arXiv subjects

Karl Mahlburg

Publications and source records attributed to Karl Mahlburg.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Schur's partition theorem and mixed mock modular forms

We study families of partitions with gap conditions that were introduced by Schur and Andrews, and describe their fundamental connections to combinatorial q-series and automorphic forms. In particular, we show that the generating functions for these families naturally lead to deep identities for theta functions and Hickerson's universal mock theta function, which provides a very general answer to Andrews' Conjecture on the modularity of the Schur-type generating function. Furthermore, we also complete the second part of Andrews' speculation by determining the asymptotic behavior of these functions. In particular, we use Wright's Circle Method in order to prove families of asymptotic inequalities in the spirit of the Alder-Andrews Conjecture. As a final application, we prove the striking result that the universal mock theta function can be expressed as a conditional probability in a certain natural probability space with an infinite sequence of independent events.

math.NT↗

arXiv2012

Asymptotic inequalities for positive crank and rank moments

Andrews, Chan, and Kim recently introduced a modified definition of crank and rank moments for integer partitions that allows the study of both even and odd moments. In this paper, we prove the asymptotic behavior of these moments in all cases, and our main result states that while the two families of moment functions are asymptotically equal, the crank moments are always asymptotically larger than the rank moments. Andrews, Chan, and Kim primarily focused on one case, and proved the stronger result that the first crank moment is strictly larger than the first rank moment for all partitions by showing that the difference is equal to a combinatorial statistic on partitions that they named the ospt-function. Our main results therefore also give the asymptotic behavior of the ospt-function, and we further determine its behavior modulo 2 by relating its parity to Andrews spt-function.

math.NT↗

arXiv2012

k-Run Overpartitions and Mock Theta Functions

In this paper we introduce k-run overpartitions as natural analogs to partitions without k-sequences, which were first defined and studied by Holroyd, Liggett, and Romik. Following their work as well as that of Andrews, we prove a number of results for k-run overpartitions, beginning with a double summation q-hypergeometric series representation for the generating functions. In the special case of 1-run overpartitions we further relate the generating function to one of Ramanujan's mock theta functions. Finally, we describe the relationship between k-run overpartitions and certain sequences of random events, and use probabilistic estimates in order to determine the asymptotic growth behavior of the number of k-run overpartitions of size n.

math.NT↗

arXiv2010

Improved bounds on metastability thresholds and probabilities for generalized bootstrap percolation

We generalize and improve results of Andrews, Gravner, Holroyd, Liggett, and Romik on metastability thresholds for generalized two-dimensional bootstrap percolation models, and answer several of their open problems and conjectures. Specifically, we prove slow convergence and localization bounds for Holroyd, Liggett, and Romik's k-percolation models, and in the process provide a unified and improved treatment of existing results for bootstrap, modified bootstrap, and Frobose percolation. Furthermore, we prove improved asymptotic bounds for the generating functions of partitions without k-gaps, which are also related to certain infinite probability processes relevant to these percolation models. One of our key technical probability results is also of independent interest. We prove new upper and lower bounds for the probability that a sequence of independent events with monotonically increasing probabilities contains no "k-gap" patterns, which interpolates the general Markov chain solution that arises in the case that all of the probabilities are equal.

math.PR↗

arXiv2009

Enumeration of non-crossing pairings on bit strings

A non-crossing pairing on a bitstring matches 1s and 0s in a manner such that the pairing diagram is nonintersecting. By considering such pairings on arbitrary bitstrings $1^{n_1} 0^{m_1} ... 1^{n_r} 0^{m_r}$, we generalize classical problems from the theory of Catalan structures. In particular, it is very difficult to find useful explicit formulas for the enumeration function $ϕ(n_1, m_1, ..., n_r, m_r)$, which counts the number of pairings as a function of the underlying bitstring. We determine explicit formulas for $ϕ$, and also prove general upper bounds in terms of Fuss-Catalan numbers by relating non-crossing pairings to other generalized Catalan structures (that are in some sense more natural). This enumeration problem arises in the theory of random matrices and free probability.

math.CO↗