Inequalities between overpartition ranks for all moduli (Q2146482)

The rank of an integer partition is equal to the difference between the size of the largest part and the total number of its parts. An overpartition of the positive integer \(n\) is a partition of \(n\) in which the occurrence of a part may (or may not) be overlined. Let \(\bar{N}(a,c,n)\) denote the number of overpartitions of \(n\) with rank congruent to \(a\) modulo \(c\). In this paper, the author proves that, for any \(c\ge 7\) and \(0\le a<b\le\lfloor c/2\rfloor\), the inequality \(\bar{N}(a,c,n)>\bar{N}(b,c,n)\) holds whenever \(n\) is large enough. Previous studies show that, for \(c=6\), the sign of the rank differences \(\bar{N}(a,6,n)-\bar{N}(b,6,n)\) depends on the residue class of \(n\) modulo \(6\). The author shows also that \(\bar{N}(a,c,n)-\bar{N}(b,c,n)\) has the same behavior for \(c\in\{2,3,4,5\}\).