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D.H. Lehmer’s Tridiagonal Determinant: An Étude in (Andrews-Inspired) Experimental Mathematics

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Abstract

We use George Andrews’ “reverse-engineering” method to re-prove, using experimental mathematics, a conjecture of D.H. Lehmer.

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Notes

  1. Typing qzeil((-1)**a*X**a*q**(a*(a-1))*qbin(n-a,a),S,a,n,[]); in qEKHAD gives \(Xq^n-S+S^2, Xq^n\) that is the recurrence operator annihilating the sum (S is the forward shift operator in n) followed by the ‘certificate’ (i.e., the proof, see [4])).

  2. You start out with a generic polynomial of degree 0, and keep raising the degree until success (or failure).

References

  1. Andrews, G.E.: \(q\)-Series: Their Development and Application in Analysis, Number Theory, Combinatorics, Physics, and Computer Algebra. CBMS Regional Conference Series in Mathematics, 66. American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI (1986)

  2. Lehmer, D.H.: Combinatorial and cyclotomic properties of certain tridiagonal matrices. In: Hoffman, F., Kingsley, R.A., Levow, R.B., Mullin, R.C., Thomas, R.S.D. (eds.) Proceedings of the Fifth Southeastern Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory, and Computing (Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton, Fla., 1974), pp. 53–74. Congressus Numerantium, No. X, Utilitas Math., Winnipeg, Man., (1974) A scanned copy is available from http://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/akherim/LehmerDet1974.pdf [Accessed Aug. 18, 2018]

  3. Paule, P., Riese, A.: A Mathematica \(q\)-analogue of Zeilberger’s algorithm based on an algebraically motivated approach to \(q\)-hypergeometric telescoping. In: Ismail, M.E.H., Masson, D.R., Rahman, M. (eds.) Special Functions, \(q\)-Series and Related Topics (Toronto, ON, 1995), pp. 179–210. Fields Inst. Commun., 14, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI (1997) Available from: http://www.risc.jku.at/publications/download/risc_118/diss.pdf  [Accessed Aug. 18, 2018]

  4. Petkovšek, M., Wilf, H.S., Zeilberger, D.: \(A=B\). A.K. Peters, Ltd., Wellesley, MA (1996) Available from: https://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/Downld.html [Accessed Aug. 18, 2018]

  5. Sloane, N.A.J.: The On-line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. Available from https://oeis.org

  6. Yang, M.: Relaxed partitions, in preparation

  7. Zeilberger, D.: qEKHAD (a Maple program implementing the \(q\)-Zeilberger algorithm). Available from http://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/tokhniot/qEKHAD [Accessed Aug. 18, 2018]

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Correspondence to Doron Zeilberger.

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Dedicated to George Andrews on his 80th birthday.

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Ekhad, S.B., Zeilberger, D. D.H. Lehmer’s Tridiagonal Determinant: An Étude in (Andrews-Inspired) Experimental Mathematics. Ann. Comb. 23, 717–724 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00026-019-00441-y

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