracket.
- The prime factorisations follow a visible pattern — small primes in high powers, very few very large primes — and v_p(c(p)) = p − 1 for every prime p ≤ 17, supporting Conjecture 5.1; the factorisation of c(14) yields a newly confirmed 206-decimal-digit prime.
- The counts of even and odd permutations in every Phi_p differ by exactly (−1)^(p+1), a parity law the paper states and announces a proof of in a sequel.
Reading between the lines
- Extension: because the exponent E(A) in Lemma 4.2 depends on A only through |A| and the sum of its labels, the memoized subset table may collapse into a two-parameter recurrence that produces c(p) without enumerating any subsets; the paper does not pursue this.
- Extension: the same template — monomial weights, falling-factorial sums, subset-state recursion, modular reconstruction — should transfer to the multidimensional Wronskian brackets the authors list as an open problem, yielding constants c(p_1,...,p_d) indexed by per-variable differential orders.
- Extension: the next term is a cheap joint test — running Algorithm 2 for p = 19 should produce a value of about 532 digits whose 19-adic valuation would be 18 if Conjecture 5.1 holds; a mismatch would expose either the algorithm or the valuation pattern.
Original abstract
The alternating composition of $N = 2p$ weighted differential operators $w_j(x)\cdot\partial_x^{\,p}$ of strict order $p$ on the line $\mathbb{R} \ni x$ is again an operator of order $p$; its coefficient is the universal constant $c(p)$ times the Wronskian of the weights $w_1,\ldots,w_N$. Lie brackets of vector fields fix $c(p=1)=1$; we want to find $c(p \geqslant 2)$: e.g., $c(2) = 2$ or $c(3) = 90$. Direct symbolic expansion (over $|S_{2p}| =(2p)!$ permutations) fails for $p \geqslant 4$. Taking the monomials $w_j = x^{j-1}$ reduces the summation to the much smaller set $\Phi_p \subseteq S_{2p-1} \subsetneq S_{2p}$ of late-growing permutations. Expressing $c(p)$ as a signed sum of products of falling factorials, we implement and speed up the algorithm that gains all the integer values up to $c(18) = 4.881\ldots \cdot 10^{462}$. The resulting sequence is new, now registered as OEIS A392714; its (sub)leading-order growth rate is $\log c(p) \simeq 2p^2\log p -b p^2 + \overline{o}(p^2)$ for $p\gg 1$, with $b\geqslant 2.6744$.
The compiled record
The paper's own sentences, arranged, kept beside the review and separate from it. Each label is drawn from a closed vocabulary; the number beside it is the probability the classifier gave that label. Numbers in the tables are the authors', checked by code. No sentence in this record was written by a model.
The abstract, sentence by sentence
The alternating composition of $N = 2p$ weighted differential operators $w_j(x)\cdot\partial_x^{\,p}$ of strict order $p$ on the line $\mathbb{R} \ni x$ is again an operator of order $p$; its coefficient is the universal constant $c(p)$ times the Wronskian of the weights $w_1,\ldots,w_N$. Lie brackets of vector fields fix $c(p=1)=1$; we want to find $c(p \geqslant 2)$: e.g., $c(2) = 2$ or $c(3) = 90$. Direct symbolic expansion (over $|S_{2p}| =(2p)!$ permutations) fails for $p \geqslant 4$. Taking the monomials $w_j = x^{j-1}$ reduces the summation to the much smaller set $\Phi_p \subseteq S_{2p-1} \subsetneq S_{2p}$ of late-growing permutations. Expressing $c(p)$ as a signed sum of products of falling factorials, we implement and speed up the algorithm that gains all the integer values up to $c(18) = 4.881\ldots \cdot 10^{462}$. The resulting sequence is new, now registered as OEIS A392714; its (sub)leading-order growth rate is $\log c(p) \simeq 2p^2\log p -b p^2 + \overline{o}(p^2)$ for $p\gg 1$, with $b\geqslant 2.6744$.
background contribution method result interpretation main claim
| # | sentence | role | the authors' own work | states the main conclusion | strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| s0 | The alternating composition of $N = 2p$ weighted differential operators $w_j(x)\cdot\partial_x^{\,p}$ of strict order $p$ on the line $\mathbb{R} \ni x$ is again an operator of order $p$; its coefficient is the universal constant $c(p)$ times the Wronskian of the weights $w_1,\ldots,w_N$. | background 0.71 | 0.39 | 0.29 | asserted 1.00 |
| s1 | Lie brackets of vector fields fix $c(p=1)=1$; we want to find $c(p \geqslant 2)$: e.g., $c(2) = 2$ or $c(3) = 90$. | gap 0.70 | 0.44 | 0.07 | asserted 0.96 |
| s2 | Direct symbolic expansion (over $|S_{2p}| =(2p)!$ permutations) fails for $p \geqslant 4$. | limitation 0.52 | 0.60 | 0.03 | asserted 1.00 |
| s3 | Taking the monomials $w_j = x^{j-1}$ reduces the summation to the much smaller set $\Phi_p \subseteq S_{2p-1} \subsetneq S_{2p}$ of late-growing permutations. | method 0.97 | 0.81 | 0.07 | asserted 1.00 |
| s4 | Expressing $c(p)$ as a signed sum of products of falling factorials, we implement and speed up the algorithm that gains all the integer values up to $c(18) = 4.881\ldots \cdot 10^{462}$. | method 0.50 | 0.95 | 0.17 | asserted 1.00 |
| s5 | The resulting sequence is new, now registered as OEIS A392714; its (sub)leading-order growth rate is $\log c(p) \simeq 2p^2\log p -b p^2 + \overline{o}(p^2)$ for $p\gg 1$, with $b\geqslant 2.6744$. | result 0.91 | 0.92 | 0.63 | asserted 0.98 |
What was examined, and what was not
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References
Discussion
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