English

Identities involving the tribonacci numbers squared via tiling with combs

Combinatorics 2024-09-04 v1

Abstract

The number of ways to tile an nn-board (an n×1n\times1 rectangular board) with (12,12;1)(\frac12,\frac12;1)-, (12,12;2)(\frac12,\frac12;2)-, and (12,12;3)(\frac12,\frac12;3)-combs is Tn+22T_{n+2}^2 where TnT_n is the nnth tribonacci number. A (12,12;m)(\frac12,\frac12;m)-comb is a tile composed of mm sub-tiles of dimensions 12×1\frac12\times1 (with the shorter sides always horizontal) separated by gaps of dimensions 12×1\frac12\times1. We use such tilings to obtain quick combinatorial proofs of identities relating the tribonacci numbers squared to one another, to other combinations of tribonacci numbers, and to the Fibonacci, Narayana's cows, and Padovan numbers. Most of these identities appear to be new.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2201.02285,
  title  = {Identities involving the tribonacci numbers squared via tiling with combs},
  author = {Michael A. Allen and Kenneth Edwards},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.02285},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

7 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-24T08:42:26.469Z