Christian Krattenthaler and Thomas W. Müller

Motzkin numbers and related sequences modulo powers of 2

(28 pages)

Abstract. We show that the generating function Σn>=0Mnzn for Motzkin numbers Mn, when coefficients are reduced modulo a given power of 2, can be expressed as a polynomial in the basic series Σe>=0z4e/(1-z2.4e) with coefficients being Laurent polynomials in z and 1-z. We use this result to determine Mn modulo 8 in terms of the binary digits of n, thus improving, respectively complementing earlier results by Eu, Liu and Yeh [Europ. J. Combin. 29 (2008), 1449-1466] and by Rowland and Yassawi [J. Théorie Nombres Bordeaux 27 (2015), 245-288]. Analogous results are also shown to hold for related combinatorial sequences, namely for the Motzkin prefix numbers, Riordan numbers, central trinomial numbers, and for the sequence of hex tree numbers.


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The paper is accompanied by the following Mathematica files: By using the notebook (which requires the other file as input file), you are able to redo (most of) the computations that are presented in this article.
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