Ranks, cranks for overpartitions and Appell-Lerch sums (Q2075084): Difference between revisions

The purpose of this paper is to dissect the generating functions for the rank and certain cranks of overpartitions mod 4 and 8, and derive identities therefrom. Define the rank of an overpartition to be the largest part of the overpartition, minus its number of parts. Define two cranks for overpartitions: the first residual crank is the crank of the subpartition consisting of the nonoverlined parts, and the second residual crank is the crank of the subpartition consisting of the even nonoverlined parts divided by two. (Here we are considering that when a part in an overpaartition is overlined, only the final part of that size is overlined, not all; i.e., we should not consider overpartitions as a coloring of part sizes.) Let \(\overline{N}(s,l;n)\) be the number of overpartitions of \(n\) with rank congruent to \(s\) modulo \(l\), and \(\overline{M}(s,l;n)\) (resp. \(M2(s,l;n)\)) be the number of overpartitions of \(n\) with first (resp. second) residual crank congruent to \(s\) modulo \(l\). Finally, define \[J_m:= (q^m;q^m)_\infty \quad \, \quad T(q) := \frac{J_2}{2J_1^2} \sum_{n=-\infty}^\infty \frac{(-1)^n q^{n^2+n}}{(1+q^n)^2}\] \noindent and the Appell-Lerch sum \[m(x,q,z) := \frac{-z}{(z;q)_\infty (q/z;q)_\infty (q;q)_\infty} \sum_{r \in \mathbb{Z}} \frac{(-1)^r q^{\binom{r+1}{2}} z^r}{1-q^r x z}.\] The main results of this paper give explicit generating functions for \(N(s,l;n)\), \(M(s,l;n)\), and \(M2(s,l;n)\) for all \(s\) when \(l = 4, 8\). The crank identities are mostly ``cleaner'' expressions in \(J_i\), whereas the rank identities involve \(T\) and \(m\). These generating functions lead to identities and inequalities for these ranks and cranks. Sample results are: Theorem 1. \begin{align*} \sum_{n=0}^\infty \overline{N}(1,8;n)q^n &= \sum_{n=0}^\infty \overline{N}(7,8;n)q^n \\ &= \frac{J_2}{8J_1^2} -T(q) - \frac{1}{q} m(1,q^8,-1) + \frac{1}{4q} \frac{J_2J_4^6}{J_1^2J_8^2J_{16}^2} - \frac{J_2^3 J_4}{2J_1^2J_8} \\ \sum_{n=0}^\infty \overline{M}(2,8;n)q^n &= \sum_{n=0}^\infty \overline{M}(6,8;n) q^n = \frac{J_2}{8J_1^2} - \frac{J_2^2}{4J_4}+\frac{J_1^2}{8J_2} . \end{align*} Identities and inequalities that follow from the generating function results include (this is not a complete list): Theorem 2. For \(n \geq 1\), \(\overline{N}(0,4;n) + \overline{N}(1,4;n) = (1/2)\overline{p}(n)\) if \(n\) is not a square, and \((1/2)\overline{p}(n)+1\) if \(n\) is a square. Theorem 3. For \(n \geq 1\), \(\overline{N}(0,8;n) + \overline{N}(1,8;n) > \overline{N}(3,8;n) + \overline{N}(4,8;n)\). Theorem 4. For \(n \geq 1\), \[\overline{N}(0,8;n) + \overline{N}(1,8;n) = \overline{M2}(0,4;n).\] The proof techniques consist of dissecting the overpartition rank and crank generating functions around an 8th root of unity and applying a suite of identities for Appell-Lerch sums.