On a conjecture of Andrews (Q5919253)

Given an integer \(d>1\), let \(q_d^*(n)\) denote the number of partitions of \(n\) in which the difference between any two parts is at least \(d\) and in which the difference between multiples of \(d\) is at least \(2d\). Also, let \(Q_d^*(n)\) denote the number of partitions of \(n\) into parts which are congruent with \(\pm1,\pm(d+2)\pmod{4d}\). At a 2009 conference, G. E. Andrews conjectured that \[ q_d^*(n)-Q_d^*(n)\geq 0, \] for \(d>1\) and \(n\geq 1\). This conjecture holds for \(d=2\) and \(d=3\) by the Göllnitz-Gordon and Schur identities. In the paper under review, the authors prove that, for a fixed \(d>3\), the conjecture is true for sufficiently large \(n\) by establishing that \(\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}(q_d^*(n)-Q_d^*(n))=+\infty\). The similar inequality \[ q_d^*(n)-Q_d^{**}(n)\geq 0, \] where \(Q_d^{**}(n)\) denote the number of partitions of \(n\) into parts which are congruent with \(\pm1,\pm(d+2),\pm(d+6),\ldots,\pm(d+4j+2)\pmod{4d}\), with \(j=\lfloor(d-2)/4\rfloor\), is also analyzed.