200 research outputs found
What power of two divides a weighted Catalan number?
Given a sequence of integers b = (b_0,b_1,b_2,...) one gives a Dyck path P of
length 2n the weight
wt(P) = b_{h_1} b_{h_2} ... b_{h_n},
where h_i is the height of the ith ascent of P. The corresponding weighted
Catalan number is
C_n^b = sum_P wt(P),
where the sum is over all Dyck paths of length 2n. So, in particular, the
ordinary Catalan numbers C_n correspond to b_i = 1 for all i >= 0. Let xi(n)
stand for the base two exponent of n, i.e., the largest power of 2 dividing n.
We give a condition on b which implies that
xi(C_n^b) = xi(C_n).
In the special case b_i=(2i+1)^2, this settles a conjecture of Postnikov
about the number of plane Morse links. Our proof generalizes the recent
combinatorial proof of Deutsch and Sagan of the classical formula for xi(C_n).Comment: Fixed reference
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