Partial Lucas-type congruences

Abstract

In their study of a binomial sum related to Wolstenholme's theorem, Chamberland and Dilcher prove that the corresponding sequence modulo primes $p$ satisfies congruences that are analogous to Lucas' theorem for the binomial coefficients with the notable twist that there is a restriction on the $p$-adic digits. We prove a general result that shows that similar partial Lucas congruences are satisfied by all sequences representable as the constant terms of the powers of a multivariate Laurent polynomial.