In this article, we use the Touchard identity in order to obtain new integral representations for Catalan numbers. The main idea consists in combining the identity with a known integral representation and resorting to the binomial theorem. The same procedure is applied to a variant of the Touchard identity proposed by Callan a few years ago. The method presented here can be generalized to derive additional integral representations from known ones, provided that the latter have a well-suited form and lend themselves to an analytical summation under the integral sign.
It is well known that the Catalan number C_n counts dissections of a regular (n+2)-gon into triangles. Here we count such dissections by number of triangles that contain two sides of the polygon among their three edges, leading to a combinatorial interpretation of the identity C_n =sum_{1<=k<=n/2} 2^{n-2k} n-choose-2k C_k (k(n+2))/(n(n-1)), and illustrating its connection with Touchard's identity.
We establish combinatorial interpretations of several identities for the Catalan and Fine numbers and, along the way, we present some new bijections of independent interest. Briefly, we show that C_{n} = 1/(n+1) Sum_{k} (n+1)choose(2k+1) (n+k)choose(k) counts ordered trees on n edges by number of interior vertices adjacent to a leaf, and C_{n} = 2/(n+1) Sum_{k} (n+1)choose(k+2) (n-2)choose(k) counts Dyck n-paths by number of long interior inclines. We also give an analogue for the Fine numbers of Touchard's Catalan number identity.
A generalization of the Catalan numbers is considered. New results include binomial identities, recursive relations and a close formula for the multivariate generating function. A simple expression for the Catalan determinant is derived.
We provide some variations on the Greene-Krammer's identity which involve q-Catalan numbers. Our method reveals a curious analogy between these new identities and some congruences modulo a prime.
We confirm a conjectural supercongruence involving Catalan numbers, which is one of the 100 selected open conjectures on congruences of Sun. The proof makes use of hypergeometric series identities and symbolic summation method.
We first establish the result that the Narayana polynomials can be represented as the integrals of the Legendre polynomials. Then we represent the Catalan numbers in terms of the Narayana polynomials by three different identities. We give three different proofs for these identities, namely, two algebraic proofs and one combinatorial proof. Some applications are also given which lead to many known and new identities.
We obtain new combinatorial identities for integral values of binary Krawtchouk polynomials $K^{2m}_p(x)$, $0\le p\le 2m$, by computing the characters of the $p$-exterior representations on certain elements of order 2 of $\mathrm{SO}(2m)$. From this identities, we deduce several new relations for binomial coefficients and Catalan numbers.
In this paper, we investigate the weighted Catalan, Motzkin and Schröder numbers together with the corresponding weighted paths. The relation between these numbers is illustrated by three equations, which also lead to some known and new interesting identities. To show these three equations, we provide combinatorial proofs. One byproduct is to find a bijection between two sets of Catalan paths: one consisting of those with $k$ valleys, and the other consisting of $k$ $\mathbf{N}$ steps in even positions.
We present a new alternating convolution formula for the super Catalan numbers which arises as a generalization of two known binomial identities. We prove a generalization of this formula by using auxiliary sums, recurrence relations, and induction. By using a new method, we prove one interesting divisibility result with super Catalan numbers.
In this paper, we present a formula for generating various exotic series in the spirit of Ovidiu Furdui and Alina Sintamarian. Our new series (evaluated in closed form) involve Bernoulli, harmonic, and Catalan numbers. Also Stirling numbers of the second kind, other special numbers, and exponential polynomials. The results include series identities with Laguerre polynomials and derangement polynomials.
We calculate moments of the so-called Kesten distribution by means of the expansion of the denominator of the density of this distribution and then integrate all summands with respect to the semicircle distribution. By comparing this expression with the formulae for the moments of Kesten's distribution obtained by other means, we find identities involving polynomials whose power coefficients are closely related to Catalan numbers, Catalan triangles, binomial coefficients. Finally, as applications of these identities we obtain various interesting relations between the aforementioned numbers, al…
We give a new Jacobi--Trudi-type formula for characters of finite-dimensional irreducible representations in type $C_n$ using characters of the fundamental representations and non-intersecting lattice paths. We give equivalent determinant formulas for the decomposition multiplicities for tensor powers of the spin representation in type $B_n$ and the exterior representation in type $C_n$. This gives a combinatorial proof of an identity of Katz and equates such a multiplicity with the dimension of an irreducible representation in type $C_n$. By taking certain specializations, we obtain identitie…
By using the Newton interpolation formula, we generalize the recent identities on the Catalan triangle obtained by Miana and Romero as well as those of Chen and Chu. We further study divisibility properties of sums of products of binomial coefficients and an odd power of a natural number. For example, we prove that for all positive integers $n_1, ..., n_m$, $n_{m+1}=n_1$, and any nonnegative integer $r$, the expression $$n_1^{-1}{n_1+n_{m}\choose n_1}^{-1} \sum_{k=1}^{n_1}k^{2r+1}\prod_{i=1}^{m} {n_i+n_{i+1}\choose n_i+k}$$ is either an integer or a half-integer. Moreover, several related conj…
A finitization of the Catalan numbers $ C_n $ can be defined as Euler characteristics of an algebraic structure. We conjecture the existence of a $ q $-deformed version of such structure, and provide evidence for the first two non-trivial cases. This $ q $-deformed version will likely categorify series arise from identities of the Roger-Ramanujan type.
