An identity that is reminiscent of the Littlewood identity plays a fundamental role in recent proofs of the facts that alternating sign triangles are equinumerous with totally symmetric self-complementary plane partitions and that alternating sign trapezoids are equinumerous with holey cyclically symmetric lozenge tilings of a hexagon. We establish a bounded version of a generalization of this identity. Further, we provide combinatorial interpretations of both sides of the identity. The ultimate goal would be to construct a combinatorial proof of this identity (possibly via an appropriate variant of the Robinson-Schensted-Knuth correspondence) and its unbounded version, as this would improve the understanding of the mysterious relation between alternating sign trapezoids and plane partition objects.

Recently, Alanazi et al. [‘Refining overpartitions by properties of nonoverlined parts’, Contrib. Discrete Math. 17(2) (2022), 96–111] considered overpartitions wherein the nonoverlined parts must be $\ell $-regular, that is, the nonoverlined parts cannot be divisible by the integer $\ell $. In the process, they proved a general parity result for the corresponding enumerating functions. They also proved some specific congruences for the case $\ell =3$. In this paper we use elementary generating function manipulations to significantly extend this set of known congruences for these functions.

We give an explicit formula for the Frobenius number of triples associated with the Diophantine equation $x^2+y^2=z^3$, that is, the largest positive integer that can only be represented in p ways by combining the three integers of the solutions of $x^2+y^2=z^3$. For the equation $x^2+y^2=z^2$, the Frobenius number has already been given. Our approach can be extended to the general equation $x^2+y^2=z^r$ for $r>3$.

Describing the equality conditions of the Alexandrov–Fenchel inequality [Ale37] has been a major open problem for decades. We prove that in the case of convex polytopes, this description is not in the polynomial hierarchy unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses to a finite level. This is the first hardness result for the problem and is a complexity counterpart of the recent result by Shenfeld and van Handel [SvH23], which gave a geometric characterization of the equality conditions. The proof involves Stanley’s [Sta81] order polytopes and employs poset theoretic technology.

Given a permutation statistic $\operatorname {\mathrm {st}}$, define its inverse statistic $\operatorname {\mathrm {ist}}$ by . We give a general approach, based on the theory of symmetric functions, for finding the joint distribution of $\operatorname {\mathrm {st}}_{1}$ and $\operatorname {\mathrm {ist}}_{2}$ whenever $\operatorname {\mathrm {st}}_{1}$ and $\operatorname {\mathrm {st}}_{2}$ are descent statistics: permutation statistics that depend only on the descent composition. We apply this method to a number of descent statistics, including the descent number, the peak number, the left peak number, the number of up-down runs and the major index. Perhaps surprisingly, in many cases the polynomial giving the joint distribution of $\operatorname {\mathrm {st}}_{1}$ and $\operatorname {\mathrm {ist}}_{2}$ can be expressed as a simple sum involving products of the polynomials giving the (individual) distributions of $\operatorname {\mathrm {st}}_{1}$ and $\operatorname {\mathrm {st}}_{2}$. Our work leads to a rederivation of Stanley’s generating function for doubly alternating permutations, as well as several conjectures concerning real-rootedness and $\gamma $-positivity.

We study the counts of smooth permutations and smooth polynomials over finite fields. For both counts we prove an estimate with an error term that matches the error term found in the integer setting by de Bruijn more than 70 years ago. The main term is the usual Dickman $\rho$ function, but with its argument shifted.

We determine the order of magnitude of $\log(p_{n,m}/\rho(n/m))$ where $p_{n,m}$ is the probability that a permutation on n elements, chosen uniformly at random, is m-smooth.

We uncover a phase transition in the polynomial setting: the probability that a polynomial of degree n in $\mathbb{F}_q$ is m-smooth changes its behaviour at $m\approx (3/2)\log_q n$.

