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Upper and lower estimates for integer complexity

S. Konyagin,K. Oganesyan

2026 · ArXiv: 2603.20876
0 Citations

Abstract

Let ∥n∥\|n\| stand for the integer complexity of the number nn, i.e. for the least number of 11's needed to write nn using arbitrary many additions, multiplications, and parentheses. The two-sided inequality 3log⁡3n≤∥n∥≤3log⁡2n3\log_3 n\leq\|n\|\leq 3\log_2 n for all nn is well known and reveals the logarithmic behaviour of the complexity function ∥n∥\|n\|. While the lower bound 3log⁡3n3\log_3 n is attained infinitely many times at powers of 33, the best upper estimate is still unknown, although there are some improvements of the trivial bound 3log⁡2n3\log_2 n. Besides, for @@LINECODEBLOCK0@@@@LINE_CODE_BLOCK_0@@typical"" numbers, i.e. for almost all numbers nn, the better inequality ∥n∥≤Cavglog⁡n\|n\|\leq C_{avg}\log n holds, where, importantly, Cavg≈3.295<sup⁡n∥n∥log⁡nC_{avg}\approx 3.295<\sup_{n} \frac{\|n\|}{\log n}. We show that in fact ∥n∥≤Cavglog⁡n+o(log⁡n)\|n\|\leq C_{avg}\log n+o(\log n) as n→∞n\to\infty, which, in particular, yields that lim sup⁡n→∞∥n∥log⁡n≤Cavg\limsup\limits_{n\to\infty}\frac{\|n\|}{\log n}\leq C_{avg}. We also obtain the first nontrivial lower bound ∥n∥≥3.06log⁡3n\|n\|\geq 3.06\log_3 n for almost all numbers nn.