Proof of two supercongruences conjectured by Z.-W.Sun involving Catalan-Larcombe-French numbers

TL;DR

This paper proves two conjectured supercongruences involving harmonic numbers and Catalan-Larcombe-French numbers, which are crucial for confirming further conjectures by Z.-W. Sun about these special sequences and their properties modulo prime powers.

Contribution

The paper establishes two new supercongruences involving harmonic numbers and Catalan-Larcombe-French numbers, confirming a conjecture by Z.-W. Sun from 2012.

Findings

Proved two supercongruences modulo p^2 and p involving harmonic numbers.

Confirmed conjectures relating Catalan-Larcombe-French numbers to prime moduli.

Provided tools for future research on supercongruences and special number sequences.

Abstract

The harmonic numbers $H_n=\sum_{0<k\ls n}1/k\ (n=0,1,2,\ldots)$ play important roles in mathematics. With helps of some combinatorial identities, we establish the following two congruences: $$\sum_{k=0}^{\frac{p-3}2}\f{\binom{2k}k^2H_k}{(2k+1)16^k}\ \mbox{modulo}\ p^2\ \mbox{and}\ \sum_{k=0}^{\frac{p-3}2}\f{\binom{2k}k^2H_{2k}}{(2k+1)16^k}\ \mbox{modulo}\ p$$ for any prime $p>3$, the second one was conjectured by Z.-W. Sun in 2012. These two congruences are very important to prove the following conjectures of Z.W.Sun: For any old prime $p$, we have $$\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}\frac{P_k}{8^k}\equiv1+2\big(\frac{-1}p\big)p^2E_{p-3}\pmod{p^3}$$ and $$\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}\frac{P_k}{{16}^k}\equiv\big(\frac{-1}p\big)-p^2E_{p-3}\pmod{p^3},$$ where $P_n=\sum_{k=0}^n\frac{\binom{2k}k^2\binom{2(n-k)}{n-k}^2}{\binom nk}$ is the n-th Catalan-Larcombe-French number.