The 2-complexity of even positive integers

Abstract

The question of integer complexity asks about the minimal number of $1$'s that are needed to express a positive integer using only addition and multiplication (and parentheses). In this paper, we propose the notion of $l$-complexity of multiples of $l$, which specializes to integer complexity when $l=1$, prove several elementary results on $2$-complexity of even positive integers, and raise some interesting questions on $2$-complexity and in general $l$-complexity.