English

Asymptotic Distribution of Residues in Pascal's Triangle mod $p$

Number Theory 2023-10-13 v2

Abstract

Fix a prime pp and define Tp(n)T_p(n) to be the number of nonzero residues in the nnth row of pascal's triangle mod pp, and define ϕp(n)\phi_p(n) to be the number of nonzero residues in the first nn rows of pascal's triangle mod pp. We generalize these to sequences Tχ(n)T_\chi(n) and ϕχ(n)\phi_\chi(n) for a Dirichlet character χ\chi of modulus pp. We prove many properties of these sequences that generalize those of Tp(n)T_p(n) and ϕp(n)\phi_p(n). Define An(r)A_n(r) to be the number of occurrences of rr in the first nn rows of Pascal's triangle mod pp. Guy Barat and Peter Grabner showed that for all primes pp and nonzero residues rr, An(r)1p1ϕp(n)A_n(r)\sim \frac{1}{p-1}\phi_p(n). We provide an alternative proof of this fact that yields explicit bounds on the error term. We also discuss the distribution of Ap(r)A_p(r).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2309.12942,
  title  = {Asymptotic Distribution of Residues in Pascal's Triangle mod $p$},
  author = {Connor Lane},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.12942},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

15 pages, 1 figure