Given an $n\times n$ symmetric matrix $W\in [0,1]^{[n]\times [n]}$, let ${\mathcal G}(n,W)$ be the random graph obtained by independently including each edge $jk\in \binom{[n]}{2}$ with probability $W_{jk}=W_{kj}$. Given a degree sequence $\textbf{d}=(d_1,\ldots, d_n)$, let ${\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d})$ denote a uniformly random graph with degree sequence $\textbf{d}$. We couple ${\mathcal G}(n,W)$ and ${\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d})$ together so that asymptotically almost surely ${\mathcal G}(n,W)$ is a subgraph of ${\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d})$, where $W$ is some function of $\textbf{d}$. Let $\Delta (\textbf{d})$ denote the maximum degree in $\textbf{d}$. Our coupling result is optimal when $\Delta (\textbf{d})^2\ll \|\textbf{d}\|_1$, that is, $W_{ij}$ is asymptotic to ${\mathbb P}(ij\in{\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d}))$ for every $i,j\in [n]$. We also have coupling results for $\textbf{d}$ that are not constrained by the condition $\Delta (\textbf{d})^2\ll \|\textbf{d}\|_1$. For such $\textbf{d}$ our coupling result is still close to optimal, in the sense that $W_{ij}$ is asymptotic to ${\mathbb P}(ij\in{\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d}))$ for most pairs $ij\in \binom{[n]}{2}$.

Let n be a positive integer and $\underline {n}=\{1,2,\ldots ,n\}$. A conjecture arising from certain polynomial near-ring codes states that if $k\geq 1$ and $a_{1},a_{2},\ldots ,a_{k}$ are distinct positive integers, then the symmetric difference $a_{1}\underline {n}\mathbin {\Delta }a_{2}\underline {n}\mathbin {\Delta }\cdots \mathbin {\Delta }a_{k}\underline {n}$ contains at least n elements. Here, $a_{i}\underline {n}=\{a_{i},2a_{i},\ldots ,na_{i}\}$ for each i. We prove this conjecture for arbitrary n and for $k=1,2,3$.

One variant of the q-Catalan polynomials is defined in terms of Gaussian polynomials by

$$ \begin{align*}\mathcal{C}_k(q)=\bigg[\begin{matrix}{2k}\\ {k}\end{matrix}\bigg]_q-q \bigg[\begin{matrix}{2k}\\ {k+1} \end{matrix}\bigg]_q.\end{align*} $$

Liu [‘On a congruence involving q-Catalan numbers’, C. R. Math. Acad. Sci. Paris 358 (2020), 211–215] studied congruences of the form $\sum _{k=0}^{n-1} q^k\mathcal {C}_k$ modulo the cyclotomic polynomial $\Phi _n(q)^2$, provided that $n\equiv \pm 1\pmod 3$. Apparently, the case $n\equiv 0\pmod 3$ has been missing from the literature. Our primary purpose is to fill this gap. In addition, we discuss a certain fascinating link to Dirichlet character sum identities.

Using properties of Ramanujan’s theta functions, we give an elementary proof of Hirschhorn’s conjecture on $2^n$-dissection of Euler’s product $E(q):=(q;q)_\infty $.

Let Mn and Tn denote the nth Motzkin number and the nth central trinomial coefficient respectively. We prove that for any prime $p\ge 5$,

\begin{equation*}\begin{aligned}\\[-22pt]&\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}M_k^2\equiv \left(\frac{p}{3}\right)\left(2-6p\right)\pmod{p^2},\\&\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}kM_k^2\equiv \left(\frac{p}{3}\right)\left(9p-1\right)\pmod{p^2},\\&\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}T_kM_k\equiv \frac{4}{3}\left(\frac{p}{3}\right)+\frac{p}{6}\left(1-9\left(\frac{p}{3}\right)\right)\pmod{p^2},\\[-6pt]\end{aligned}\end{equation*}

where $\left(-\right)$ is the Legendre symbol. These results confirm three supercongruences conjectured by Z.-W. Sun in 2010.

