Congruences involving alternating multiple harmonic sums (Q2380448)

While the values of several non-alternating (i.e. when all the indices are positive) harmonic sums modulo a power of a prime are well known, especially through the works by \textit{Z.-H. Sun} [Discrete Appl. Math. 105, No.1-3, 193--223 (2000; Zbl 0990.11008)], by \textit{X. Zhou} and \textit{T. Cai} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 135, No. 5, 1329--1333 (2007; Zbl 1115.11006)] and by \textit{J. Zhao} [Int. J. Number Theory 4, No. 1, 73--106 (2008; Zbl 1218.11005)], the search for results allowing us to compute values of alternating multiple harmonic sums is still \textit{in fieri} and this paper is a significant step in such a direction. By expressing the left-hand side as a combination of alternating multiple harmonic sums, the author improves a result from \textit{Z.-W. Sun} and \textit{R. Tauraso} [Adv. Appl. Math. 45, No. 1, 125--148 (2010; Zbl 1231.11021)] to the following statement: for any prime \(p\neq 2\) \[ \sum_{k=1}^{p-1} {(-1)^k\over k}{-{1\over 2} \choose k} \equiv -\sum_{k=1}^{(p-1)/2}{1\over k} \pmod{p^3}. \] Further achievements in the paper are the variation of a result supplied by \textit{L.-L. Zhao} and \textit{Z.-W. Sun} [J. Number Theory 130, No. 4, 930--935 (2010; Zbl 1185.11007)] and a new proof of a theorem already presented by Z.-W. Sun and R. Tauraso (loc. cit.), an alternative based on techniques explained by \textit{R. Sprugnoli} [Discrete Math. 132, No. 1-3, 267--290 (1994; Zbl 0814.05003)] which could help the interested reader to find some generalizations. Beyond a versatile use of shuffle and reversal relations of the alternating multiple of harmonic sums, in the proof the author employs some new congruences, the method of induction, Chebyshev polynomials, Bernoulli numbers, the Fermat quotient studied by \textit{K. Dilcher} and \textit{L. Skula} [Integers 6, Paper A24, 12 p., electronic only (2006; Zbl 1103.11011)] and the analogy between the values of certain hypergeometric series and the congruences of some of their partial sums modulo power of prime found by \textit{L. Van Hamme} [Schikhof, W. H. (ed.) et al., \(p\)-adic functional analysis. Proceedings of the fourth international conference, Nijmegen, Netherlands, June 3--7, 1996. New York, NY: Marcel Dekker. Lect. Notes Pure Appl. Math. 192, 223--236 (1997; Zbl 0895.11051)].