Weighted Catalan Numbers and Their Divisibility Properties
Weighted Catalan Numbers and Their Divisibility Properties
Sarah Shader
under the direction of Mr. Gaku Liu Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Science Institute Abstract
The weighted Catalan numbers, like the Catalan numbers, enumerate various mathematical objects. For example, the number of Morse links with n critical points is the nth weighted Catalan 2 2 2 2 number, Ln, with weights 1 , 3 , 5 ,...,(2k + 1) ,.... This paper examines the conjecture made by Postnikov which involves the divisibility of L by powers of 3. An upper bound of 2 32r 7 on the n · period of L modulo 3r is given, which supports Postnikov’s conjecture that this period is 2 3r 3. n · The results are proven by representing Ln using combinatorial structures called Dyck paths. Dyck paths of length n are partitioned into sets according to the location of the steps corresponding to the weights divisible by 32. By noting the location of the steps corresponding to weights divisible by 32, an arbitrary Dyck path can be decomposed into several pieces called partial flat paths. Properties of partial flat paths within a certain structure are proven and lead to the main result. These ideas are extended to deal with partial 3-flat paths, which are slightly more complex, and general weighted Catalan numbers modulo pr for a prime p. This paper shows that if the weights
B = b0,b1,b2,... satisfy certain algebraic properties, then the corresponding weighted Catalan (B) r numbers Cn are periodic modulo p and gives an upper bound for the period. Weighted Catalan Numbers and Their Divisibility Properties
1 Introduction
Historically, mathematicians and scientists have been interested in objects with special properties which arise in their studies; for example, the subdivisions of a polygon into triangles. To better understand these objects, one of the first questions asked is: how many of these objects are there? This is one of the main questions in the mathematical area of combinatorics. For example, Euler asked: how many ways can an n-gon be divided into triangles [Gri12]? For n = 5, the possibilities are shown below in Figure 1.
Figure 1: The five ways to divide a pentagon into triangles.
Also, Catalan wondered how many ways one could compute the product of n numbers [Gri12]. The possibilities for n = 4 are shown in Figure 2.
(ab)(cd) (a(bc))d ((ab)c)d a(b(cd)) a((bc)d)
Figure 2: The five ways to compute a product of four numbers.
As it turns out, both of these objects, along with more than one hundred others (see for example
[Dav]), are given by the famous integer sequence, the Catalan numbers, Cn =1, 2, 5, 14, 42,....See [OEI01a] for more details. Recently, mathematicians have been interested in counting the number of kinds of Morse links, or sets of disjoint loops with critical points at di↵erent heights, with n critical points (see Figure
3). In [Pos00], Postnikov shows that the Morse links are counted by an integer sequence Ln = 1, 10, 325, 22150,..., called the weighted Catalan numbers, which generalize the Catalan numbers [OEI01b]. The weighted Catalan numbers are an integer sequence which satisfies a recurrence similar to that of the Catalan numbers. They can be formed using any weights B = b0,b1,b2,.... In this paper, 2 2 2 2 I primarily consider the weighted Catalan numbers, Ln, with the weights 1 , 3 , 5 ,...,(2k+1) ,.... Divisibility properties concerning the number of objects of a given type illuminate patterns in the objects themselves, or provide ways to e ciently construct all the objects. Therefore, math-
1 Figure 3: A morse link with 12 critical points
ematicians are interested in the divisibility properties of the weighted Catalan numbers Ln.In
[Pos00], Postnikov and Sagan determine the highest power of 2 that divides Ln for each n, and based on this, suggest examining the divisibility properties of Ln with respect to powers of 3. Post- nikov conjectures that L has a period of 2 3r 3 modulo 3r, meaning that 2 3r 3 is the smallest n · · r positive integer such that Ln Ln+2 3r 3 is a multiple of 3 for su ciently large n. · This paper provides a theoretical result that supports Postnikov’s conjecture. Namely, it proves that L is periodic modulo 3r with its period dividing 2 32r 7. The proof also provides insight as n · r to why Ln is periodic modulo 3 .
In addition, this paper proves that the weights resulting from certain cases within Ln are periodic with a period of exactly 2 3r 3, which is the overall period conjectured by Postnikov. This second · result is a potential path to a complete resolution of Postnikov’s conjecture. Section 2 describes the definitions and methods that are used to prove these results. The main results are proven in Section 3 and several of these techniques are extended to more general cases of weighted Catalan numbers in Section 4. The implications of these results are then discussed in Section 5.
2 Concepts and Methods Used
We begin with a conceptual overview. First, certain combinatorial objects called Dyck paths are used to represent Ln. Then we show that Dyck paths can be decomposed into pieces called partial flat paths using a process called partial flat path decomposition. Using partial flat path decomposition, we obtain a skeleton for a path, and we can uniquely express a Dyck path in terms of partial flat paths and its skeleton. We prove divisibility properties about the number of Dyck paths
2 with a given skeleton and partial flat paths using proof techniques from enumerative combinatorics such as generating functions, bijections, and Euler’s Theorem. Then we can classify paths based on their skeletons and use results proven about these partial flat paths to prove the main results for Ln.
