A note on Franel numbers and \(\mathrm{SU}(3)\) (Q2039621)

By addressing the problem from the angle of Lie algebra representation theory, the authors provide a novel proof of the Franel recurrence relation \[(n+1)^2 F_{n+1}-(7n^2+7n+2) F_n-8n^2F_{n-1}=0 \] for the Franel numbers \(F_n=\sum_{k=0}^{n} \binom{n}{k}^3\). They first compute the multiplicity \(a_\mu(n)=a_{p,q}(n)\) of each dominant weight \(\mu=p\lambda_1+q \lambda_2\) entering in the tensor powers \(R_{\lambda_1+\lambda_2}^{\otimes{n}}\) of the adjoint representation of the \(R_{\lambda_1+\lambda_2}\) of the \(\mathrm{SU}(3)\) algebra. The multiplicities are given by different forms of sums of triple products of combinatorial coefficients and authors develop a procedure to reduce them to linear combinations of Franel numbers \(F_n\). To this, they relate the multiplicities of the weights in two successive powers of the adjoint representation and next resort to the theory of the quantum integrable Calogero-Sutherland model to look for further equations enabling to reach the desired goal. The authors thus suggest that a similar strategy applied to \(\mathrm{SU}(r)\) may yield to nontrivial recurrence relations for the sums \(\sum_{k=0}^{n} \binom{n}{k}^r\) where \(r > 3\).