Proof of a conjecture of Stanley about Stern's array

Abstract

Stanley, building on work of Stern, defined an array of numbers by the recurrence $s(n, 2k) = s(n-1, k)$, $s(n, 2k+1) = s(n-1, k) + s(n-1, k+1)$. Stanley showed that, for each positive integer $r$, the sequence $s_n^r:= \sum_k s(n,k)^r$ obeys a homogeneous linear recurrence in $n$ of length $r/2+O(1)$. Numerical evidence, however, suggested that $s_n^r$ obeys shorter recurrences, of length $r/3+O(1)$. We prove Stanley's conjecture.