OFFSET
1,3
COMMENTS
Each vertex of this tree has degree 6. If a vertex has at least 6 chips, the vertex fires, and one chip is sent to each neighbor. The root sends 1 chip to each of its five children and one chip to itself.
The order of the firings doesn't affect the number of firings.
This number of chips is interesting because the stable configuration has 1 chip for every vertex in the top n layers.
a(n) is partial sums of A014917.
For binary trees, the corresponding sequence is A045618.
For ternary trees, the corresponding sequence is A212337.
For 4-ary trees, the corresponding sequence is A378727.
a(2k-1) is divisible by 12.
LINKS
Wikipedia, Chip-firing game.
FORMULA
a(n) = ((2n - 3) 5^n + 2n + 3)/32.
MATHEMATICA
Table[((2 n - 3) 5^n + 4 n + 6)/64, {n, 30}]
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn,new
AUTHOR
Tanya Khovanova and the MIT PRIMES STEP senior group, Dec 05 2024
STATUS
approved