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By the help of Mathematica numeral calculations, I find the following formula holds

$$\sum\limits_{n=1}^\infty \frac{\binom{mn}{n}}{n}\left(\frac{(m-1)^{m-1}}{m^m} \right)^n=m\log\left(\frac{m}{m-1}\right)\quad ?$$

$m>1$ is a positive integer. But I can't prove it.

YuiTo Cheng
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xuce1234
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  • If it works for integer $m$, shouldn't it work for real $m$ as well by continuity of the right hand side? – Yuriy S Jun 29 '19 at 07:40
  • This is really a nice problem ! Very nice conjecture, for sure. – Claude Leibovici Jun 29 '19 at 15:24
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    I checked numerically, and this works for real $m$ as well. This seems like an interesting problem, would be a shame if the question is put on hold. Maybe xuce1234 could add some context (if this is a recreational problem then it would be still good to know how the idea came to be and how they guessed the closed form). – Yuriy S Jun 29 '19 at 18:22
  • The links off this question might be relevant. (It's funny I've answered it myself just a week ago.) – metamorphy Jun 30 '19 at 14:03
  • @ClaudeLeibovici, in this paper (paywalled) I found an asymptotic expansion for a general binomial coefficient (equation 8) which in this case looks like this: $$\binom{mn}{n} \asymp \sqrt{\frac{m}{2 \pi (m-1) n}} \left( \frac{m^m}{(m-1)^{m-1}} \right)^n \sum_{k=0}^\infty \frac{P_k}{n^k}$$ as $n \to \infty$. $P_k$ are complicated polynomials. Looks familiar? – Yuriy S Jun 30 '19 at 14:12
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    Please add context and details in your post. This is too beautiful ! – Claude Leibovici Jun 30 '19 at 14:40
  • @YuriyS. I cannot access the paper (too expansive). Could you add results for real $m$ ? It would be very interesting. Thanks – Claude Leibovici Jun 30 '19 at 14:42
  • @metamorphy. Could you have a look at my non-answer to the question you gave a link to ? – Claude Leibovici Jun 30 '19 at 15:01

6 Answers6

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Too long for comments.

Using another CAS, I have not been able to obtain the rhs (except for $m=2$) but numerically the results do agree with your conjecture (checked up to $m=20$).

Considering $$f_m=\sum\limits_{n=1}^\infty \frac{\binom{mn}{n}}{n}\left(\frac{(m-1)^{m-1}}{m^m} \right)^n$$ running cases, what I obtained is $$f_3=\frac{2 ^2}{3^2} \, _4F_3\left(1,1,\frac{4}{3},\frac{5}{3};\frac{3}{2},2,2;1\right)$$ $$f_4=\frac{3^3}{4^3} \, _5F_4\left(1,1,\frac{5}{4},\frac{6}{4},\frac{7}{4};\frac{4}{3},\frac{5}{3},2,2;1 \right)$$ $$f_5=\frac{4^4}{5^4} \, _6F_5\left(1,1,\frac{6}{5},\frac{7}{5},\frac{8}{5},\frac{9}{5};\frac{5}{4},\frac {6}{4},\frac{7}{4},2,2;1\right)$$ $$f_6=\frac{5^5}{6^5}\, _7F_6\left(1,1,\frac{7}{6},\frac{8}{6},\frac{9}{6},\frac{10}{6},\frac{11}{6};\frac {6}{5},\frac{7}{5},\frac{8}{5},\frac{9}{5},2,2;1\right)$$ $$f_7=\frac{6^6}{7^6}\, _8F_7\left(1,1,\frac{8}{7},\frac{9}{7},\frac{10}{7},\frac{11}{7},\frac{12}{7}, \frac{13}{7};\frac{7}{6},\frac{8}{6},\frac{9}{6},\frac{10}{6},\frac{11}{6},2,2;1 \right)$$ which, as written, reveal very clear patterns. $$\color{blue}{f_m=\frac{(m-1)^{m-1}}{m^{m-1}}\, _{m+1}F_m\left(1,1,\frac{m+1}m,\cdots,\frac{2m-1}m;\frac m{m-1},\cdots,\frac {2m-3}{m-1},2,2;1\right)}$$

Trying on Wolfram Cloud, I obtained the same results but no simplification at all. Surprising, isn't it ?

