Simultaneous core partitions with nontrivial common divisor

Abstract

A tremendous amount of research has been done in the last two decades on $(s,t)$-core partitions when $s$ and $t$ are positive integers with no common divisor. Here we change perspective slightly and explore properties of $(s,t)$-core and $(\bar{s},\bar{t})$-core partitions for $s$ and $t$ with nontrivial common divisor $g$. We begin by revisiting work by D. Aukerman, D. Kane and L. Sze on $(s,t)$-core partitions for nontrivial $g$ before obtaining a generating function for the number of $(\bar{s},\bar{t})$-core partitions of $n$ under the same conditions. Our approach, using the $g$-core, $g$-quotient and bar-analogues, allows for new results on $t$-cores and self-conjugate $t$-cores that are {\it not} $g$-cores and $\bar{t}$-cores that are {\it not} $\bar{g}$-cores, thus strengthening positivity results of K. Ono and A. Granville, J. Baldwin et. al., and I. Kiming. We then detail a new bijection between self-conjugate $(s,t)$-core and $(\bar{s},\bar{t})$-core partitions for $s$ and $t$ odd with odd, nontrivial common divisor $g$. Here the core-quotient construction fits remarkably well with certain lattice-path labelings due to B. Ford, H. Mai, and L. Sze and C. Bessenrodt and J. Olsson. Along the way we give a new proof of a correspondence of J. Yang between self-conjugate $t$-core and $\bar{t}$-core partitions when $t$ is odd and positive. We end by noting $(s,t)$-core and $(\bar{s}, \bar{t})$-core partitions inherit Ramanujan-type congruences from those of $g$-core and $\bar{g}$-core partitions.