We establish some inequalities that arise from truncating Lerch sums and derive uniform asymptotic formulae for the spt-crank of ordinary partitions. The uniform asymptotic formulae improve upon a result of Mao [‘Asymptotic formulas for spt-crank of partitions’, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 460(1) (2018), 121–139].

Let $m,\,r\in {\mathbb {Z}}$ and $\omega \in {\mathbb {R}}$ satisfy $0\leqslant r\leqslant m$ and $\omega \geqslant 1$. Our main result is a generalized continued fraction for an expression involving the partial binomial sum $s_m(r) = \sum _{i=0}^r\binom{m}{i}$. We apply this to create new upper and lower bounds for $s_m(r)$ and thus for $g_{\omega,m}(r)=\omega ^{-r}s_m(r)$. We also bound an integer $r_0 \in \{0,\,1,\,\ldots,\,m\}$ such that $g_{\omega,m}(0)<\cdots < g_{\omega,m}(r_0-1)\leqslant g_{\omega,m}(r_0)$ and $g_{\omega,m}(r_0)>\cdots >g_{\omega,m}(m)$. For real $\omega \geqslant \sqrt 3$ we prove that $r_0\in \{\lfloor \frac {m+2}{\omega +1}\rfloor,\,\lfloor \frac {m+2}{\omega +1}\rfloor +1\}$, and also $r_0 =\lfloor \frac {m+2}{\omega +1}\rfloor$ for $\omega \in \{3,\,4,\,\ldots \}$ or $\omega =2$ and $3\nmid m$.

We say that a graph H dominates another graph H′ if the number of homomorphisms from H′ to any graph G is dominated, in an appropriate sense, by the number of homomorphisms from H to G. We study the family of dominating graphs, those graphs with the property that they dominate all of their subgraphs. It has long been known that even-length paths are dominating in this sense and a result of Hatami implies that all weakly norming graphs are dominating. In a previous paper, we showed that every finite reflection group gives rise to a family of weakly norming, and hence dominating, graphs. Here we revisit this connection to show that there is a much broader class of dominating graphs.

An integer partition of a positive integer n is called t-core if none of its hook lengths is divisible by t. Gireesh et al. [‘A new analogue of t-core partitions’, Acta Arith. 199 (2021), 33–53] introduced an analogue $\overline {a}_t(n)$ of the t-core partition function. They obtained multiplicative formulae and arithmetic identities for $\overline {a}_t(n)$ where $t \in \{3,4,5,8\}$ and studied the arithmetic density of $\overline {a}_t(n)$ modulo $p_i^{\,j}$ where $t=p_1^{a_1}\cdots p_m^{a_m}$ and $p_i\geq 5$ are primes. Bandyopadhyay and Baruah [‘Arithmetic identities for some analogs of the 5-core partition function’, J. Integer Seq. 27 (2024), Article no. 24.4.5] proved new arithmetic identities satisfied by $\overline {a}_5(n)$. We study the arithmetic densities of $\overline {a}_t(n)$ modulo arbitrary powers of 2 and 3 for $t=3^\alpha m$ where $\gcd (m,6)$=1. Also, employing a result of Ono and Taguchi [‘2-adic properties of certain modular forms and their applications to arithmetic functions’, Int. J. Number Theory 1 (2005), 75–101] on the nilpotency of Hecke operators, we prove an infinite family of congruences for $\overline {a}_3(n)$ modulo arbitrary powers of 2.

The $\lambda $-quiddities of size n are n-tuples of elements of a fixed set, solutions of a matrix equation appearing in the study of Coxeter’s friezes. Their number and properties are closely linked to the structure and the cardinality of the chosen set. Our main objective is an explicit formula giving the number of $\lambda $-quiddities of odd size, and a lower and upper bound for the number of $\lambda $-quiddities of even size, over the rings ${\mathbb {Z}}/2^{m}{\mathbb {Z}}$ ($m \geq 2$). We also give explicit formulae for the number of $\lambda $-quiddities of size n over ${\mathbb {Z}}/8{\mathbb {Z}}$.