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Let $z_m=(m-1)^{m-1}/m^m$. From this answer, we have \begin{align} F_m(z)&:=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\binom{mn}{n}\frac{z^n}{(m-1)n+1}=1+z\big(F_m(z)\big)^m, \\ G_m(z)&:=\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\binom{mn}{n}z^n=\frac{F_m(z)}{m-(m-1)F_m(z)}. \end{align} Now $F_m(0)=1$ and $\color{blue}{F_m(z_m)=m/(m-1)}$ (yeah!), thus $$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\binom{mn}{n}\frac{(z_m)^n}{n}=\int_{0}^{z_m}\frac{G_m(z)-1}{z}\,dz,$$ and the substitution $w=F_m(z)$ (i.e. $z=(w-1)/w^m$) collapses it to $$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\binom{mn}{n}\frac{(z_m)^n}{n}=\color{blue}{m\int_1^{m/(m-1)}\frac{dw}{w}}=m\ln\frac{m}{m-1}.$$ [As a by-product, we get $\displaystyle\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\binom{mn}{n}\frac{z^n}{n}=m\ln F_m(z)$.]

metamorphy
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  • This is incredibly nice ! Thanks for posting such an answer and $\to +1$ for sure. Cheers ;-) – Claude Leibovici Jul 01 '19 at 14:20
  • @metamorphy: Ah, this looks great. :-) A very interesting and informative approach. I will have a closer look later to check the details. In the meanwhile congrats and +1. – Markus Scheuer Jul 01 '19 at 15:07
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    @metamorphy:By using these formulas given by you, I find the formula $$\sum\limits_{n=1}^\infty \binom{mn}{n}\frac{z^n}{n^2}=-\frac{m(m-1)}{2}\log^2\left( F_m(z)\right)+m{\rm Li}_2\left( 1-\frac{1}{F_m(z)}\right),$$ – xuce1234 Jul 02 '19 at 13:27
  • @xuce1234: Yeah, the technique appears to be fairly broad. And the equation for $F_m(z)$ (hence the rest of the above) holds for non-integer $m$ too - here is an argument supporting this. – metamorphy Jul 02 '19 at 13:29
  • @metamorphy:If letting $m=3$ and $F_3(z)=2$, we have $z=1/8$ and $$\sum\limits_{n=1}^\infty \binom{3n}{n}\frac{1}{8^nn^2}=-3\log^2(2)+3{\rm Li}2(1/2).$$ However, by the Mathematica computation, I find that $$\sum\limits{n=1}^\infty \binom{3n}{n}\frac{1}{8^nn^2}=0.468161764082636559120592072292$$and$$-3\log^2(2)+3{\rm Li}_2(1/2)=0.305362537640433243706661381499$$ I don't know what went wrong. – xuce1234 Jul 02 '19 at 13:36
  • My formula is essentially the same as yours: $$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\binom{mn}{n}\frac{z^n}{n^2}=-\frac{m^2}{2}\ln^2 F_m(z)-m\mathrm{Li}_2\big(1-F_m(z)\big).$$ Your mistake is the value of $F_3(1/8)$ (it is $\color{red}{\sqrt{5}-1}$, not $2$). – metamorphy Jul 02 '19 at 15:38
  • @metamorphy: From the formula $F_m(z)=1+z(F_m(z))^m$, letting $m=3$, we have $F_3(z)=1+z(F_3(z))^3$. Then letting $z=1/8$, we obtain $F_3(1/8)=1+(F_3(1/8))^3/8$, so we have the three soulations $F_3(1/8)=2,-1-\sqrt{5},-1+\sqrt{5}$, why $F_3(1/8)$ is equal to $-1+\sqrt{5}$? – xuce1234 Jul 03 '19 at 11:06
  • @metamorphy: Thank you very much. So, the function $F_m(z)$ is a monotonically increasing function in $z\in[0,(m-1)^{m-1}/m^m]$, but how to prove it? – xuce1234 Jul 03 '19 at 12:21
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I'm posting this as another "answer", because it might be relevant, but it's not related to my original attempt. This doesn't tell how to prove the closed form, it's just an illustration of some interesting consequences of the conjecture.

In the following paper the author derives a general asymptotic series for binomial coefficients. For the case we are interested in it looks like this:

$$\binom{mn}{n} \asymp \sqrt{\frac{m}{2 \pi (m-1) n}} \left( \frac{m^m}{(m-1)^{m-1}} \right)^n \sum_{k=0}^\infty \frac{P_k(m)}{n^k} \\ n \to \infty$$

Where $$P_0(m)=1 \\ P_k(m) = \frac{1}{k} \sum_{j=1}^k \frac{(-1)^j}{j+1} \left(1+\frac{1}{(m-1)^j}-\frac{1}{m^j} \right) B_{j+1}(1) P_{k-j}(m)$$

Where $B_{j+1}(x)$ are Bernoulli polynomials.

