Bao-Xuan Zhu

Proof of Almkvist's conjecture on the unimodality of partition polynomials

For integers $r\ge2$ and $n\ge1$, let $$ F_{r,n}(q)=\prod_{k=1}^{n}\frac{1-q^{rk}}{1-q^k}. $$ The coefficient of $q^j$ in \(F_{r,n}(q)\) counts partitions of $j$ into parts at most $n$, each occurring at most $r-1$ times. Hughes proved that $F_{2,n}(q)=\prod_{k=1}^{n}(1+q^k)$ is unimodal for every $n\ge 1$. This result...