Congruences for certain lacunary sums of products of binomial coefficients

Abstract

It is shown that for any prime $p$ and any natural numbers $\ell, m,$ and $s$ such that $0<s<p$, the three following congruences \begin{align*}\sum_{i\ge \ell+1}(-1)^{m-i} {m \choose i}{m+s-1+i(p-1) \choose m+s-1+\ell(p-1)} &\equiv 0 \bmod p\\ \sum_{i\ge 0}(-1)^{m-i} {m \choose i}{\ell+ip \choose m+s-1}&\equiv 0 \bmod p^m\\ \sum_{j,i\ge \ell}(-1)^{j-i}{m \choose j} {j \choose i}{j+s-1+i(p-1) \choose j+s-1+\ell(p-1)}&\equiv 0 \bmod p^{m-\ell} \end{align*} hold true. The corresponding quotients involve Adelberg polynomials which can be computed explicitly, providing closed-form expressions for these sums, valid even if $p$ is not prime, when the congruences do not necessarily hold.