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I noticed that for a Fibonacci sequence starting with seeds $(2,1)$, there is an awful amount of primes in the first $20$ elements of the sequence ($11$ primes), far more than $(0,1)$'s prime density. For $100$ elements, the density is much less than $\frac12 (18)$, but still surprisingly more than the prime density of the first $100$ 'normal-Fibonacci' integers.

Seeing this, I got curious about other seeds that could potentially give better prime density results. I don't know where to start from just guessing, though, and still don't know why the seed $(2,1)$ has a higher prime density. Is it just a coincidence? Can anyone help me out?

Work Until Now

Proving if $L_a$ is prime, $a$ must be a power of $2$, prime, or $0$:

In my proof, I show why every Lucas prime's index (n-value) must be $0$, a power of $2$, or a prime.

A Lucas number, by definition, is a number $L_n$, such that $L_n = A^n+B^n$, where $A$ and $B$ are the roots of $x^2-x-1$.

We want to prove that for any odd $m$, $L_{nm}$ can be divided. By acknowledging this fact, we can show that for $L_a$ to be prime, $a$ must not have odd factors other than $1$. If $a$ does not have any odd factors, it either is a power of $2$, prime, or $0$.

If $m$ is odd, then $X^m+Y^m = (x+y)(x^{m−1}−x^{m−2}y+\dots)$ Plugging in $A^n$ and $B^n$ for $X$ and $Y$, we get, $A^{nm}+B^{nm}=(A^n+B^n)\times S$, where $S$ is the rest of the binomial equation. This means $L_{nm}$ (which equals $A^{nm}+B^{nm}$) can be factored when $m$ is odd. Proving this, we now know that for $L_a$ to be prime, a must be a power of $2$, prime, or $0$.

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    $\begingroup$ There is some background info at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_number#Lucas_primes and primes.utm.edu/glossary/page.php?sort=LucasPrime, but surprisingly, nothing to directly address your question. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 18 at 21:04
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    $\begingroup$ There are a lot of small primes...I suggest doing a much deeper search to see if there is a persistent pattern. It might also be worth trying to generalize the standard fibonacci result that $\gcd(F_n,F_m)=F_{\gcd(m,n)}$ to different seeds. I assume that's been done elsewhere, but worth a look. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 18 at 21:05
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    $\begingroup$ In general, $F_n\mid F_{nm}.$ This is also true for Lucas numbers when $m$ is odd. This greatly reduces the possible primes. It is not clear this is true for other starts, so it seems possible you can do better. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 18 at 22:23
  • $\begingroup$ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_density $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 19 at 3:04
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    $\begingroup$ If you go to bigger N, (2, 1) no longer has the most primes. It varies with n. I quickly computed a,b ≤ 10 up to N = 1 million and the biggest was (4, 1), and then N = 10 million, and the maximum is at (9, 2), but all the prime counts approach each other and are well within 1% from the maximum. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 19 at 8:48

1 Answer 1

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What you are describing is the Lucas number sequence. We commonly take $L_0=2,L_1=1$.

Unlike the Fibonacci sequence, this does not produce a zero term anywhere whether we propagate backwards or forwards. With $L_0=2,L_1=1$ as above we have $L_{-n}=(-1)^nL_n$, and the terms for positive $n$ are positive and monotonically increasing.

This causes not all primes to be factors of Lucas numbers, which is again unlike the Fibonacci ones. For instance, no Lucas numbers are divisible by $5$ or by $13$. Thereby small Lucas numbers tend to have an increased probability of being prime.

For a geometric appearance of Lucas numbers, see here.

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  • $\begingroup$ I've found that out, but what I was really trying to get to (which I didn't state too clearly in my question statement, my fault) is if the Lucas Sequence's seeds (2,1) are the seeds that prompt the greatest prime density for the first n elements, with n going to infinity. I've asked this since I have observed many seeds a and b, with a <100 and b<100, and found (2,1) to give the greatest prime density for n = 100. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 18 at 21:42
  • $\begingroup$ Nine users upvoted this answer. That makes ten who might like to know why it draws a downvote. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 20 at 0:11
  • $\begingroup$ Can you speak to the density question? $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 20 at 0:29
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    $\begingroup$ It's rarely worth wondering/worrying about an isolated downvote, Oscar. I note that the question also has a single downvote – maybe one user thought it was a bad question, and the same user thought you shouldn't post an answer to a bad question. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 20 at 2:31

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