In his 1984 AMS Memoir, Andrews introduced the family of functions $c\phi_k(n)$, the number of k-coloured generalized Frobenius partitions of n. In 2019, Chan, Wang and Yang systematically studied the arithmetic properties of $\textrm{C}\Phi_k(q)$ for $2\leq k\leq17$ by utilizing the theory of modular forms, where $\textrm{C}\Phi_k(q)$ denotes the generating function of $c\phi_k(n)$. In this paper, we first establish another expression of $\textrm{C}\Phi_{12}(q)$ with integer coefficients, then prove some congruences modulo small powers of 3 for $c\phi_{12}(n)$ by using some parameterized identities of theta functions due to A. Alaca, S. Alaca and Williams. Finally, we conjecture three families of congruences modulo powers of 3 satisfied by $c\phi_{12}(n)$.

Motivated by the work initiated by Chapman [‘Determinants of Legendre symbol matrices’, Acta Arith. 115 (2004), 231–244], we investigate some arithmetical properties of generalised Legendre matrices over finite fields. For example, letting $a_1,\ldots ,a_{(q-1)/2}$ be all the nonzero squares in the finite field $\mathbb {F}_q$ containing q elements with $2\nmid q$, we give the explicit value of the determinant $D_{(q-1)/2}=\det [(a_i+a_j)^{(q-3)/2}]_{1\le i,j\le (q-1)/2}$. In particular, if $q=p$ is a prime greater than $3$, then

$$ \begin{align*}\bigg(\frac{\det D_{(p-1)/2}}{p}\bigg)= \begin{cases} 1 & \mbox{if}\ p\equiv1\pmod4,\\ (-1)^{(h(-p)+1)/2} & \mbox{if}\ p\equiv 3\pmod4\ \text{and}\ p>3, \end{cases}\end{align*} $$

where $(\frac {\cdot }{p})$ is the Legendre symbol and $h(-p)$ is the class number of $\mathbb {Q}(\sqrt {-p})$.

The protection number of a vertex $v$ in a tree is the length of the shortest path from $v$ to any leaf contained in the maximal subtree where $v$ is the root. In this paper, we determine the distribution of the maximum protection number of a vertex in simply generated trees, thereby refining a recent result of Devroye, Goh, and Zhao. Two different cases can be observed: if the given family of trees allows vertices of outdegree $1$, then the maximum protection number is on average logarithmic in the tree size, with a discrete double-exponential limiting distribution. If no such vertices are allowed, the maximum protection number is doubly logarithmic in the tree size and concentrated on at most two values. These results are obtained by studying the singular behaviour of the generating functions of trees with bounded protection number. While a general distributional result by Prodinger and Wagner can be used in the first case, we prove a variant of that result in the second case.

The original Specker–Blatter theorem (1983) was formulated for classes of structures $\mathcal {C}$ of one or several binary relations definable in Monadic Second Order Logic MSOL. It states that the number of such structures on the set $[n]$ is modularly C-finite (MC-finite). In previous work we extended this to structures definable in CMSOL, MSOL extended with modular counting quantifiers. The first author also showed that the Specker–Blatter theorem does not hold for one quaternary relation (2003).

If the vocabulary allows a constant symbol c, there are n possible interpretations on $[n]$ for c. We say that a constant c is hard-wired if c is always interpreted by the same element $j \in [n]$. In this paper we show:

1. (i) The Specker–Blatter theorem also holds for CMSOL when hard-wired constants are allowed. The proof method of Specker and Blatter does not work in this case.

2. (ii) The Specker–Blatter theorem does not hold already for $\mathcal {C}$ with one ternary relation definable in First Order Logic FOL. This was left open since 1983.

Using hard-wired constants allows us to show MC-finiteness of counting functions of various restricted partition functions which were not known to be MC-finite till now. Among them we have the restricted Bell numbers $B_{r,A}$, restricted Stirling numbers of the second kind $S_{r,A}$ or restricted Lah-numbers $L_{r,A}$. Here r is a non-negative integer and A is an ultimately periodic set of non-negative integers.