MacMahon's partition analysis: The Omega package (Q5949027)

The authors explain and illustrate the Omega package (available at \url{http://www.risc.uni-linz.ac.at/research/combinat/risc/software/Omega/}) which runs on \textit{Mathematica} and is based on MacMahon's Omega operator, \(\Omega_\geq\), defined by \[ \Omega_\geq \sum_{s_1=-\infty}^{\infty} \cdots \sum_{s_n=-\infty}^{\infty} A_{s_1,\ldots,s_n} \lambda_1^{s_1} \cdots \lambda_n^{s_n} := \sum_{s_1=0}^{\infty} \cdots \sum_{s_n=0}^{\infty} A_{s_1,\ldots,s_n}. \] As an example, they consider a problem of Hermite: Find \(h(n)\), the number of representations of \(n\) as a sum of three positive integers that can be the lengths of the sides of a triangle. These conditions imply that \[ \begin{aligned} \sum_{n=3}^{\infty} h(n) q^n &= \Omega_\geq \sum_{a,b,c\geq 1} \lambda_1^{b+c-a} \lambda_2^{a+c-b} \lambda_3^{a+b-c}q^{a+b+c} \\ &= \Omega_\geq { \lambda_1\lambda_2\lambda_3 q^3 \over (1-\lambda_2\lambda_3q/\lambda_1)(1-\lambda_1\lambda_3q/\lambda_2) (1-\lambda_1\lambda_2q/\lambda_3)}. \end{aligned} \] Entering this last expression, the Omega package returns \[ {q^3(1+2q-2q^2) \over (1-q)(1-q^2)^2} = {q^3 \over (1-q^2)^3} + {q^4 \over (1-q^2)^3} + {2q^4 \over (1-q^2)^2}, \] from which it follows that \(h(n) = (n+8)(n-2)/8\) if \(n\) is even, \((n^2-1)/8\) otherwise.