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Abstract:

Many familiar counting sequences, such as the Catalan, Motzkin, Schröder and Delannoy numbers, have a generating function that is algebraic of degree 2. For example, the GF for the central Delannoy numbers is $\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-6x+x^{2}}}$. Here we determine all generating functions of the form $\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+Ax+Bx^{2}}}$ that yield counting sequences and point out that they have a unified combinatorial interpretation in terms of colored lattice paths. We do likewise for the related forms $1-\sqrt{1+Ax+Bx^{2}}$ and $\frac{1+Ax-\sqrt{1+2Ax+Bx^{2}}}{2Cx^{2}}$.





Jeffrey Shallit 2007-05-07