The Andrews-Sellers family of partition congruences (Q438162)

A generalized Frobenius partition of a positive integer \(m\) is a two-rowed array of nonnegative integers \[ \begin{pmatrix} a_1 & a_2 &\cdots & a_r\\ b_1 & b_2 &\cdots & b_r\end{pmatrix}, \] where the entries in each row are arranged in nonincreasing order and \(m=r+a_1+ a_2+\cdots+ a_r+ b_1+ b_2+\cdots + b_r\). \textit{G. E. Andrews} [Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 301, 44 p. (1984; Zbl 0544.10010)] studied the number \(c\varphi_k(m)\) of generalized Frobenius partitions of \(m\) into distinct parts with \(k\) colours. \textit{J. Sellers} [Int. J. Math. Math. Sci. 17, No. 1, 187--188 (1994; Zbl 0922.05004)] conjectured that for all integers \(n\geq 0\) and \(\alpha\geq 1\) one has \(c\varphi_2(5^\alpha n+ \lambda_\alpha)\equiv\pmod{5^\alpha}\), where \(\lambda_\alpha\) is defined to be the smallest positive integer such that \(12\lambda_\alpha\equiv\pmod{5^\alpha}\). \textit{D. Eichhorn} and \textit{J. Sellers} [Int. J. Math. Math. Sci. 29, No. 6, 333--340 (2002; Zbl 0997.11085)] proved the conjecture for \(\alpha\leq 4\). In the paper under review the authors prove the conjecture for all \(\alpha\). They also discuss why the Andrews-Sellers family of congruences is significantly different from classical congruences modulo powers of primes.