Gaussian binomial coefficient

Definition

The Gaussian binomial coefficients are defined by

where m and r are non-negative integers. For r = 0 the value is 1 since numerator and denominator are both empty products. Although the formula in the first clause appears to involve a rational function, it actually designates a polynomial, because the division is exact in Z[q]. Note that the formula can be applied for r = m + 1, and gives 0 due to a factor 1 − q⁰ = 0 in the numerator, in accordance with the second clause (for even larger r the factor 0 remains present in the numerator, but its further factors would involve negative powers of q, whence explicitly stating the second clause is preferable). All of the factors in numerator and denominator are divisible by 1 − q, with as quotient a q number:

dividing out these factors gives the equivalent formula

which makes evident the fact that substituting q = 1 into ( m r ) q gives the ordinary binomial coefficient ( m r ) . In terms of the q factorial [ n ] q ! = [ 1 ] q [ 2 ] q ⋯ [ n ] q , the formula can be stated as

a compact form (often given as only definition), which however hides the presence of many common factors in numerator and denominator. This form does make obvious the symmetry ( m r ) q = ( m m − r ) q for r ≤ m.

Instead of these algebraic expressions, one can also give a combinatorial definition of Gaussian binomial coefficients. The ordinary binomial coefficient ( m r ) counts the r-combinations chosen from an m-element set. If one takes those m elements to be the different character positions in a word of length m, then each r-combination corresponds to a word of length m using an alphabet of two letters, say {0,1}, with r copies of the letter 1 (indicating the positions in the chosen combination) and m − r letters 0 (for the remaining positions). To obtain from this model the Gaussian binomial coefficient ( m r ) q , it suffices to count each word with a factor q^d, where d is the number of "inversions" of the word: the number of pairs of positions for which the leftmost position of the pair holds a letter 1 and the rightmost position holds a letter 0 in the word. It can be shown that the polynomials so defined satisfy the Pascal identities given below, and therefore coincide with the polynomials given by the algebraic definitions. A visual way to view this definition is to associate to each word a path across a rectangular grid with sides of height r and width m − r, from the bottom left corner to the top right corner, taking a step right for each letter 0 and a step up for each letter 1. Then the number of inversions of the word equals the area of the part of the rectangle that is to the bottom-right of the path.

Unlike the ordinary binomial coefficient, the Gaussian binomial coefficient has finite values for m → ∞ (the limit being analytically meaningful for |q|<1):

Examples

Properties

Like the ordinary binomial coefficients, the Gaussian binomial coefficients are center-symmetric, i.e., invariant under the reflection r → m − r :

In particular,

The name Gaussian binomial coefficient stems from the fact that their evaluation at q = 1 is

for all m and r.

The analogs of Pascal identities for the Gaussian binomial coefficients are

and

There are analogs of the binomial formula, and of Newton's generalized version of it for negative integer exponents, although for the former the Gaussian binomial coefficients themselves do not appear as coefficients:

and

which, for n → ∞ become:

and

The first Pascal identity allows one to compute the Gaussian binomial coefficients recursively (with respect to m ) using the initial "boundary" values

and also incidentally shows that the Gaussian binomial coefficients are indeed polynomials (in q). The second Pascal identity follows from the first using the substitution r → m − r and the invariance of the Gaussian binomial coefficients under the reflection r → m − r . Both Pascal identities together imply

which leads (when applied iteratively for m, m − 1, m − 2,....) to an expression for the Gaussian binomial coefficient as given in the definition above.

Applications

Gaussian binomial coefficients occur in the counting of symmetric polynomials and in the theory of partitions. The coefficient of q^r in

is the number of partitions of r with m or fewer parts each less than or equal to n. Equivalently, it is also the number of partitions of r with n or fewer parts each less than or equal to m.

Gaussian binomial coefficients also play an important role in the enumerative theory of projective spaces defined over a finite field. In particular, for every finite field F_q with q elements, the Gaussian binomial coefficient

counts the number of k-dimensional vector subspaces of an n-dimensional vector space over F_q (a Grassmannian). When expanded as a polynomial in q, it yields the well-known decomposition of the Grassmannian into Schubert cells. For example, the Gaussian binomial coefficient

is the number of one-dimensional subspaces in (F_q)ⁿ (equivalently, the number of points in the associated projective space). Furthermore, when q is 1 (respectively −1), the Gaussian binomial coefficient yields the Euler characteristic of the corresponding complex (respectively real) Grassmannian.

The number of k-dimensional affine subspaces of F_qⁿ is equal to

This allows another interpretation of the identity

as counting the (r − 1)-dimensional subspaces of (m − 1)-dimensional projective space by fixing a hyperplane, counting such subspaces contained in that hyperplane, and then counting the subspaces not contained in the hyperplane; these latter subspaces are in bijective correspondence with the (r − 1)-dimensional affine subspaces of the space obtained by treating this fixed hyperplane as the hyperplane at infinity.

In the conventions common in applications to quantum groups, a slightly different definition is used; the quantum binomial coefficient there is

This version of the quantum binomial coefficient is symmetric under exchange of q and q − 1 .

Triangles

The Gaussian binomial coefficients can be arranged in a triangle for each q, which is Pascal's triangle for q=1.
Read line by line these triangles form the following sequences in the OEIS: