Concavity conjecture for normalized Bell numbers

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For x>0x>0, define

B(x)=1e∑k=0∞kxk!,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 x≥1x\geq1, equivalently

(log⁡B(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}n≥1\{\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.

References

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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