Skolem's conjecture for a family of exponential equations

Abstract: According to Skolem's conjecture, if an exponential Diophantine equation is not solvable, then it is not solvable modulo an appropriately chosen modulus. Besides several concrete equations, the conjecture has only been proved for rather special cases. In the talk we present a new theorem proving the conjecture for equations of the form $x^n-by_1^{k_1}\dots y_\ell^{k_\ell}=\pm 1$, where $b,x,y_1,\dots,y_\ell$ are fixed integers and $n,k_1,\dots,k_\ell$ are non-negative integral unknowns. Note that the family includes the famous equations $x^n-y^k=1$ and $\frac{x^n-1}{x-1}=y^k$ with $x,y$ fixed.

Joint with A. Bérczes and R. Tijdeman.

number theory

Audience: researchers in the topic

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Combinatorial and additive number theory (CANT 2021)

Series comments: This is the nineteenth in a series of annual workshops sponsored by the New York Number Theory Seminar on problems in combinatorial and additive number theory and related parts of mathematics.

Registration for the conference is free. Register at cant2021.eventbrite.com.

The conference website is www.theoryofnumbers.com/cant/ Lectures will be broadcast on Zoom. The Zoom login will be emailed daily to everyone who has registered on eventbrite. To join the meeting, you may need to download the free software from www.zoom.us.

The conference program, list of speakers, and abstracts are posted on the external website.

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