A determinant property of Catalan numbers (Q1969782)

Let \(M_k^t\) denote the \(k \times k\) (persymmetric) matrix having the consecutive Catalan numbers starting at \(c_t\) as row one, those starting at \(c_{t+1}\) as row two, etc. Now define \(G\) to be the infinite digraph with vertex set \({\mathbb{Z}} \times {\mathbb{Z}}\) and with directed arcs from \((i,j)\) to \((i+1,j)\), and to \({(i,j+1)}\) for all integers \(i,j\). Then, if \(d_i=(i,i)\), the number of directed paths in \(G\) from \(d_i\) to \(d_j\) \((j \geq i)\) is the Catalan number \(c_{j-i}\). The authors apply a result of H.-D. Gronau et al. on path systems in digraphs to show that det\(M_k^t\) is the number of sets of \(k\) disjoint paths from certain \(d\)-vertices to others. Corollaries give ways of characterizing Catalan sequences.