On the Number of Distinct Multinomial Coefficients

Abstract

We study M(n), the number of distinct values taken by multinomial coefficients with upper entry n, and some closely related sequences. We show that both pP(n)/M(n) and M(n)/p(n) tend to zero as n goes to infinity, where pP(n) is the number of partitions of n into primes and p(n) is the total number of partitions of n. To use methods from commutative algebra, we encode partitions and multinomial coefficients as monomials.