BALANCING NUMBERS WHICH ARE PRODUCTS OFCONSECUTIVE INTEGERS
SZ. TENGELY

Abstract. In 1999 A. Behera and G. K. Panda defined balancing numbers asfollows. A positive integer n is called a balancing number if 1+2+. . .+(n−1) =(n+1)+(n+2)+. . .+(n+k) for some k ∈ N. The sequence of balancing numbers
is denoted by Bm for m ∈ N. In this paper we show that the Diophantine
equation Bm = x(x + 1)(x + 2)(x + 3)(x + 4) has no solution with m ≥ 0 andx ∈ Z. We follow ideas described in [11], that is we combine Baker’s method
and the so-called Mordell-Weil sieve to obtain all solutions.

1. introduction
Behera and Panda [3] proved many interesting results related to the sequence Bm .
They showed that the balancing numbers fulfill the following recurrence relation
Bm+1 = 6Bm − Bm−1

(m > 1)

where B0 = 1 and B1 = 6. Later several authors investigated balancing numbers
and their various generalizations. In [21] Liptai proved that there are no Fibonaccibalancing numbers and in [22] he showed that there are no Lucas balancing numbers.
He used a method by Baker and Davenport [2]. Szalay [31] obtained the same
results by using different techniques. In [25] Panda introduced sequence balancing
numbers. Let {sm }∞m=1 be a sequence such that sm ∈ R. An element sm of thissequence is called sequence balancing number if
s1 + s2 + . . . + sm−1 = sm+1 + sm+2 + . . . + sm+kfor some k ∈ N. Further generalization in this direction is due to Bérczes, Liptaiand Pink [4]. Let a, b be non-negative coprime integers. The following definition isfrom [19]. A positive integer an + b is called (a, b)-type balancing number if(a + b) + (2a + b) + . . . + (a(n − 1) + b) = (a(n + 1) + b) + . . . + (a(n + k) + b)(a,b)

for some k ∈ N. Denote by Bm the m-th positive integer an + b among the (a, b)type balancing numbers. Kovács, Liptai and Olajos proved some general finitenessresults concerning the equation(a,b)
Bm= f (x),where f is a monic polynomial with integral coefficients. They also resolved somerelated Diophantine equations. Liptai, Luca, Pintér and Szalay [23] introduced
the concept of (k, l)-power numerical center as follows. Let y, k, l be fixed positive
integers with y ≥ 2. A positive integer x with x ≤ y − 2 is called a (k, l)-power
numerical center for y if
1k + . . . + (x − 1)k = (x + 1)l + . . . + (y − 1)l .
2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 11D61; Secondary 11Y50.
Key words and phrases. Diophantine equations.
Research supported in part by OTKA PD75264 and János Bolyai Research Scholarship of theHungarian Academy of Sciences.
12SZ. TENGELY

In [23] the authors obtained certain effective and ineffective finiteness results for(k, l)-power numerical centers.
For positive integers k, x let
Πk (x) = x(x + 1) · · · (x + k − 1).
That is, Πk (x) is a polynomial in x of degree k. In [19] it was proved that theequation
Bm = Πk (x)for fixed k ≥ 2 has only finitely many solutions and for k ∈ {2, 3, 4} all solutions
were determined. We note that in [19] the ”small” solutions of the above equation
with k ∈ {6, 8} were also computed.
In this paper we deal with the case k = 5. That is we consider the equation
Bm = x(x + 1)(x + 2)(x + 3)(x + 4).
We prove the following theorem.
Theorem 1. The Diophantine equation
Bm = x(x + 1)(x + 2)(x + 3)(x + 4)

m ≥ 0, x ∈ Z

has no solution.
2. auxiliary results
Consider the hyperelliptic curve(1)C:

y 2 = F (x) := x5 + b4 x4 + b3 x3 + b2 x2 + b1 x + b0 ,where bi ∈ Z. Let α be a root of F and J(Q) be the Jacobian of the curve C. We
have thatx − α = κξ 2where κ, ξ ∈ K = Q(α) and κ comes from a finite set. By knowing the Mordell-Weilgroup of the curve C it is possible
Pm to provide a method to compute such a finite set.
To each coset representative i=1 (Pi − ∞) of J(Q)/2J(Q) we associate
κ=mY
γi − αd2i ,i=1where the set {P1 , . . . , Pm } is stable under the action of Galois, all y(Pi ) are nonzero and x(Pi ) = γi /d2i where γi is an algebraic integer and di ∈ Z≥1 . If Pi , Pj areconjugate then we may suppose that di = dj and so γi , γj are conjugate. We havethe following lemma (Lemma 3.1 in [11]).
Lemma 1. Let K be a set of κ values associated as above to a complete set of coset
representatives of J(Q)/2J(Q). Then K is a finite subset of OK and if (x, y) is an
integral point on the curve (1) then x − α = κξ 2 for some κ ∈ K and ξ ∈ K.
As an application of his theory of lower bounds for linear forms in logarithms,
Baker [1] gave an explicit upper bound for the size of integral solutions of hyperelliptic curves. This result has been improved by many authors (see e.g. [5], [6], [8],[12], [27], [29], [30] and [33]).
In [11] an improved completely explicit upper bound were proved combining
ideas from [12], [13], [14], [20], [24], [26], [33], [32]. Now we will state the theorem
which gives the improved bound. We introduce some notation. Let K be a number

