On a family of sums of powers of the floor function and their links with generalized Dedekind sums

Abstract

In this paper we are concerned with a family of sums involving the floor function. With $r$ a non negative integer and $n$ and $m$ positive integers we consider the sums \begin{equation*}\mathbf{S}_{r}\left(n,m\right)=\sum_{k=1}^{n-1}{\left\lfloor \frac{km}{n}\right\rfloor}^r\end{equation*} While a formula for $\mathbf{S}_1$ is well known, we provide closed-form formulas for $\mathbf{S}_2$ and $\mathbf{S}_3$ as well as the reciprocity laws they satisfy. Additionally, one can find a closed-form formula for the classical Dedekind sum using the Euclidean algorithm. Finally, we provide a general formula for $\mathbf{S}_r$ showing its dependency on generalized Dedekind sums.