New congruences involving products of two binomial coefficients (Q2422137)

Over the last 20 to 25 years, a large number of research papers have appeared which deal with super-congruences. Two factors that have contributed to this flurry of activity -- (i) F. Rodriguez-Villegas came up with congruences conjectured via a study of hypergeometric families of Calab-Yau manifolds, and (ii) a series of conjectures by the second author. One group of mathematicians has been using modular forms and \(q\)-series to formulate as well as prove congruences and super-congruences. Another group has been arriving at congruences via infinite series. In the paper under review, the authors use the Kummer-Legendre formula for the \(p\)-adic valuation of a binomial coefficient, a binomial identity due to the reviewer et al. and earlier congruences discovered by the second author, to prove: Theorem 1. Let \(p\) be an odd prime. Then, \[\sum_{k=0}^{\lfloor 3p/4 \rfloor} \frac{\binom{2k}{k}^2}{16^k}\equiv 1\bmod p^3\text{ if }p\equiv 1\bmod 4;\] \[\sum_{k=0}^{\lfloor 3p/4 \rfloor} \frac{\binom{2k}{k}^2}{16^k}\equiv -1 + \frac{p^2}{2\binom{(p-3)/2|}{(p-3)/4}^2}\bmod p^3\text{ if }p\equiv 3\bmod 4;\] \[\sum_{k=0}^{\lfloor 3p^a/4 \rfloor} \frac{\binom{2k}{k}^2}{16^k}\equiv \bigg(\frac{-1}{p^a} \bigg)\bmod p^3\] for \(a>1\) where the Jacobi symbol is used on the RHS of the last super-congruence. Theorem 2. Let \(p \neq 2,3\) be a prime. Then, \[\sum_{k=0}^{(p-1)/2} \frac{\binom{2k}{k}\binom{3k}{k}}{27^k}\equiv \bigg(\frac{p}{3} \bigg) \frac{2^p+1}{3}\bmod p^2;\] \[\sum_{k=0}^{(p-1)/2} \frac{\binom{6k}{3k}\binom{3k}{k}}{(2k+1)432^k}\equiv \bigg(\frac{p}{3} \bigg) \frac{3^p+1}{4}\bmod p^2;\] \[\sum_{k=0}^{(p-1)/2} \frac{\binom{4k}{2k}\binom{2k}{k}}{(2k+1)64^k}\equiv \bigg(\frac{-1}{p} \bigg) 2^{p-1}\bmod p^2.\]