Conjecture on sums of practical and polygonal numbers

For a natural number s>3s>3, an ss-gonal number is a number in the corresponding polygonal-number sequence, and a practical number is a natural number whose positive integers up to it can be represented as sums of distinct divisors. A natural number is sufficiently large if all natural numbers beyond some threshold have the stated property.

Conjecture on practical and polygonal sums. If s>3s>3, s≢0(mod12)s \not\equiv 0\pmod{12}, and s≢4(mod12)s \not\equiv 4\pmod{12}, then all sufficiently large natural numbers can be written as a sum of a practical number and an ss-gonal number.

The claim is based on computations of representations by a practical number and an ss-gonal number. The source explicitly notes that it does not hold for other values of ss, so the conjecture as stated is refuted.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Sai Teja Somu and Duc Van Khanh Tran, “On Sums of Practical Numbers and Polygonal Numbers”, arXiv:2403.13533 (2024).

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