English

A combinatorial identity with application to Catalan numbers

Combinatorics 2007-05-23 v9 Number Theory

Abstract

By a very simple argument, we prove that if l,m,nl,m,n are nonnegative integers then \sum_{k=0}^l(-1)^{m-k}\binom{l}{k}\binom{m-k}{n}\binom{2k}{k-2l+m} =\sum_{k=0}^l\binom{l}{k}\binom{2k}{n}\binom{n-l}{m+n-3k-l}. On the basis of this identity, for d,r=0,1,2,...d,r=0,1,2,... we construct explicit F(d,r)F(d,r) and G(d,r)G(d,r) such that for any prime p>max{d,r}p>\max\{d,r\} we have \sum_{k=1}^{p-1}k^r C_{k+d}\equiv \cases F(d,r)(mod p)& if 3|p-1, \\G(d,r)\ (mod p)& if 3|p-2, where CnC_n denotes the Catalan number (n+1)1(2nn)(n+1)^{-1}\binom{2n}{n}. For example, when p5p\geq 5 is a prime, we have \sum_{k=1}^{p-1}k^2C_k\equiv\cases-2/3 (mod p)& if 3|p-1, \1/3 (mod p)& if 3|p-2; and \sum_{0<k<p-4}\frac{C_{k+4}}k \equiv\cases 503/30 (mod p)& if 3|p-1, -100/3 (mod p)& if 3|p-2. This paper also contains some new recurrence relations for Catalan numbers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0509648,
  title  = {A combinatorial identity with application to Catalan numbers},
  author = {Hao Pan and Zhi-Wei Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0509648},
  year   = {2007}
}

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22 pages