2-adic valuations of Stirling numbers of the first kind

Abstract: Let

n

and

k

be positive integers. We denote by

v_{2} (n)

the 2-adic valuation of

n

. The Stirling numbers of the first kind, denoted by

s (n, k)

, counts the number of permutations of

n

elements with

k

disjoint cycles. In recent years, Lengyel, Komatsu and Young, Leonetti and Sanna, and Adelberg made some progress on the

p

-adic valuations of

s (n, k)

. In this paper, by introducing the concept of

m

-th Stirling numbers of the first kind and providing a detailed 2-adic analysis, we show an explicit formula on the 2-adic valuation of

s (2^{n}, k)

. We also prove that

v_{2} (s (2^{n} + 1, k + 1)) = v_{2} (s (2^{n}, k))

holds for all integers

k

between 1 and

2^{n}

. As a corollary, we show that

v_{2} (s (2^{n}, 2^{n} - k)) = 2 n - 2 - v_{2} (k - 1)

if

k

is odd and

2 l e k l e 2^{n - 1} + 1

. This confirms partially a conjecture of Lengyel raised in 2015. Furthermore, we show that if

k l e 2^{n}

, then

v_{2} (s (2^{n}, k)) l e v_{2} (s (2^{n}, 1))

and

v_{2} (H (2^{n}, k)) l e q - n

, where

H (n, k)

stands for the

k

-th elementary symmetric functions of

1, 1 / 2, ..., 1 / n

. The latter one supports the conjecture of Leonetti and Sanna suggested in 2017.

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