Combinatorial approach of unified Apostol-type polynomials using \(\alpha \)-distanced words (Q6180562)

The aim of this paper is to introduce a generalization of the unified Apostol-Fubini polynomials of higher order and obtain identities using combinatorial methods. Given two positive integers \(k\) and \(\alpha\), let \(\beta=b\cdot \alpha\) and \(\gamma=c\cdot \alpha\) be integer multiples of \(\alpha\). The authors consider an alphabet containing \(k\beta+\gamma\) letters. So the alphabet can be represented as a set of \(k\beta\) symbols \[ \bigcup_{i=1}^k \{1_{i,1},\ldots,1_{i,\alpha},2_{i,1},\ldots,2_{i,\alpha},\ldots,b_{i,1},\ldots,b_{i,\alpha}\} \] and a set of \(\gamma\) extra symbols \[ \{1'_1,\ldots,1'_\alpha,2'_1,\ldots,2'_\alpha,\ldots,c'_1,\ldots,c'_\alpha\}. \] Where we use two indices, the authors consider \(k\) different sizes and \(\alpha\) possible accents for each of the first \(b\) symbols. For the last \(\gamma\) symbols, the authors only consider accents (so a unique size). Since there are there are \(\alpha\)-similar variants of each symbol, the authors introduce the notion of \(\alpha\)-distanced words. They consider the set of weighted \(\alpha\)-distanced words and show some of their properties. The paper ends with applications to generalized Stirling numbers and related number sequences, higher-order generalized geometric polynomials defined by \textit{L. Kargin} and \textit{B. Çekim} [Turk. J. Math. 42, No. 3, 887--903 (2018; Zbl 1424.11059)].