Phase transitions from \(\exp( n^{1/2})\) to \(\exp(n^{2/3})\) in the asymptotics of banded plane partitions (Q2221838)

\textit{G. H. Hardy} and \textit{S. Ramanujan} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (2) 17, 75--115 (1918; JFM 46.0198.04)] established the following well-known asymptotic formula for the number of partitions of \(n\): \[ p(n)=[q^n]\prod_{k=1}^\infty\dfrac{1}{1-q^k}\sim\dfrac{1}{4\sqrt{3}n}\exp{\left(\sqrt{\dfrac{2n}{3}}\pi\right)}. \] \textit{E. M. Wright} [Q. J. Math., Oxf. Ser. 2, 177--189 (1931; JFM 59.0201.01)] found the following asymptotic formula for the number of plane partitions of \(n\): \[ pp(n)=[q^n]\prod_{k=1}^\infty\dfrac{1}{(1-q^k)^k}\sim\dfrac{\zeta(3)^{7/36}e^{-\zeta'(-1)}}{2^{11/36}\sqrt{3\pi}n^{25/36}}\exp {\left(3\sqrt[3]{\dfrac{\zeta(3)n^2}{4}}\right)}. \] Here, the symbol \([q^n]f(q)\) denotes the coefficient of \(q^n\) in the Taylor expansion of \(f\) and \(\zeta(s)\) the Riemann zeta function. The authors investigate the asymptotic behaviour of a class of banded plane partitions under a varying bandwidth parameter \(m\), and clarify the transitional behavior for large size \(n\) and increasing \(m=m(n)\) to be from \(c_1n^{-1}\exp{\left(c_2n^{1/2}\right)}\) to \(c_3n^{-49/72} \exp{\left(c_4n^{2/3}+c_5n^{1/3}\right)}\) for some explicit coefficients \(c_1,\ldots,c_5\). The main ingredient of proof is a unified saddle-point analysis for all phases. This method is general and can be extended to other classes of plane partitions.