2.1 Dyck Paths
The weighted Catalan numbers can be represented by objects called Dyck paths. A Dyck path p of length n is a path starting and ending at height 0 formed from n “up-steps” of (1, 1) and n “down-steps” of (1, 1) such that the path does not cross the x-axis. A Dyck path of length 3 is shown below in Figure 4.
3
2
1 · · · · · · · Figure 4: A Dyck path of length 3.
In order to obtain the weighted Catalan numbers, weights are assigned to each Dyck path. The 2 weight of an up-step starting at height k is defined to be (2k + 1) for Ln. The weight w(p) of a Dyck path p is the product of the weights assigned to the starting height of each up-step in the Dyck path. This is illustrated in Figure 5, where up-steps are shown in red.
b2 · b1 · · · b0 · · · Figure 5: The weight of this Dyck path of length 3, where up-steps are shown in red, is given by w(p)=b2b = (1)2 (9) = 9. 0 1 ·
th 2 2 2 2 The n weighted Catalan number with the weights 1 , 3 , 5 ,...,(2k + 1) ,... is denoted Ln and is the sum of the weights w(p) over all Dyck paths p of length n.
2.2 Partial Flat Path Decomposition
It is also useful for us to consider special Dyck paths which have a maximum height of at most 2. We call such a path a flat path of length n. We also consider partial flat paths, which are paths
3 that start at height 0 or height 2 and end at height 0 or 2 with a maximum height of at most 2. We can decompose each Dyck path by marking all up-steps or down-steps at heights 0, 1, 4, 7, 10,.... We note that the weights corresponding to these heights are equal to 1 or divisible by 3 (in fact, by 32). This breaks the Dyck path into partial flat paths. We call this process partial flat path decomposition of p, and we call the sequence of marked steps the skeleton of the Dyck path. An example of the skeleton of a Dyck path is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6: The skeleton of a Dyck path with partial flat paths in each box.
We can now think of each Dyck path as being uniquely formed from a series of partial flat paths and its skeleton, and we can also partition the Dyck paths into sets of paths with the same skeleton. A special type of skeleton arises in our study: a Dyck path has a simple skeleton if its skeleton only contains steps that correspond only to the weight 1 and the weight 32. A Dyck path with a simple skeleton is shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: A Dyck path with a simple skeleton with partial flat paths in each box.
In Section 3 we will analyze the divisibility properties of the weights of partial flat paths, which allow us to prove results about the divisibility properties of Ln.
2.3 Mathematical Tools
In order to prove results about partial flat paths and Ln, we use mathematical tools from the area of enumerative combinatorics including generating functions, bijections, and Euler’s Theorem. r First of all, we are concerned with the periodicity of the remainder of Ln when divided by 3 . Two numbers a and b are equivalent modulo 3r if their di↵erence is divisible by 3r and we write this as a b (mod 3r). The sequence of numbers S = s ,s ,s ,...is periodic modulo 3r if there exists ⌘ n 0 1 2 a positive integer p such that s s (mod 3r) for all k su ciently large. Additionally, we say k ⌘ k+p r that Sn has a period of p modulo 3 if p is the smallest positive integer such that Sn is periodic. According to Euler’s Theorem [Gal13], if x is an integer which is relatively prime to 3r,then the sequence x, x2,x3,... is periodic modulo 3r with a period that divides 2 3r 1. If the sequence ·
4 corresponding to x has a period of exactly 2 3r 1,thenx is a primitive root modulo 3r. For · example, 2 is always a primitive root modulo 3r [Gal13]. We are also interested in enumerating mathematical objects, such as flat paths. However, it may be hard to directly count these objects. Oftentimes, mathematicians take a set of objects that are harder to count and give a one-to-one correspondence to another set of objects which is easier to count. This correspondence is known as a bijection [Cam95]. These bijections make it easier for us to count certain objects by allowing us to count a set of di↵erent objects, which are often easier to count, with the same number of objects in both cases. In Lemma 3.1, we show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between flat paths and strings of binary digits. Another very useful mathematical tool used is the generating function [Cam95]. The generating function for a sequence S = s ,s ,s ,...is the formal infinite series f(x)=s + s x + s x2 + + n 0 1 2 0 1 2 ··· s xn + . Algebraic and analytic tools can be applied to the generating function to shed light n ··· on the sequence Sn. In Theorem 2, we study the generating function of the sequence Sn which enumerates the sum of the weights of the Dyck paths of length n with a certain skeleton. Using algebra, Euler’s Theorem, and known results of the periodicity of binomial coe cients, we establish the main result.
3 Results
r I prove two main results. The first one provides an upper bound for the period of Ln modulo 3 , which, to the best of my knowledge and that of my mentor as well as a thorough literature review, seems to be the first theoretical result of its kind. It supports Postnikov’s conjecture by showing that L is periodic modulo 3r with a period dividing 2 32r 7. The second theorem proves that n · the sum of the weights of a certain class of Dyck paths has a period of exactly 2 3r 3 modulo 3r · providing us with a potential way to prove Postnikov’s conjecture. Before we can prove the main results, we first establish some properties about flat paths.
n 1 Lemma 3.1. The number of flat paths of length n is 2 .
