Let xn denote a sequence, n∈N. Evaluate the limit:
lim
given
\lim_{n\to\infty} x_n = 1 \\ x_n \ne 1
I'm interested in verifying the following results. Denote:
y_n = \frac{x_n + x_n^2 + \cdots + x_n^k - k}{x_n - 1}
After some trials long division seem to produce a pattern here. Not sure how to put it here in a fancy way, so I will post the result only. It appears that:
y_n = x_n^{k-1} + 2x_n^{k-2}+\cdots + (k-1)x_n + k
It is given that \lim x_n = 1 therefore we may use the following properties:
\lim(a_n + b_n) = \lim a_n + \lim b_n\\ \lim(a_n \cdot b_n) = \lim a_n \cdot \lim b_n
In particular:
y_n = x_n^{k-1} + 2x_n^{k-2}+\cdots + (k-1)x_n + k\\ \lim_{n\to\infty}y_n =\lim_{n\to\infty}\left(x_n^{k-1} + 2x_n^{k-2}+\cdots + (k-1)x_n + k\right)
Then since \lim x_n = 1 and by the sum of first k integers:
\lim_{n\to\infty} y_n = \frac{k(k+1)}{2}
Could you please verify whether the reasoning above is correct or not and point to the mistakes in case of any? Thank you!
Answer
Rewrite the limit as
\sum_{j=1}^k \lim_{n \to \infty} {x_n^j - 1 \over x_n - 1}
(note that this is a sum of finitely many terms).
Now we can do the division to get
\sum_{j=1}^k \lim_{n \to \infty} (1 + x_n + x_n^2 + \cdots + x_n^{j-1})
and the limit can be written as a sum of (again, finitely many!) limits. This gives
\sum_{j=1}^k \sum_{i=0}^{j-1} \lim_{n \to \infty} x_n^i
Finally the innermost limit is, for each n and i, equal to (\lim_{n \to \infty} x_n)^i = 1^i = 1 so this is just
\sum_{j=1}^k \sum_{i=0}^{j-1} 1 = \sum_{j=1}^k j = {k(k+1) \over 2}
as desired.
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