We present two proofs each, all shorter than the original proofs, of two elegant combinatorial identities that came up in the beautiful article arXiv:2010.00077 .
The \emph{Hosoya triangle} is a triangular array where every entry is a product of two Fibonacci numbers. We use the geometry of this triangle to find new identities related to Fibonacci numbers. We give geometric interpretation for some well-known identities of Fibonacci numbers. For instance, the Cassini identity and the Catalan identity. We also extend some identities that hold in the Pascal triangle to the Hosoya triangle. For instance, the hockey stick extends from binomials to products of Fibonacci numbers and the rhombus property extends a binomial identity from the Pascal triangle to a…
The paper counts the number of reduced quasigroup words of a particular length in a certain number of generators. Taking account of the relationship with the Catalan numbers, counting words in a free magma, we introduce the term peri-Catalan number for the free quasigroup word counts. The main result of the paper is an exact recursive formula for the peri-Catalan numbers, structured by the Euclidean Algorithm. The Euclidean Algorithm structure does not readily lend itself to standard techniques of asymptotic analysis. However, conjectures for the asymptotic behavior of the peri-Catalan numbers…
We derive a new Fibonacci identity. This single identity subsumes important known identities such as those of Catalan, Ruggles, Halton and others, as well as standard general identities found in the books by Vajda, Koshy and others. We also derive several binomial and ordinary summation identities arising from this identity; in particular we obtain a generalization of Halton's general Fibonacci identity.
Results of this paper concern $n$-determinants which we defined in the paper \cite{jan}. In the paper \cite{jabo}, $2$-determinants are considered. In this paper, we extend results from \cite{jabo} on $n$-determinants by proving that Cassini, d'Ocagne, Catalan and Vajda identities may be extended to hold for $n$-step Fibonacci numbers.
The Chan-Robbins-Yuen polytope can be thought of as the flow polytope of the complete graph with netflow vector $(1, 0, \ldots, 0, -1)$. The normalized volume of the Chan-Robbins-Yuen polytope equals the product of consecutive Catalan numbers, yet there is no combinatorial proof of this fact. We consider a natural generalization of this polytope, namely, the flow polytope of the complete graph with netflow vector $(1,1, 0, \ldots, 0, -2)$. We show that the volume of this polytope is a certain power of $2$ times the product of consecutive Catalan numbers. Our proof uses constant term identities…
Every character on a graded connected Hopf algebra decomposes uniquely as a product of an even character and an odd character (Aguiar, Bergeron, and Sottile, math.CO/0310016). We obtain explicit formulas for the even and odd parts of the universal character on the Hopf algebra of quasi-symmetric functions. They can be described in terms of Legendre's beta function evaluated at half-integers, or in terms of bivariate Catalan numbers: $$ C(m,n)=\frac{(2m)!(2n)!}{m!(m+n)!n!}. $$ Properties of characters and of quasi-symmetric functions are then used to derive several interesting identities among …
The Raney numbers $R_{p,r}(n)$ are a two-parameter generalization of the Catalan numbers that were introduced by Raney in his investigation of functional composition patterns \cite{Raney}. We give a new combinatorial interpretation for all Raney numbers in terms of planar embeddings of certain collections of trees, a construction that recovers the usual interpretation of the $p$-Catalan numbers in terms of $p$-ary trees via the specialization $R_{p,1}(n) =_{p} c_n$. Our technique leads to several combinatorial identities involving the Raney numbers and ordered partitions. We then give addition…
The binomial coefficients and Catalan triangle numbers appear as weight multiplicities of the finite-dimensional simple Lie algebras and affine Kac--Moody algebras. We prove that any binomial coefficient can be written as weighted sums along rows of the Catalan triangle. The coefficients in the sums form a triangular array, which we call the alternating Jacobsthal triangle. We study various subsequences of the entries of the alternating Jacobsthal triangle and show that they arise in a variety of combinatorial constructions. The generating functions of these sequences enable us to define their…
We consider an identity relating Fibonacci numbers to Pascal's triangle discovered by G. E. Andrews. Several authors provided proofs of this identity, all of them rather involved or else relying on sophisticated number theoretical arguments. We not only give a simple and elementary proof, but also show the identity generalizes to arrays other than Pascal's triangle. As an application we obtain identities relating trinomial coefficients and Catalan's triangle to Fibonacci numbers.
