Reciprocal Fibonacci constant

The reciprocal Fibonacci constant ψ is the sum of the reciprocals of the Fibonacci numbers:

Because the ratio of successive terms tends to the reciprocal of the golden ratio, which is less than 1, the ratio test shows that the sum converges.

The value of ψ is approximately

(sequence A079586 in the OEIS).

With k terms, the series gives O(k) digits of accuracy. Bill Gosper derived an accelerated series which provides O(k 2) digits. ψ is irrational, as was conjectured by Paul Erdős, Ronald Graham, and Leonard Carlitz, and proved in 1989 by Richard André-Jeannin.

Its simple continued fraction representation is:

(sequence A079587 in the OEIS).

In analogy to the Riemann zeta function, define the Fibonacci zeta function as for complex number s with Re(s) > 0, and its analytic continuation elsewhere. Particularly the given function equals ψ when s = 1.

It was shown that:

  • The value of ζF(2s) is transcendental for any positive integer s, which is similar to the case of even-index Riemann zeta-constants ζ(2s).
  • The constants ζF(2), ζF(4) and ζF(6) are algebraically independent.
  • Except for ζF(1) which was proved to be irrational, the number-theoretic properties of ζF(2s + 1) (whenever s is a non-negative integer) are mostly unknown.

See also

References


Uses material from the Wikipedia article Reciprocal Fibonacci constant, released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.