Proof. We construct a bijection between binary strings of length n 1 and flat paths of length n as follows: Given a flat path of length n, we take two steps. If the height is 0, then the corresponding binary digit is 0. Otherwise, the corresponding binary digit is 1. This will give us a binary string of length n ending in 0, since Dyck paths end at height 0. Therefore, we can remove the final zero, and we have a correspondence between flat paths of length n and binary strings of length n 1. Using the fact that Dyck paths start and end at height 0, we can see in Figure 3 that the binary digits uniquely determine the two corresponding steps in the path.
5 2 2
1 1 · · 0 0 · ·0 ·0 ·0 1 2 2
1· 1· ·
0 · 0 · 1 ·0 1 1 Figure 8: This indicates the two steps in a flat path that must be taken given any two consecutive binary digits in its corresponding binary string.
Therefore, the number of flat paths of length n is equal to the number of binary strings of length n 1, so there are 2n 1 flat paths of length n.
· · · · · · · · · ·0 1 1 1 ·
Figure 9: A flat path of length 5 corresponding to the binary string 0111.
Next we will establish a connection between the weight of a flat path and its corresponding binary string.
Lemma 3.2. Aflatpathp of length n with weights B = b0,b1 with a corresponding binary string of s1 s2 s3 sn 1 has the weight b0bs1 bs2 bsn 1 . ··· ··· Proof. We prove this by induction on n.
We can see that for n = 1 we have a binary string of length zero and a path with weight b0. Assume that this statement holds for a flat path p of length n with a corresponding binary string of length n 1 and proceed by induction. We insert a digit at the beginning of the string and obtain two cases: Case 1: 0 is inserted at the beginning of the string. This is shown in Figure 10. The weight of this flat path of length n +1isb w(p) as desired. 0 · Case 2: 1 is inserted at the beginning of the string. This is shown in Figure 11.
6 · ··· · ·0 Figure 10: Inserting 0 in the binary string for a flat path.
· · ··· · 1 Figure 11: Inserting 1 in the binary string for a flat path.
We can view this as replacing the first step of a flat path of length n, which has a weight of b0, with the three steps in red pictured above. Therefore, we get that the weight of this flat path of w(p) length n +1isb0b1 = b1 w(p) as desired. · b0 · Thus by induction, the lemma holds for all n.
We now combine the results from Lemmas 3.1 and 3.2 to obtain an expression for the sum of the weights for all flat paths of length n.
(B) Corollary 3.3. The sum of the weights Tn for all flat paths of length n with weights B = b0,b1 (B) (B) n 1 is given by: T =1and Tn = b (b + b ) for n 1. 0 0 0 1 Proof. From Lemmas 3.1 and 3.2 we have that the sum of the weights of all flat paths of length n is
b0bs1 bs2 ...bsn 1 X for all possible binary strings s1s2s3 ...sn 1. Therefore, this sum is equal to b (b + b )(b + b ) (b + b )=b (b + b )n 1. 0 0 1 0 1 ··· 0 1 0 0 1 We extend these ideas to partial flat paths and obtain a similar expression for the sum of the weights for all partial flat paths of length n.
Proposition 3.4. The sum of the weights of all partial flat paths of length n 1 with the same starting and ending heights is:
b (b + b )n 1 for paths starting and ending at height 0, • 0 0 1 b (b + b )n 1 for paths starting and ending at height 2, • 1 1 0 (b + b )n for paths starting at height 2 and ending at height 0, • 0 1
7 b b (b + b )n 2 for paths starting at height 0 and ending at height 2. • 0 1 0 1 Proof. We examine partial flat paths by cases. Case 1: The path starts and ends at height 0. Corollary 3.3 handles this case. Case 2: The path starts and ends at height 2. If we have a partial flat path with length n that starts at height 2 and ends at height 2, then we can consider this as an upside down flat path of length n with the weights b1,b0. This gives n 1 that the sum of all such partial flat paths of length n is b1(b1 + b0) by Corollary 3.3. Note, for n = 0 this sum is defined to be 1. Case 3: The path starts at height 2 and ends at height 0. If we have a partial flat path of length n that starts at height 2 and ends at height 0, then we consider this as steps 3 through 2n + 2 of a path of length n + 1 with the first digit of its n corresponding binary string equal to 1. The sum of the weights of these paths is equal to (b0 +b1) . Case 4: The path starts at height 0 and ends at height 2. Finally, if we have a partial flat path of length n that starts at height 0 and ends at height 2, then we consider this as all but the last two steps of a flat path of length n with a last digit of 1. n 2 This gives the sum of the weights of these paths is b0b1(b0 + b1) .
We now prove our main result.
Theorem 3.5. The period of L modulo 3r divides 2 32r 7. n · Proof. We partition the Dyck paths of length n into sets of Dyck paths which have the same skeleton. Consider a skeleton containing f steps corresponding to weights divisible by 32.Iff>r,then the weight of any Dyck path with this skeleton will be divisible by 3f , and it will be equivalent to 0 modulo 3r. Thus, we will only consider skeletons where f