BALANCING NUMBERS WHICH ARE PRODUCTS OF CONSECUTIVE INTEGERS

3

field of degree d and let r be its unit rank and R its regulator. For α ∈ K we denoteby h(α) the logarithmic height of the element α. Let log 2
if d = 1, 2,d∂K = 1  log log d 3

if d ≥ 34log dand0∂K=π21+ 2∂K1/2.

Define the constants(r !)2,2r−1 drdrc3 (K) = c1 (K),∂K
rr+1c5 (K) = r−1 .
2∂K
c1 (K) =c2 (K) = c1 (K)d∂K

r−1,c4 (K) = rdc3 (K),Let
∂L/K = max

0[L : Q] , [K : Q]∂K,

0.16[K : Q]∂K

,

where K ⊆ L are number fields. DefineC(K, n) := 3 · 30n+4 · (n + 1)5.5 d2 (1 + log d).
The following theorem will be used to get an upper bound for the size of the integral
solutions of our equation. It is Theorem 3 in [11].
Theorem 2. Let α be an algebraic integer of degree at least 3 and κ be an integer
belonging to K. Denote by α1 , α2 , α3 distinct conjugates of α and by κ1 , κ2 , κ3
the corresponding conjugates of κ. Let√√√K1 = Q(α1 , α2 , κ1 κ2 ), K2 = Q(α1 , α3 , κ1 κ3 ), K3 = Q(α2 , α3 , κ2 κ3 ),and√√
L = Q(α1 , α2 , α3 , κ1 κ2 , κ1 κ3 ).

In what follows R stands for an upper bound for the regulators of K1 , K2 and K3
and r denotes the maximum of the unit ranks of K1 , K2 , K3 . Letc∗j = max cj (Ki )1≤i≤3andN = max1≤i,j≤3NormQ(αi ,αj )/Q (κi (αi − αj ))2andH ∗ = c∗5 R +log N+ h(κ).
min1≤i≤3 [Ki : Q]

DefineA∗1 = 2H ∗ · C(L, 2r + 1) · (c∗1 )2 ∂L/L ·2r

max ∂L/Ki

1≤i≤3· R2 ,andA∗2 = 2H ∗ + A∗1 + A∗1 log{(2r + 1) · max{c∗4 , 1}}.
If x ∈ Z\{0} satisfies x − α = κξ 2 for some ξ ∈ K thenlog|x| ≤ 8A∗1 log(4A∗1 ) + 8A∗2 + H ∗ + 20 log 2 + 13 h(κ) + 19 h(α).

4SZ. TENGELY

To obtain a lower bound for the possible unknown integer solutions we are goingto use the so-called Mordell-Weil sieve. The Mordell-Weil sieve has been successfully
applied to prove the non-existence of rational points on curves (see e.g. [9], [10],[18] and [28]).
Let C/Q be a smooth projective curve (in our case a hyperelliptic curve) ofgenus g ≥ 2. Let J be its Jacobian. We assume the knowledge of some rational
points on C, so let D be a fixed rational point on C and let  be the corresponding
Abel-Jacobi map:
 : C → J,
P 7→ [P − D].
Let W be the image in J of the known rational points on C and D1 , . . . , Dr generators for the free part of J(Q). By using the Mordell–Weil sieve we are going toobtain a very large and smooth integer B such that
(C(Q)) ⊆ W + BJ(Q).
Let
φ : Zr → J(Q),φ(a1 , . . . , ar ) =X

