A002986 Number of non-cyclic hydrocarbons with n carbon atoms (excluding stereoisomers). (Formerly M2376)

1, 3, 4, 12, 27, 84, 247, 826, 2777, 9868, 35579, 131847, 495671, 1893819, 7320954, 28619581, 112923053, 449343946, 1801330288, 7269849395, 29517342098, 120507480668, 494449558111, 2038073860257, 8436185990286, 35055744550563, 146195133355612, 611723431211193

Offset

1,2

Comments

a(n) is the number of hypothetical acyclic hydrocarbons with n carbon atoms that satisfy the octet rule. - Natan Arie Consigli, Dec 26 2016

a(n) is the number of acyclic connected multigraphs with n nodes of degree less than 5, except for a(2). - Natan Arie Consigli, May 25 2017

References

N. J. A. Sloane and Simon Plouffe, The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, Academic Press, 1995 (includes this sequence).

Links

Andrew Howroyd, Table of n, a(n) for n = 1..500

Sean A. Irvine, java program

R. C. Read, Some recent results in chemical enumeration, Preprint, circa 1972. (Annotated scanned copy)

R. C. Read, Some recent results in chemical enumeration, Lect. Notes Math. 303 (1972), 243-259.

Wikipedia, Graph

Formula

a(n) ~ c * d^n / n^(5/2), where d = 4.576467424512811226430711636719246756... and c = 0.84315686601314832608482486521039... - Vaclav Kotesovec, Feb 11 2019

Example

a(3) = 4 because there are 4 non-cyclic structures that can be drawn with 3 carbons (propane, propene, propyne, and allene). - David Consiglio, Jr., May 15 2014

Prog

(nauty/bash) geng -c -D4 ${n} $[${n}-1]:$[${n}-1] -q | multig -m3 -D4 -u
(PARI) \\ here S is MSET_k comb class of g
S(g, n, k)={polcoeff(exp( sum(i=1, k, (y^i + O(y*y^k))*subst(g + O(x*x^(n\i)), x, x^i)/i )), k, y) + O(x*x^n)}
R(n)={my(f, g, h); f=g=h=O(x); for(n=1, n, h = x*(1+f); g = h + x*(S(f, n, 2) + g); f = g + x*(S(f, n, 3) + f*g + h)); [f, g, h]}
seq(n)={my(t=R(n), f=t[1], g=t[2], h=t[3]); Vec(f + x*(S(f, n, 4) + g*S(f, n, 2) + S(g, n, 2) + f*h) + (subst(f+g+h+O(x*x^(n\2)), x, x^2) - f^2 - g^2 - h^2)/2)} \\ Andrew Howroyd, May 26 2018

Crossrefs

Cf. A000602 (restriction to alkanes).

Sequence in context: A197459 A330659 A000207 * A147569 A090660 A288140

Adjacent sequences: A002983 A002984 A002985 * A002987 A002988 A002989

Keyword

nonn

Author

N. J. A. Sloane

Extensions

Better definition from Sergio Pimentel, Apr 28 2006

a(11) (computed using Nauty) from Vesa Linja-aho (vesa.linja-aho(AT)tkk.fi), Apr 24 2008

a(12)-a(13) (computed using Molgen 3.5) from David Consiglio, Jr., May 15 2014

Existing terms verified and a(14)-a(16) from Sean A. Irvine, Dec 22 2014

a(17)-a(19) from Sean A. Irvine, Dec 28 2014

a(18)-a(19) corrected and a(20)-a(24) (computed using nauty) from Sean A. Irvine, Jan 02 2015

Terms a(25) and beyond from Andrew Howroyd, May 26 2018

Status

approved