Recurrence conjecture for the first two diagonal entries of the volume triangle

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For n≥3n\ge 3, let ana_n be the first entry in the diagonal of the volume triangle, and for n≥4n\ge 4 let bnb_n be its second entry. Let VnV_n be the relative volume of PnP_n.

Recurrence conjecture for ana_n and bnb_n. The first diagonal entry satisfies

an=3Vn(n2).a_n=\frac{3V_n}{\binom{n}{2}}.

For n≥4n\ge 4, the second entries satisfy

(n−1)(bn+1an+1−bnan)=(n+2)(bn+2an+2−bn+1an+1).(n-1)\left(\frac{b_{n+1}}{a_{n+1}}-\frac{b_n}{a_n}\right)=(n+2)\left(\frac{b_{n+2}}{a_{n+2}}-\frac{b_{n+1}}{a_{n+1}}\right).

The conjecture is motivated by numerical diagonal data for n=3,…,10n=3,\ldots,10 and proposes formulas relating the diagonal entries to the relative volume and to one another. No proof or resolution is supplied in the paper.

References

Primary source

Clara S. Chan, David P. Robbins and David S. Yuen, “On the volume of a certain polytope”, arXiv:math/9810154 (1998).

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