English

Distributions of Hook lengths in integer partitions

Number Theory 2022-08-24 v3 Combinatorics

Abstract

Motivated by the many roles that hook lengths play in mathematics, we study the distribution of the number of tt-hooks in the partitions of nn. We prove that the limiting distribution is normal with mean μt(n)6nπt2\mu_t(n)\sim \frac{\sqrt{6n}}{\pi}-\frac{t}{2} and variance σt2(n)(π26)6n2π3.\sigma_t^2(n)\sim \frac{(\pi^2-6)\sqrt{6n}}{2\pi^3}. Furthermore, we prove that the distribution of the number of hook lengths that are multiples of a fixed t4t\geq 4 in partitions of nn converge to a shifted Gamma distribution with parameter k=(t1)/2k=(t-1)/2 and scale θ=2/(t1).\theta=\sqrt{2/(t-1)}.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2201.06630,
  title  = {Distributions of Hook lengths in integer partitions},
  author = {Michael Griffin and Ken Ono and Wei-Lun Tsai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.06630},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

Minor edits and a new first paragraph on previous related work (added at the suggestion of a referee)

R2 v1 2026-06-24T08:52:52.007Z