We prove the following conjecture of Z.-W. Sun [‘On congruences related to central binomial coefficients’, J. Number Theory 13(11) (2011), 2219–2238]. Let p be an odd prime. Then

$$ \begin{align*} \sum_{k=1}^{p-1}\frac{\binom{2k}k}{k2^k}\equiv-\frac12H_{{(p-1)}/2}+\frac7{16}p^2B_{p-3}\pmod{p^3}, \end{align*} $$

where $H_n$ is the nth harmonic number and $B_n$ is the nth Bernoulli number. In addition, we evaluate $\sum _{k=0}^{p-1}(ak+b)\binom {2k}k/2^k$ modulo $p^3$ for any p-adic integers $a, b$.

In this paper, we mainly prove the following conjectures of Sun [16]: Let p > 3 be a prime. Then

\begin{align*}&A_{2p}\equiv A_2-\frac{1648}3p^3B_{p-3}\ ({\rm{mod}}\ p^4),\\&A_{2p-1}\equiv A_1+\frac{16p^3}3B_{p-3}\ ({\rm{mod}}\ p^4),\\&A_{3p}\equiv A_3-36738p^3B_{p-3}\ ({\rm{mod}}\ p^4),\end{align*}

where $A_n=\sum_{k=0}^n\binom{n}k^2\binom{n+k}{k}^2$ is the nth Apéry number, and Bn is the nth Bernoulli number.

Let p be a prime and let x be a p-adic integer. We prove two supercongruences for truncated series of the form

$$\begin{align*}\sum_{k=1}^{p-1} \frac{(x)_k}{(1)_k}\cdot \frac{1}{k}\sum_{1\le j_1\le\cdots\le j_r\le k}\frac{1}{j_1^{}\cdots j_r^{}}\quad\mbox{and}\quad \sum_{k=1}^{p-1} \frac{(x)_k(1-x)_k}{(1)_k^2}\cdot \frac{1}{k}\sum_{1\le j_1\le\cdots\le j_r\le k}\frac{1}{j_1^{2}\cdots j_r^{2}}\end{align*}$$

Qi and Chapman [‘Two closed forms for the Bernoulli polynomials’, J. Number Theory159 (2016), 89–100] gave a closed form expression for the Bernoulli polynomials as polynomials with coefficients involving Stirling numbers of the second kind. We extend the formula to the degenerate Bernoulli polynomials, replacing the Stirling numbers by degenerate Stirling numbers of the second kind.

Let $p>3$ be a prime and let $a$ be a rational $p$-adic integer with $a\not \equiv 0\;(\text{mod}\;p)$. We evaluate

$$\begin{eqnarray}\mathop{\sum }_{k=1}^{(p-1)/2}\frac{1}{k}\binom{a}{k}\binom{-1-a}{k}\quad \text{and}\quad \mathop{\sum }_{k=0}^{(p-1)/2}\frac{1}{2k-1}\binom{a}{k}\binom{-1-a}{k}\end{eqnarray}$$

$p^{2}$

We establish finite analogues of the identities known as the Aoki–Ohno relation and the Le–Murakami relation in the theory of multiple zeta values. We use an explicit form of a generating series given by Aoki and Ohno.

We prove two conjectural congruences on the $(p-1)$th Apéry number, which were recently proposed by Z.-H. Sun.

For a positive integer $n$ let

$$\begin{eqnarray}\mathfrak{P}_{n}=\mathop{\prod }_{\substack{ p \\ s_{p}(n)\geqslant p}}p,\end{eqnarray}$$

$p$

$s_{p}(n)$

$p$

$n$

$n$

$\mathfrak{P}_{n}$

$\mathfrak{P}_{n}$

$\sqrt{n}$

$n^{20/37}$

$\sqrt{n}$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D705}\sqrt{n}/\text{log}\,n$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D705}$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D705}=2$

