Skip to main content
Log in

Log-concavity of stirling numbers and unimodality of stirling distributions

  • Probability and Distribution
  • Published:
Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A series of inequalities involving Stirling numbers of the first and second kinds with adjacent indices are obtained. Some of them show log-concavity of Stirling numbers in three different directions. The inequalities are used to prove unimodality or strong unimodality of all the subfamilies of Stirling probability functions. Some additional applications are also presented.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Erdös, P. (1953). On a conjecture of Hammersley, J. London Math. Soc., 28, 232–236.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, K., Newman, M. and Haynsworth, E. (1964). Combinatorial analysis, Handbook of Mathematical Functions, (eds. M., Abramowitz and I. A., Stegun), Chap. 24, National Bureau of Standards/Dover Publ., New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hammersley, J. M. (1951). The sums of products of the natural numbers, Proc. London Math. Soc., Third Series, 1, 435–452.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Hardy, G. H., Littlewood, J. E. and Polyà, G. (1952). Inequalities, Subsections 2.22 and 4.3, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Jordan, C. (1947). Calculus of Finite Differences, Chelsea, New York.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Karlin, S. (1968). Total Positivity, Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, California.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Keilson, J. and Gerber, H. (1971). Some results for discrete unimodality, J. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 66 (334), 386–389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knuth, D. E. (1967–1981). The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 1–3, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurtz, D. C. (1972). A note on concavity properties of triangular arrays of numbers, J. Combin. Theory Ser. A, 13, 135–139.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Lieb, E. H. (1968). Concavity properties and a generating functions of Stirling numbers, J. Combin. Theory, 5, 203–206.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Neuman, E. (1985). On generalized symmetric means and Stirling numbers of the second kind, Zastowania Matematyki Applicationes Mathematicae, 18–4, 645–656.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Nishimura, K. and Sibuya, M. (1988). Occupancy with two types of balls, Ann. Inst. Statist. Math., 40, 77–91.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Patil, G. P. and Wani, J. K. (1965). On certain structural properties of the logarithmic series distribution and the first type Stirling distribution, Sankhyā Ser. A, 27, 271–280.

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Riordan, J. (1958). An Introduction to Combinatorial Analysis, Wiley, New York.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Sibuya, M. (1986). Stirling family of probability distributions, Japanese J. Applied Statist., 15, 131–146 (in Japanese. An English summary appeared in Proceedings of the Second Japan-China Symposium on Statistics, Kyushu Univ., Nov. 1986).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yanagimoto, T. and Sibuya, M. (1972). Stochastically larger component of a random vector, Ann. Inst. Statist. Math., 24, 259–269.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

About this article

Cite this article

Sibuya, M. Log-concavity of stirling numbers and unimodality of stirling distributions. Ann Inst Stat Math 40, 693–714 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00049427

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00049427

Key words and phrases

Navigation