English

A Matrix Related to Stern Polynomials and the Prouhet-Thue-Morse Sequence

Combinatorics 2021-06-22 v1 Number Theory

Abstract

The Stern polynomials defined by s(0;x)=0s(0;x)=0, s(1;x)=1s(1;x)=1, and for n1n\geq 1 by s(2n;x)=s(n;x2)s(2n;x)=s(n;x^2) and s(2n+1;x)=xs(n;x2)+s(n+1;x2)s(2n+1;x)=x\,s(n;x^2)+s(n+1;x^2) have only 0 and 1 as coefficients. We construct an infinite lower-triangular matrix related to the coefficients of the s(n;x)s(n;x) and show that its inverse has only 0, 1, and 1-1 as entries, which we find explicitly. In particular, the sign distribution of the entries is determined by the Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence. We also obtain other properties of this matrix and a related Pascal-type matrix that involve the Catalan, Stirling, Fibonacci, Fine, and Padovan numbers. Further results involve compositions of integers, the Sierpi\'nski matrix, and identities connecting the Stern and Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequences.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2106.10400,
  title  = {A Matrix Related to Stern Polynomials and the Prouhet-Thue-Morse Sequence},
  author = {George Beck and Karl Dilcher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.10400},
  year   = {2021}
}

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25 pages