A complete description of the monotonicity character of the convex combinations of the sequences
$ x_n = \sum\limits_{j = 1}^n\frac1{j^{\alpha}}-\frac{n^{1-{\alpha}}}{1-{\alpha}}{\quad\mbox{ and }\quad} y_n = \sum\limits_{j = 1}^n\frac1{j^{\alpha}}-\frac{(n+1)^{1-{\alpha}}}{1-{\alpha}}, \quad n\in {\mathbb N}, $
when $ {\alpha}\in(0, 1), $ on the whole domain $ {\mathbb N} $, is given, considerably extending some special cases in the literature, and solving a highly nontrivial open problem completely. An important part in the study plays a few analytic inequalities that have been proved and used in the proof of the result that characterizes the monotonicity character of the sequences.
Citation: Stevo Stević. Complete description of the monotonicity of a class of sequences with a parameter[J]. AIMS Mathematics, 2026, 11(7): 20606-20618. doi: 10.3934/math.2026838
A complete description of the monotonicity character of the convex combinations of the sequences
$ x_n = \sum\limits_{j = 1}^n\frac1{j^{\alpha}}-\frac{n^{1-{\alpha}}}{1-{\alpha}}{\quad\mbox{ and }\quad} y_n = \sum\limits_{j = 1}^n\frac1{j^{\alpha}}-\frac{(n+1)^{1-{\alpha}}}{1-{\alpha}}, \quad n\in {\mathbb N}, $
when $ {\alpha}\in(0, 1), $ on the whole domain $ {\mathbb N} $, is given, considerably extending some special cases in the literature, and solving a highly nontrivial open problem completely. An important part in the study plays a few analytic inequalities that have been proved and used in the proof of the result that characterizes the monotonicity character of the sequences.
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