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A matrix generalization of a theorem of Fine

Number Theory 2023-09-04 v2 Discrete Mathematics Combinatorics

Abstract

In 1947 Nathan Fine gave a beautiful product for the number of binomial coefficients (nm)\binom{n}{m}, for mm in the range 0mn0 \leq m \leq n, that are not divisible by pp. We give a matrix product that generalizes Fine's formula, simultaneously counting binomial coefficients with pp-adic valuation α\alpha for each α0\alpha \geq 0. For each nn this information is naturally encoded in a polynomial generating function, and the sequence of these polynomials is pp-regular in the sense of Allouche and Shallit. We also give a further generalization to multinomial coefficients.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1704.05872,
  title  = {A matrix generalization of a theorem of Fine},
  author = {Eric Rowland},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.05872},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

9 pages; publication version