Dead ends in square-free digit walks

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Authors: Evan Chen, Chris Cummins, Ben Eltschig, Dejan Grubisic, Leopold Haller, Letong Hong, Andranik Kurghinyan, Kenny Lau, Leather, Hugh, Seewoo Lee, Aram Markosyan, Ken Ono
+9 more Manooshree Patel, Gaurang Pendharkar, Vedant Rathi, Alex Schneidman, Volker Seeker, Shubho Sengupta, Ishan Sinha, Jimmy Xin, Jujian Zhang
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Abstract

We study "dead ends" in square-free digit walks: square-free integers $N$ such that, in base $b$, every one-digit extension $bN+d$ is non-square-free. In base $10$, the stochastic independence model of Miller et al. suggests that infinite square-free walks occur with probability near $1$, corresponding to an asymptotic dead-end density of $\approx 5.218\times 10^{-5}$. We prove that the true asymptotic dead-end density satisfies \[ c_{\mathrm{dead}} \approx 1.317\times 10^{-9}, \] roughly a factor of $\sim 4\times 10^4$ smaller than the prediction. For every base $b\geq 2$, we prove that dead-end densities exist and are given by a closed-form expression (as a finite alternating sum of Euler products). The argument is fully formalized in Lean/Mathlib, and was produced automatically by AxiomProver from a natural-language statement of the problem.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Analytic Number Theory Research Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory Limits and Structures in Graph Theory

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
4 February 2026
Document type
Preprint