English

Mock theta functions and related combinatorics

Combinatorics 2023-04-25 v2 Number Theory

Abstract

In this paper we add to the literature on the combinatorial nature of the mock theta functions, a collection of curious qq-hypergeometric series introduced by Ramanujan in his last letter to Hardy in 1920, which we now know to be important examples of mock modular forms. Our work is inspired by Beck's conjecture, now a theorem of Andrews, related to Euler's identity: the excess of the number of parts in all partitions of nn into odd parts over the number of partitions of nn into distinct parts is equal to the number of partitions with only one (possibly repeated) even part and all other parts odd. We establish Beck-type identities associated to partition identities due to Andrews, Dixit, and Yee for the third order mock theta functions ω(q),ν(q)\omega(q), \nu(q), and ϕ(q)\phi(q). Our proofs are both analytic and combinatorial in nature, and involve mock theta generating functions and combinatorial bijections.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2202.03329,
  title  = {Mock theta functions and related combinatorics},
  author = {Cristina Ballantine and Hannah E. Burson and Amanda Folsom and Chi-Yun Hsu and Isabella Negrini and Boya Wen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.03329},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T09:24:30.765Z