On Conjectures Concerning the Smallest Part and Missing Parts of Integer Partitions

TL;DR

This paper proves a conjecture about inequalities between sizes of specific sets of integer partitions with parts in a fixed interval, extending previous results to general parameters and confirming related conjectures.

Contribution

The authors generalize and prove a conjecture on partition set inequalities for all positive integers s, building on prior special cases and establishing stronger results.

Findings

Proved the conjecture for all positive integers s.

Established a stronger theorem encompassing the original conjecture.

Confirmed additional related conjectures from the same study.

Abstract

For positive integers $s$ and $L \geq 3$, Berkovich and Uncu (Ann. Comb. $23$ ($2019$) $263$--$284$) conjectured an inequality between the sizes of two closely related sets of partitions whose parts lie in the interval $\{s, \ldots, L+s\}$. Further restrictions are placed on the sets by specifying impermissible parts as well as a minimum part. The authors proved their conjecture for the cases $s=1$ and $s=2$. In the present article, we prove the conjecture for general $s$ by proving a stronger theorem. We also prove other related conjectures found in the same paper.