Obviously, we can see that the first term of this asymptotic expansion exactly matches the "weird" part of the original series, so we can make another conjecture:

$$m\log\left(\frac{m}{m-1}\right) \approx \sqrt{\frac{m}{2 \pi (m-1)}} \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^{3/2}} \sum_{k=0}^K \frac{P_k(m)}{n^k}$$

Where $K$ is some large but finite number. (Remember, the $k$ series is asymptotic series, it doesn't converge). So we can exchange the order of summation:

$$m\log\left(\frac{m}{m-1}\right) \approx \sqrt{\frac{m}{2 \pi (m-1)}} \sum_{k=0}^K \zeta \left(k+\frac{3}{2} \right) P_k(m)$$

Checking numerically, I found that $K=6$ or $K=8$ gives the best result for all $m \geq 2$:

enter image description here

Obviously, to achieve better agreement, we need to pick larger $n$, so it makes sense to write:

$$m\log\left(\frac{m}{m-1}\right) \approx \sum_{n=1}^N \binom{n m}{n} \frac{1}{n} \left( \frac{(m-1)^{m-1}}{m^m} \right)^n+ \sqrt{\frac{m}{2 \pi (m-1)}} \sum_{n=N+1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^{3/2}} \sum_{k=0}^K \frac{P_k(m)}{n^k}$$

Or:

$$m\log\left(\frac{m}{m-1}\right) \approx \sum_{n=1}^N \binom{n m}{n} \frac{1}{n} \left( \frac{(m-1)^{m-1}}{m^m} \right)^n+ \\ + \sqrt{\frac{m}{2 \pi (m-1)}} \sum_{k=0}^K \left(\zeta \left(k+\frac{3}{2} \right)-\sum_{n=1}^N \frac{1}{n^{k+3/2}} \right) P_k(m)$$

This drastically improves the accuracy, see for example $N=5$:

enter image description here

For $N=5$ and $K=25$, and calling the approximation $S(m)$, we have:

$$\begin{array}(m & m\log\left(\frac{m}{m-1}\right) & S(m) \\ 2 & 1.3862943611198906 & 1.3862943611198906 \\ 3 & 1.216395324324493145 & 1.216395324324493145 \\ 4 & 1.150728289807123709 & 1.150728289807123709 \\ 5 & 1.115717756571048778 & 1.115717756571048778 \\ \pi & 1.20379579648763820 & 1.20379579648763820 \end{array}$$

Where only the correct digits are shown. As you can see by the last example, irrational $m$ work just as fine.

Yuriy S
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This is hardly a starter, but the following representation showing some commonalities of LHS and RHS might be useful.

The RHS can be written as \begin{align*} m\log\left(\frac{m}{m-1}\right)&=m\log\left(\frac{1}{1-\frac{1}{m}}\right)\\ &=-m\log\left(1-\frac{1}{m}\right)\\ &\,\,\color{blue}{=m\sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{nm^n}} \end{align*}

The LHS can be written as \begin{align*} \sum_{n=1}^\infty&\frac{\binom{mn}{n}}{n}\left(\frac{(m-1)^{m-1}}{m^m} \right)^n\\ &=\sum_{n=1}^\infty\frac{1}{nm^n}\binom{mn}{n}\left(\frac{(m-1)^{m-1}}{m^{m-1}}\right)^n\\ &=\sum_{n=1}^\infty\frac{1}{nm^n}\binom{mn}{n}\left(1-\frac{1}{m}\right)^{n(m-1)}\\ &\,\,\color{blue}{=m\sum_{n=1}^\infty\frac{1}{nm^n}\binom{mn-1}{n-1}\left(1-\frac{1}{m}\right)^{n(m-1)}} \end{align*}

Markus Scheuer
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Here's my attempt at closed form. Not an answer definitely, but might be of use.

First, we simplify (and generalize) the problem by defining a two variable series:

$$S(x,y)=\sum_{n=1}^\infty \binom{nx}{n} \frac{y^n}{n}$$

In the OP we have:

$$y=\frac{1}{x} \left(1-\frac{1}{x} \right)^{x-1}$$

Now we assume $x \in \mathbb{R}$, but $x \notin \mathbb{Z}$ (we can get back to the whole numbers by continuity arguments), then we can represent the binomial coefficient in the following way:

$$\binom{nx}{n}= \frac{x}{\pi}\sin[\pi n (1-x)] B[nx,n(1-x)] $$

Here's the main problem: all the (real) integral representations of the Beta function rely on both the arguments being positive. But it would only be the case if $0<x<1$, which doesn't fit the OP. However, I have checked the original series, and despite giving complex values, the closed form still seems to work for $|x|<1$, so I will consider this case first.

