An infinite sequence $\langle{u_n}\rangle_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ of real numbers is holonomic (also known as P-recursive or P-finite) if it satisfies a linear recurrence relation with polynomial coefficients. Such a sequence is said to be positive if each $u_n \geq 0$, and minimal if, given any other linearly independent sequence $\langle{v_n}\rangle_{n \in\mathbb{N}}$ satisfying the same recurrence relation, the ratio $u_n/v_n$ converges to $0$. In this paper, we focus on holonomic sequences satisfying a second-order recurrence $g_3(n)u_n = g_2(n)u_{n-1} + g_1(n)u_{n-2}$, where each coefficient $g_3, g_2,g_1 \in \mathbb{Q}[n]$ is a polynomial of degree at most $1$. We establish two main results. First, we show that deciding positivity for such sequences reduces to deciding minimality. And second, we prove that deciding minimality is equivalent to determining whether certain numerical expressions (known as periods, exponential periods, and period-like integrals) are equal to zero. Periods and related expressions are classical objects of study in algebraic geometry and number theory, and several established conjectures (notably those of Kontsevich and Zagier) imply that they have a decidable equality problem, which in turn would entail decidability of Positivity and Minimality for a large class of second-order holonomic sequences.

Given a numerical semigroup $S$, we let $\mathrm P_S(x)=(1-x)\sum_{s\in S}x^s$ be its semigroup polynomial. We study cyclotomic numerical semigroups; these are numerical semigroups $S$ such that $\mathrm P_S(x)$ has all its roots in the unit disc. We conjecture that $S$ is a cyclotomic numerical semigroup if and only if $S$ is a complete intersection numerical semigroup and present some evidence for it. Aside from the notion of cyclotomic numerical semigroups we introduce the notion of cyclotomic exponents and polynomially related numerical semigroups. We derive some properties and give some applications of these new concepts.