A central limit theorem for integer partitions into small powers (Q6137884)

The authors consider restricted partitions of a positive integer \(n\) into ``small powers'', i.e., numbers of the form \(\lfloor k^{\alpha} \rfloor\), where \(\alpha\) is a fixed real number in \((0,1)\). Such a restricted partition is a representation of the form \[n = \lfloor a_1^{\alpha} \rfloor + \lfloor a_2^{\alpha} \rfloor + \cdots + \lfloor a_{\ell}^{\alpha} \rfloor,\] where the \(a_i\) are integers with \(1 \leq a_1 < a_2 < \cdots < a_{\ell}\). The paper specifically studies the distribution of the number of summands: asymptotic formulas for mean and variance of this number in a uniformly random restricted partition are shown along with a central limit theorem as \(n \to \infty\). The proofs are largely based on the saddle point method and the Mellin transform.