Attempt 1

We have:

$$B[nx,n(1-x)]=\int_0^1 t^{n x-1} (1-t)^{n(1-x)-1}dt=\int_0^1 \left[t^x (1-t)^{1-x} \right]^n \frac{dt}{t(1-t)}$$

$$\sin[\pi n (1-x)]=\frac{1}{2i} \left(e^{\pi i (1-x) n}-e^{-\pi i (1-x) n} \right)$$

Then we can write:

$$S(x,y)=\frac{x}{2 i \pi} \int_0^1 \frac{dt}{t(1-t)} \sum_{n=1}^\infty \left(e^{\pi i (1-x) n}-e^{-\pi i (1-x) n} \right) \left[t^x (1-t)^{1-x} \right]^n \frac{y^n}{n} $$

We also need $|y|<1$, which doesn't seem to work for $|x|<1$ if we define $y$ as in the original series, however let's forget about that for now and sum the series formally:

$$S(x,y)=-\frac{x}{2 \pi i} \int_0^1 \frac{dt}{t(1-t)} \log \frac{1-e^{\pi i (1-x)} t^x (1-t)^{1-x} y }{1-e^{-\pi i (1-x)} t^x (1-t)^{1-x} y}, \qquad 0<x<1$$

If we set $y=\frac{1}{x} \left(1-\frac{1}{x} \right)^{x-1}$, then the closed form $-x \log \left( 1-\frac{1}{x} \right)$ works numerically, as in, the real and imaginary parts are the same. Though I don't know how to prove it for the integral either.

Attempt 2

For another try we could turn to Gamma functions, which are better defined:

$$\binom{nx}{n}= \frac{x}{\pi}\sin[\pi n (1-x)] \frac{\Gamma(nx) \Gamma(n(1-x))}{(n-1)!} $$

To work with the usual integral representation of the Gamma function, we again have to restrict ourselves to $0 <x <1$, however, as we will see, it will allow us to consider $|y|>1 $ as well.

$$\Gamma(nx) \Gamma(n(1-x))=\int_0^\infty \int_0^\infty u^{nx} v^{n(1-x)} e^{-u-v} \frac{du dv}{u v}$$

So we have:

$$S(x,y)=\frac{x}{2\pi i} \int_0^\infty \int_0^\infty e^{-u-v} \frac{du dv}{u v} \sum_{n=1}^\infty \left(e^{\pi i (1-x) n}-e^{-\pi i (1-x) n} \right) [u^x v^{1-x}]^n \frac{y^n}{n!}$$

Summation gives us:

$$S(x,y)=\frac{x}{2\pi i} \int_0^\infty \int_0^\infty e^{-u-v} \frac{du dv}{u v} \left(\exp \left[y e^{\pi i (1-x)} u^x v^{1-x} \right]-\exp \left[y e^{-\pi i (1-x)} u^x v^{1-x} \right] \right) $$

Getting rid of complex numbers:

$$S(x,y)=\frac{x}{\pi} \int_0^\infty \int_0^\infty e^{-u-v} \exp \left[y \cos (\pi (1-x)) u^x v^{1-x} \right] \sin \left[y \sin (\pi (1-x)) u^x v^{1-x} \right] \frac{du dv}{u v}$$

This integral seems to work as well, though numerical evaluation is very difficult.

Yuriy S
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EDIT: This answer is incorrect, due to a mistaken bound on the binomial coefficient. In fact, $\binom{mn}{n}\leq 2^{mn}$ so of course it has exponential growth...


The formula cannot hold, since the left side is a divergent series! Indeed, for every fixed $m$ the $\binom{mn}{n}$ grows faster than exponentially in $n$, since it is greater than $((m-1)n)^n$. But this means it outgrows the reciprocal of the rest of the summand...

pre-kidney
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  • But I used Mathematica to obtain many cases, it proved that two sides are holds. – xuce1234 Jun 29 '19 at 04:18
  • It is a good practice to apply basic sanity checks whenever working with a formula. In this case, the left side is nonsensical whenever $m>1$. (I am assuming that $m$ is an integer, otherwise you will have even greater problems than these.) So I am confused as to which specific cases you verified... – pre-kidney Jun 29 '19 at 04:31
  • @xuce1234 turns out I need to follow my own advice regarding sanity checking... I was confused in my bound on the binomial coefficient. See edit – pre-kidney Jun 29 '19 at 06:12