Supercongruences for the Catalan-Larcombe-French numbers (Q5962077)

The Catalan-Larcombe-French numbers \[ P_n={1\over n!}\sum_{p+q=n} {2p\choose p}{2q\choose q}{(2p)!(2q)!\over p!q!} \] has been studied in several previous papers (among others) by \textit{P. J. Larcombe} and \textit{D. R. French} [Congr. Numerantium 143, 33--64 (2000; Zbl 0971.05001) and ibid. 148, 65--91 (2001; Zbl 0999.05003)] and also together with \textit{A. F. Jarvis} [Congr. Numerantium 161, 151--162 (2003; Zbl 1054.11016) and Indian J. Math. 47, No. 2--3, 159--181 (2005; Zbl 1114.11021)]. Some divisibility properties of \(P_n\) by primes \(p\) were proved in the last paper and some related conjectures are made here. In the present paper two of these conjectures (Conjecture 3 and 4 on p. 19) are proved. Then it is shown that the generating function for \(\{P_n\}_n\) satisfies certain second-order differential equation, which in turn is interpreted as Picard-Fuchs equation for a pencil of elliptic curves. Then developing this connection on the background of \textit{J. Stienstra} and \textit{F. Beukers}' approach [Math. Ann. 271, 269--304 (1985; Zbl 0539.14006)] the ``supercongruence'' \(P_{mp^r}\equiv P_{mp^{r-1}}\pmod{p^r}\) is proved. Finally, the authors also show how this supercongruence and supercongruences for related numbers can be proved using \textit{A. Granville}'s method [Organic mathematics. CMS Conf. Proc. 20, 253--276 (1997) (1995; Zbl 0903.11005)].