English

On a Two-Parameter Family of Generalizations of Pascal's Triangle

Combinatorics 2022-12-21 v1

Abstract

We consider a two-parameter family of triangles whose (n,k)(n,k)-th entry (counting the initial entry as the (0,0)(0,0)-th entry) is the number of tilings of NN-boards (which are linear arrays of NN unit square cells for any nonnegative integer NN) with unit squares and (1,m1;t)(1,m-1;t)-combs for some fixed m=1,2,m=1,2,\dots and t=2,3,t=2,3,\dots that use nn tiles in total of which kk are combs. A (1,m1;t)(1,m-1;t)-comb is a tile composed of tt unit square sub-tiles (referred to as teeth) placed so that each tooth is separated from the next by a gap of width m1m-1. We show that the entries in the triangle are coefficients of the product of two consecutive generalized Fibonacci polynomials each raised to some nonnegative integer power. We also present a bijection between the tiling of an (n+(t1)m)(n+(t-1)m)-board with kk (1,m1;t)(1,m-1;t)-combs with the remaining cells filled with squares and the kk-subsets of {1,,n}\{1,\ldots,n\} such that no two elements of the subset differ by a multiple of mm up to (t1)m(t-1)m. We can therefore give a combinatorial proof of how the number of such kk-subsets is related to the coefficient of a polynomial. We also derive a recursion relation for the number of closed walks from a particular node on a class of directed pseudographs and apply it obtain an identity concerning the m=2m=2, t=5t=5 instance of the family of triangles. Further identities of the triangles are also established mostly via combinatorial proof.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2209.01377,
  title  = {On a Two-Parameter Family of Generalizations of Pascal's Triangle},
  author = {Michael A. Allen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.01377},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

25 pages, 8 figures