On the positivity of truncated pentagonal number series and some conjectures of Merca

Abstract

Let $\nu_2(m)$ denote the $2$-adic valuation of a positive integer $m$ and set $N_m=m\bigl(1+\nu_2(m)/2\bigr)$. We prove four conjectures of Merca on the nonnegativity of truncated pentagonal number series weighted by the infinite products $\prod_{m\ge 1}(1-q^{2N_m})$ and $\prod_{r\ge 1}\bigl(q^{2^r r};q^{2^{r+1}r}\bigr)_\infty$. Our method is to regard the exponent map $m\mapsto m(\nu_2(m)+2)$ as a dynamical system on the positive integers: the factors of the associated quotient link into chains along its forward orbits, and the three orbits seeded at $1$, $4$ and $5$ are pairwise disjoint and telescope to exactly $1/\bigl((1-q)(1-q^4)(1-q^5)\bigr)$. The exponent triple $(1,4,5)$ is admissible in the sense of earlier work by Liu, which yields the desired factorization into two series with nonnegative coefficients. This orbit telescoping technique appears to be a mechanism complementary to the P\'olya--Szeg\H o criterion that underlies most existing positivity results of this kind in the literature.