$\mathfrak{P}_{n}$

$\mathfrak{P}_{n+1}$

$\mathfrak{P}_{n}$

$n$

$\mathfrak{P}_{n}>\mathfrak{P}_{n+1}$

We construct and study a certain zeta function which interpolates multi-poly-Bernoulli numbers at nonpositive integers and whose values at positive integers are linear combinations of multiple zeta values. This function can be regarded as the one to be paired up with the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}$-function defined by Arakawa and Kaneko. We show that both are closely related to the multiple zeta functions. Further we define multi-indexed poly-Bernoulli numbers, and generalize the duality formulas for poly-Bernoulli numbers by introducing more general zeta functions.

The aim of this paper is to develop analytic techniques to deal with the monotonicity of certain combinatorial sequences. On the one hand, a criterion for the monotonicity of the function is given, which is a continuous analogue of a result of Wang and Zhu. On the other hand, the log-behaviour of the functions

is considered, where ζ(x) and Γ(x) are the Riemann zeta function and the Euler Gamma function, respectively. Consequently, the strict log-concavities of the function θ(x) (a conjecture of Chen et al.) and for some combinatorial sequences (including the Bernoulli numbers, the tangent numbers, the Catalan numbers, the Fuss–Catalan numbers, and the binomial coefficients are demonstrated. In particular, this contains some results of Chen et al., and Luca and Stănică. Finally, by researching the logarithmically complete monotonicity of some functions, the infinite log-monotonicity of the sequence

is proved. This generalizes two results of Chen et al. that both the Catalan numbers and the central binomial coefficients are infinitely log-monotonic, and strengthens one result of Su and Wang that is log-convex in n for positive integers d > δ. In addition, the asymptotically infinite log-monotonicity of derangement numbers is showed. In order to research the stronger properties of the above functions θ(x) and F(x), the logarithmically complete monotonicity of functions

is also obtained, which generalizes the results of Lee and Tepedelenlioǧlu, and Qi and Li.

Poly-Euler numbers are introduced as a generalization of the Euler numbers in a manner similar to the introduction of the poly-Bernoulli numbers. In this paper, some number-theoretic properties of poly-Euler numbers, for example, explicit formulas, a Clausen–von Staudt type formula, congruence relations and duality formulas, are given together with their combinatorial properties.

We prove that ${ \mathbb{Z} }_{{p}^{n} } $ and ${ \mathbb{Z} }_{p} [t] / ({t}^{n} )$ are polynomially equivalent if and only if $n\leq 2$ or ${p}^{n} = 8$. For the proof, employing Bernoulli numbers, we explicitly provide the polynomials which compute the carry-on part for the addition and multiplication in base $p$. As a corollary, we characterize finite rings of ${p}^{2} $ elements up to polynomial equivalence.

Let $p$ be a prime. In this paper, we present a detailed $p$-adic analysis on factorials and double factorials and their congruences. We give good bounds for the $p$-adic sizes of the coefficients of the divided universal Bernoulli number ${B}_{n} / n$ when $n$ is divisible by $p- 1$. Using these, we then establish the universal Kummer congruences modulo powers of a prime $p$ for the divided universal Bernoulli numbers ${B}_{n} / n$ when $n$ is divisible by $p- 1$.

In this paper we present new explicit simultaneous rational approximations which converge subexponentially to the values of the Bell polynomials at the points where m=1,2,…,a, a∈ℕ, γ is Euler’s constant and ζ is the Riemann zeta function.

We prove that the sequence {log ζ(n)}n≥2 is not holonomic, that is, does not satisfy a finite recurrence relation with polynomial coefficients. A similar result holds for L-functions. We then prove a result concerning the number of distinct prime factors of the sequence of numerators of even indexed Bernoulli numbers.

Let {En} be the Euler numbers. We give a general congruence modulo 2(m+2)n for E2mk+b, where k,m,n are positive integers and b∈{0,2,4,…}.

In this paper we derive a relation between character sums and partial sums of Dirichlet series.