The Lucas sequence is a sequence of polynomials in s, and t defined recursively by {0}=0, {1}=1, and {n}=s{n-1}+t{n-2} for n >= 2. On specialization of s and t one can recover the Fibonacci numbers, the nonnegative integers, and the q-integers [n]_q. Given a quantity which is expressed in terms of products and quotients of nonnegative integers, one obtains a Lucas analogue by replacing each factor of n in the expression with {n}. It is then natural to ask if the resulting rational function is actually a polynomial in s and t with nonnegative integer coefficients and, if so, what it counts. The…
We give a combinatorial interpretation of a matrix identity on Catalan numbers and the sequence $(1, 4, 4^2, 4^3, ...)$ which has been derived by Shapiro, Woan and Getu by using Riordan arrays. By giving a bijection between weighted partial Motzkin paths with an elevation line and weighted free Motzkin paths, we find a matrix identity on the number of weighted Motzkin paths and the sequence $(1, k, k^2, k^3, ...)$ for any $k \geq 2$. By extending this argument to partial Motzkin paths with multiple elevation lines, we give a combinatorial proof of an identity recently obtained by Cameron and N…
We provide new interpretations for a subset of Raney numbers, involving threshold sequences and Motzkin-like paths with long up and down steps. Given three integers n, k, l such that n >= 1, k >= 2 and 0 <= l <= k-2, a (k,l)-threshold sequence of length n is any strictly increasing sequence S=(s_1 s_2 ... s_n) of integers such that ki <= s_i <= kn+l. These sequences are in bijection with ordered (l+1)-tuples of k-ary trees. We prove this result and identify the Raney numbers that count the (k,l)-threshold sequences. As a consequence, when k=2 and k=3, we deduce combinatorial identities involvi…
In 2010, Kh. Hessami Pilehrood and T. Hessami Pilehrood introduced generating function identities used to obtain series accelerations for values of Dirichlet's $β$ function, via the Markov--Wilf--Zeilberger method. Inspired by these past results, together with related results introduced by Chu et al., we introduce a variety of hypergeometric recurrences. We prove these recurrences using the WZ method, and we apply these recurrences to obtain series acceleration identities. We introduce a family of summations generalizing a Ramanujan-type series for $\frac{1}{π^2}$ due to Guillera, and a family…
For integers $n, m$ with $n \geq 1$ and $0 \leq m \leq n$, an $(n,m)$-Dyck path is a lattice path in the integer lattice $\mathbb{Z} \times \mathbb{Z}$ using up steps $(0,1)$ and down steps $(1,0)$ that goes from the origin $(0,0)$ to the point $(n,n)$ and contains exactly $m$ up steps below the line $y=x$. The classical Chung-Feller theorem says that the total number of $(n,m)$-Dyck path is independent of $m$ and is equal to the $n$-th Catalan number $C_n=\frac{1}{n+1}{2n \choose n}$. For any integer $k$ with $1 \leq k \leq n$, let $p_{n,m,k}$ be the total number of $(n,m)$-Dyck paths with $k…
We extend our investigation of $2$-determinants, which we defined in a previous paper. For a linear homogenous recurrence of the second order, we consider relations between different sequences satisfying the same linear homogeneous recurrence of the second order. After we prove a generalized identity of d'Ocagne, we derive, from a single identity, a number of classical identities (and their generalizations) such as d'Ocagne's, Cassini's, Catalan's and Vajda's. Along the way, the corresponding combinatorial interpretations in terms of restricted words over a finite alphabet are stated for the s…
In this paper we first generalize the numerical recurrence relation given by Hosoya to polynomials. Using this generalization we construct a Hosoya-like triangle for polynomials, where its entries are products of generalized Fibonacci polynomials (GFP). Examples of GFP are: Fibonacci polynomials, Chebyshev polynomials, Morgan-Voyce polynomials, Lucas polynomials, Pell polynomials, Fermat polynomials, Jacobsthal polynomials, Vieta polynomials and other familiar sequences of polynomials. For every choice of a GFP we obtain a triangular array of polynomials. In this paper we extend the star of Da…