ai Di ,

so that the image of φ is the free part of J(Q). The variant of the Mordell-Weilsieve explained in [11] provides a method to obtain a very long decreasing sequenceof lattices in Zr
BZr = L0 ) L1 ) L2 ) · · · ) Lksuch that
(C(Q)) ⊂ W + φ(Lj )for j = 1, . . . , k.
The next lemma [11, Lemma 12.1] gives a lower bound for the size of rational
points whose image are not in the set W.
Lemma 2. Let W be a finite subset of J(Q) and L be a sublattice of Zr . Supposethat (C(Q)) ⊂ W + φ(L). Let µ1 be a lower bound for h − ĥ andqĥ(w) : w ∈ W .
µ2 = maxDenote by M the height-pairing matrix for the Mordell–Weil basis D1 , . . . , Dr andlet λ1 , . . . , λr be its eigenvalues. Letnpoµ3 = minλj : j = 1, . . . , rand m(L) the Euclidean norm of the shortest non-zero vector of L. Then, for any
P ∈ C(Q), either (P ) ∈ W or2h((P )) ≥ (µ3 m(L) − µ2 ) + µ1 .
3. Proof of Theorem 1
It was shown by Liptai that the integers Bm satisfy the following equationz 2 − 8y 2 = 1
for some integer z. So one has to determine all solution of the equationz 2 = 8(x(x + 1)(x + 2)(x + 3)(x + 4))2 + 1.
Rewrite the latter equation as follows
z 2 = 8(x2 + 4x)2 (x2 + 4x + 3)2 (x2 + 4x + 4) + 1.
Let X = 2x2 + 8x. We obtain that(2)C:

Y 2 = X 2 (X + 6)2 (X + 8) + 4,

BALANCING NUMBERS WHICH ARE PRODUCTS OF CONSECUTIVE INTEGERS

5

where Y = 2z. It remains to find all integral points on C. The rank of the Jacobianof C is 3, so classical Chabauty’s method [15],[16],[17] cannot be applied. In thispaper we combine Baker’s method and the so-called Mordell-Weil sieve to obtain
all integral solutions of equation (2).
Lemma 3. The only integral solutions to the equation (2) are(0, ±2), (−6, ±2), (−8, ±2).
Proof. Let J(Q) be the Jacobian of the genus two curve (2). Using MAGMA [7]we determine a Mordell-Weil basis which is given by
D1 = (0, 2) − ∞,D2 = (−6, 2) − ∞,D3 = (ω, −ω − 10) + (ω, −ω − 10) − 2∞,
where ω is a root of the polynomial x2 + 7x + 4. Let f = x2 (x + 6)2 (x + 8) + 4 andα be a root of f. We will choose for coset representatives of J(Q)/2J(Q) the linear
P3
combinations i=1 ni Di , where ni ∈ {0, 1}. We havex − α = κξ 2 ,where κ belongs to a finite set (having 8 elements). This set can be constructed as
described in Lemma 1. Many values can be eliminated by local computations in Qp ,for same small primes p. We apply Theorem 2 to get a large upper bound for log |x|.
A MAGMA code were written to obtain the bounds appeared in [11], it can befound at http://www.warwick.ac.uk/∼maseap/progs/intpoint/bounds.m. We
used the above MAGMA functions to compute an upper bound for log |x|, theresults are summarized in the following tableκ
1−α−6 − αbound for log |x|1.51 · 10246
3.21 · 10512
6.25 · 10531

The set of known rational points on the curve (2) is {∞, (0, ±2), (−6, ±2), (−8, ±2)}.
Let W be the image of this set in J(Q). Applying the Mordell-Weil sieve implemented by Bruin and Stoll we obtain that
(C(Q)) ⊆ W + BJ(Q),where
6433222

B = 2 · 3 · 5 · 7 · 11 · 13 · 17 · 19 · 29 · 31 · 41 · 43 · 47 · 61 · 67 · 73 · 79 · 83 · 89 · 97 · 107 · 109 · 113,

that isB = 46247720065121846143591520774334300410472000.
Now we use an extension of the Mordell-Weil sieve due to Samir Siksek to obtaina very long decreasing sequence of lattices in Z3 . After that we apply Lemma 2 toobtain a lower bound for possible unknown rational points. We get that if (x, y) is
an unknown integral point, thenlog |x| ≥ 1.03 × 10580 .
This contradicts the bound for log |x| we obtained by Baker’s method.
Now we prove Theorem 1.

6SZ. TENGELYProof of Theorem 1. By Lemma 3 we have thatX ∈ {0, −6, −8}2and we also have that X = 2x + 8x. That is it remains to solve three quadratic
equations in x. We obtain that x ∈ {−4, −3, −2, −1, 0}. Therefore the equation
Bm = x(x + 1)(x + 2)(x + 3)(x + 4)
has no solution with m ≥ 0 and x ∈ Z.

Acknowledgement. The work was supported by the TÁMOP 4.2.1./B-09/1/KONV2010-0007 project. The project is implemented through the New Hungary Development Plan, co-financed by the European Social Fund and the European Regional
Development Fund.
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Mathematical Institute
University of Debrecen
P.O.Box 124010 Debrecen
Hungary
E-mail address: tengely@science.unideb.hu