Generalized Path Pairs and Fuss-Catalan Triangles

Abstract: Path pairs are a modification of parallelogram polyominoes that provide yet another combinatorial interpretation of the Catalan numbers. More generally, the number of path pairs of length

n

and distance

d e l t a

corresponds to the

(n - 1, d e l t a - 1)

entry of Shapiro's so-called Catalan triangle. In this paper, we widen the notion of path pairs

(g a m m a_{1}, g a m m a_{2})

to the situation where

g a m m a_{1}

and

g a m m a_{2}

may have different lengths, and then enforce divisibility conditions on runs of vertical steps in

g a m m a_{2}

. This creates a two-parameter family of integer triangles that generalize the Catalan triangle and qualify as proper Riordan arrays for many choices of parameters. In particular, we use generalized path pairs to provide a new combinatorial interpretation for all entries in every proper Riordan array

m a t h c a l R (d (t), h (t))

of the form

d (t) = C_{k} (t)^{i}

,

h (t) = t k e r n + 1 p t C_{k} (t)^{k}

, where

1 l e q i l e q k

and

C_{k} (t)

is the generating function for some sequence of Fuss-Catalan numbers (some

k g e q 2

). Closed formulas are then provided for the number of generalized path pairs across an even broader range of parameters, as well as for the number of weak path pairs with a fixed number of non-initial intersections.

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