Concavity conjecture for normalized Bell numbers

From papers

For x>0x>0, define

B(x)=1ek=0kxk!,B(x)=\frac{1}{e}\sum_{k=0}^{\infty}\frac{k^x}{k!},

so that B(n)=BnB(n)=B_n for nonnegative integers nn, where BnB_n is the nn-th Bell number. Bell-function concavity conjecture. The function B(x)1/xB(x)^{1/x} is log-concave for x1x\geq1, equivalently

(logB(x)1/x)<0(x>1).(\log B(x)^{1/x})”<0\qquad (x>1).

This would imply Sun's conjectured log-concavity of {Bnn}n1\{\sqrt[n]{B_n}\}_{n\geq1}. The paper proves that B(x)1/xB(x)^{1/x} is strictly increasing, but gives no resolution of the stronger concavity conjecture.

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Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

William Y. C. Chen, Jeremy J. F. Guo and Larry X. W. Wang, “Zeta Functions and the Log-behavior of Combinatorial Sequences”, arXiv:1208.5213 (2013).

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