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I found the following claim on OEIS and I am unsure how I would go about verifying it.

$$ \lim\limits_{N \rightarrow \infty} \left( \sum\limits_{n \geq 0}(N+n)^n \frac{x^n}{n!} \right)^{1/N} = \sum\limits_{n \geq 0} (n+1)^{n-1}\frac{x^n}{n!} $$

From context in the entries, it seems that one way may be to make the substitution $N \mapsto y$, drop the limit, and take the Log of the left. Then if we send $y \rightarrow \infty$, the only terms that do not blow up are those with a $y^1$, so we just consider those and exponentiate to get the result.

Any ideas or references are appreciated!

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The species of labelled trees has the specification $$\mathcal{T} = \mathcal{Z} \times \mathfrak{P}(\mathcal{T})$$ which gives the functional equation $$T(z) = z \exp T(z).$$

Now with Cayley's theorem saying that

$$T(z) = \sum_{n\ge 1} n^{n-1} \frac{z^n}{n!}$$

it is not difficult to see that

$$A(z) = \sum_{n\ge 0} (n+1)^{n-1} \frac{z^n}{n!} = \frac{T(z)}{z}.$$

Observe that a labeled forest has specification

$$\mathfrak{P}(\mathcal{T})$$

which yields $\exp(T(z))$ and we once more have $A(z) = T(z)/z.$

Extracting coefficients via Lagrange inversion we find with $N\ge 1$ $$n! [z^n] A(z)^N = n! [z^n] \frac{T(z)^N}{z^N} = n! [z^{N+n}] T(z)^N = \frac{n!}{2\pi i} \int_{|z|=\epsilon} \frac{1}{z^{N+n+1}} T(z)^N \; dz.$$

Put $T(z)=w$ so that $z=w/\exp(w) = w\exp(-w)$ and $dz = \exp(-w) - w\exp(-w)$ to get $$\frac{n!}{2\pi i} \int_{|w|=\gamma} \frac{\exp(w(N+n+1))}{w^{N+n+1}} \times w^N\times (\exp(-w) - w\exp(-w)) \; dw \\ = \frac{n!}{2\pi i} \int_{|w|=\gamma} \frac{\exp(w(N+n))}{w^{n+1}} (1 - w) \; dw.$$

But we have $$n! [w^{n}] \exp(w (N+n)) = (N+n)^n$$

and $$n! [w^{n-1}] \exp(w (N+n)) = n (N+n)^{n-1}.$$

This is $$(N+n)^n - \frac{n}{N+n} (N+n)^n$$

andh therefore the asymptotics of the coefficients in $N$ are indeed given by

$$\bbox[5px,border:2px solid #00A000]{ (N+n)^n \times \frac{N}{N+n}}$$

and with $n$ fixed $\lim_{N\rightarrow\infty} \frac{N}{N+n} = 1.$

The question is why we would need to take a limit given that the exact formula is so simple.

The labelled tree function recently appeared at this MSE link.

Marko Riedel
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