The Relationship Between Euler Numbers and Bernoulli Numbers with Ordered Partitions

Abstract

In this paper, for every $n \in \mathbb{N}$, the following relationships between the functions $K_{b}(n)$ and $K_{e}(n)$ and the Bernoulli and Euler numbers are proved: \[ B_{2n} = -\,\frac{(2n)!}{2^{2n}-2}\, K_{b}(n), \qquad E_{2n} = (2n)!\, K_{e}(n). \] The functions $K_{b}$ and $K_{e}$ are defined recursively by \[ K_{b}(0) = K_{e}(0) = 1, \] \[ K_{b}(n) = - \sum_{n'=0}^{\,n-1} \frac{K_{b}(n')}{\bigl( 2(n-n') + 1 \bigr)!}, \qquad n \ge 1, \] \[ K_{e}(n) = - \sum_{n'=0}^{\,n-1} \frac{K_{e}(n')}{\bigl( 2(n-n') \bigr)!}, \qquad n \ge 1. \] Furthermore, we present combinatorial interpretations of these functions in terms of ordered partitions of $n$: \[ K_{b}(n) = \sum_{\lambda \vDash n} \frac{(-1)^{\ell(\lambda)}} {\displaystyle\prod_{i=1}^{\ell(\lambda)} (2b_i + 1)!}, \qquad n \ge 1, \] \[ K_{e}(n) = \sum_{\lambda \vDash n} \frac{(-1)^{\ell(\lambda)}} {\displaystyle\prod_{i=1}^{\ell(\lambda)} (2b_i)!}, \qquad n \ge 1, \] where $\lambda = (b_1,b_2,\ldots,b_k) \vDash n$ and $\ell(\lambda)=k$.