Parity of 3-regular partition numbers and Diophantine equations (Q6928616)

In this paper the authors prove a family of congruences modulo \(2\) for \(b_3(n)\), the number of \(3\)-regular partitions of \(n\). To state the congruences, let \(\mathcal{P}\) denote the set of primes \(p\) such that for some \(j \in \{1,4,8\}\) the equation \N\[\Nx^2+216y^2 = jp \N\]\Nhas primitive solutions. Further, let \(\alpha \in [0,p)\) be an integer not equal to \(\lfloor p/24 \rfloor\) and let \(24_p^{-1} \in [1,p-1]\) denote the inverse of \(24\) modulo \(p\). Then for any \(p \in \mathcal{P}\) and \(n \geq 0\) one has \N\[ \Nb_3(2(p^2n+p\alpha - 24_p^{-1})) \equiv 0 \pmod{2}. \N\]\NThe authors also show that the Dirichlet density of the set \(\mathcal{P}\) is \(1/6\) and that for any \(p \in \mathcal{P}\) one has \N\[\Nb_3\left(\frac{p^2-1}{12}\right) \equiv 1 \pmod{2}.\N\]\NFor the proofs the authors begin with the fact that \(b_3(2n)\) has the same parity as the number of representations of \(n\) as the sum of a generalized pentagonal number and a square not divisible by \(3\). A detailed investigation of this number leads to the results.