A new look on the generating function for the number of divisors (Q2254210): Difference between revisions

Using the usual \(q\)-series notation, \[ (a;q)_n := \prod_{k=0}^{n-1} (1-aq^k), \] the author's main result is the identity \[ \sum_{n \geq 1} \frac{q^n}{1-q^n} = \frac{-1}{(q;q)_{\infty}}\sum_{n \geq 1} \frac{n(-1)^{n}q^{\binom{n+1}{2}}}{(q;q)_n}. \] This is, of course, the special case \(\frac{d}{dz} \big |_{z=1}\) of Euler's classical identity, \[ (zq;q)_{\infty} = \sum_{n \geq 0}\frac{(-z)^nq^{\binom{n+1}{2}}}{(q;q)_n}, \] although the author proves it in a more roundabout way. He hails it as ``a new factorization ... for the generating function for the number of divisors'' (p. 67) and gives some convolution identities as corollaries. For example, \[ \sum_{k \in \mathbb{Z}} (-1)^k\tau(n-k(3k-1)/2) = \sum_{k \geq 1} (-1)^{k-1}kQ(n,k), \] where \(\tau(n)\) denotes the number of divisors of \(n\) and \(Q(n,k)\) denotes the number of partitions of \(n\) into \(k\) distinct parts.