Related papers: A generalization of a 1998 unimodality conjecture …

The symmetric difference of the $q$-binomial coefficients $F_{n,k}(q)={n+k\brack k}-q^{n}{n+k-2\brack k-2}$ was introduced by Reiner and Stanton. They proved that $F_{n,k}(q)$ is symmetric and unimodal for $k \geq 2$ and $n$ even by using…

A recent nice result due to I. Pak and G. Panova is the strict unimodality of the $q$-binomial coefficients $\binom{a+b}{b}_q$ (see \cite{PP} and also \cite{PP2} for a slightly revised version of their theorem). Since their proof used…

F. Bergeron recently asked the intriguing question whether $\binom{b+c}{b}_q -\binom{a+d}{d}_q$ has nonnegative coefficients as a polynomial in $q$, whenever $a,b,c,d$ are positive integers, $a$ is the smallest, and $ad=bc$. We conjecture…

Bergeron--Ceballos--K\"ustner introduced the $q$-Fibonomial coefficients \( \qfibonom{m+n}{n}\), gave a combinatorial interpretation of the $q$-Fibonomial coefficients via a weighted path-domino tiling model, and conjectured that these…

We conjecture that, if the quotient of two $q$-binomial coefficients with the same top argument is a polynomial, then it has non-negative coefficients. We summarise what is known about the conjecture and prove it in two non-trivial cases.…

In 2013, Pak and Panova proved the strict unimodality property of $q$-binomial coefficients $\binom{\ell+m}{m}_q$ (as polynomials in $q$) based on the combinatorics of Young tableaux and the semigroup property of Kronecker coefficients.…

In this paper, we confirm the following conjecture of Guo and Schlosser: for any odd integer $n>1$ and $M=(n+1)/2$ or $n-1$, $$ \sum_{k=0}^{M}[4k-1]_{q^2}[4k-1]^2\frac{(q^{-2};q^4)_k^4}{(q^4;q^4)_k^4}q^{4k}\equiv…

Pak and Panova recently proved that the $q$-binomial coefficient ${m+n \choose m}_q$ is a strictly unimodal polynomial in $q$ for $m,n \geq 8$, via the representation theory of the symmetric group. We give a direct combinatorial proof of…

We present new proofs and generalizations of unimodality of the q-binomial coefficients \binom{n}{k}_q as polynomials in q. We use an algebraic approach by interpreting the differences between numbers of certain partitions as Kronecker…

We prove strict unimodality of the q-binomial coefficients \binom{n}{k}_q as polynomials in q. The proof is based on the combinatorics of certain Young tableaux and the semigroup property of Kronecker coefficients of S_n representations.

Let $m>2$ and $q>0$ be integers with $m$ even or $q$ odd. We show the supercongruence $$\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}(-1)^{km}\binom{p/m-q}{k}^m\equiv0\pmod{p^3}.$$ for any prime $p>mq$. This confirms a conjecture of Sun.

We prove that, if $m,n\geqslant 1$ and $a_1,\ldots,a_m$ are nonnegative integers, then \begin{align*} \frac{[a_1+\cdots+a_m+1]!}{[a_1]!\ldots[a_m]!}\sum^{n-1}_{h=0}q^h\prod_{i=1}^m{h\brack a_i} \equiv 0\pmod{[n]}, \end{align*} where…

Suppose that $p$ is an odd prime and $m$ is an integer not divisible by $p$. Sun and Tauraso [Adv. in Appl. Math., 45(2010), 125--148] gave $\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}\binom{2k}{k+d}/m^k$ and $\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}\binom{2k}{k+d}/(km^k)$ modulo $p$ for…

Let $\Phi_{n}(q)$ denote the $n$-th cyclotomic polynomial in $q$. Recently, Guo and Schlosser [Constr. Approx. 53 (2021), 155--200] put forward the following conjecture: for an odd integer $n>1$, \begin{align*}…

In this paper we study recurrences concerning the combinatorial sum $[n,r]_m=\sum_{k\equiv r (mod m)}\binom {n}{k}$ and the alternate sum $\sum_{k\equiv r (mod m)}(-1)^{(k-r)/m}\binom{n}{k}$, where m>0, $n\ge 0$ and r are integers. For…

The $q$-binomial coefficients $\qbinom{n}{m}=\prod_{i=1}^m(1-q^{n-m+i})/(1-q^i)$, for integers $0\le m\le n$, are known to be polynomials with non-negative integer coefficients. This readily follows from the $q$-binomial theorem, or the…

The q-binomial coefficients were assumed to be unimodal as early as the 1850's, but it remained unproven until Sylvester's 1878 proof using invariant theory. In 1982, Proctor gave an "elementary" proof using linear algebra. Finally, in…

A polynomial $A(q)=\sum_{i=0}^n a_iq^i$ is said to be unimodal if $a_0\le a_1\le \cdots \le a_k\ge a_{k+1} \ge \cdots \ge a_n$. We investigate the unimodality of rational $q$-Catalan polynomials, which is defined to be $C_{m,n}(q)=…

With help of $q$-congruence, we prove the divisibility of some binomial sums. For example, for any integers $\rho,n\geq 2$, $$\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}(4k+1) \binom{2k}{k}^\rho \cdot (-4)^{\rho(n-1-k)} \equiv 0\pmod{2^{\rho-2}n\binom{2n}{n}}.$$

Our main result here is that the specialization at $t=1/q$ of the $Q_{km,kn}$ operators studied in [4] may be given a very simple plethystic form. This discovery yields elementary and direct derivations of several identities relating these…