English

Combinatorial proofs of two Euler type identities due to Andrews

Combinatorics 2018-07-02 v3 Number Theory

Abstract

We prove combinatorially some identities related to Euler's partition identity (the number of partitions of nn into distinct parts equals the number of partitions of nn into odd parts). They were conjectured by Beck and proved by Andrews via generating functions. Let a(n)a(n) be the number of partitions of nn such that the set of even parts has exactly one element, b(n)b(n) be the difference between the number of parts in all odd partitions of nn and the number of parts in all distinct partitions of nn, and c(n)c(n) be the number of partitions of nn in which exactly one part is repeated. Then, a(n)=b(n)=c(n)a(n)=b(n)=c(n). The identity a(n)=c(n)a(n)=c(n) was proved combinatorially (in greater generality) by Fu and Tang. We prove combinatorially that a(n)=b(n)a(n)=b(n) and b(n)=c(n)b(n)=c(n). Our proof relies on bijections between a set and a multiset, where the partitions in the multiset are decorated with bit strings. Let c1(n)c_1(n) be the number of partitions of nn such that there is exactly one part occurring three times while all other parts occur only once and let b1(n)b_1(n) to be the difference between the total number of parts in the partitions of nn into distinct parts and the total number of different parts in the partitions of nn into odd parts. We prove combinatorially that c1(n)=b1(n)c_1(n)=b_1(n). In addition to these results by Andrews, we prove combinatorially that b1(n)=a1(n)b_1(n)=a_1(n), where a1(n)a_1(n) counts partitions of nn such that the set of even parts has exactly one element and satisfying some additional conditions. We also treat the case when exactly one part occurs twice while all other parts occur only once.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.06394,
  title  = {Combinatorial proofs of two Euler type identities due to Andrews},
  author = {Cristina Ballantine and Richard Bielak},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.06394},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

14 pages added (again) section 4 - the case of one part repeated exactly twice, all other parts distinct

R2 v1 2026-06-23T00:55:55.940Z