On the Number of Parts in Congruence Classes for Partitions into Distinct Parts

Abstract

For integers $0 < r \leq t$, let the function $D_{r,t}(n)$ denote the number of parts among all partitions of $n$ into distinct parts that are congruent to $r$ modulo $t$. We prove the asymptotic formula $$D_{r,t}(n) \sim \dfrac{3^{\frac 14} e^{\pi \sqrt{\frac{n}{3}}}}{2\pi t n^{\frac 14}} \left( \log(2) + \left( \dfrac{\sqrt{3} \log(2)}{8\pi} - \dfrac{\pi}{4\sqrt{3}} \left( r - \dfrac{t}{2} \right) \right) n^{- \frac 12} \right)$$ as $n \to \infty$. A corollary of this result is that for $0 < r < s \leq t$, the inequality $D_{r,t}(n) \geq D_{s,t}(n)$ holds for all sufficiently large $n$. We make this effective, showing that for $2 \leq t \leq 10$ the inequality $D_{r,t}(n) \geq D_{s,t}(n)$ holds for all $n > 8$.