Binomial Sum with Power of index

binomial theoremcombinatoricssummation

Let $n,m \in \mathbb{N}$ and $x,y \in \mathbb{R}^+$. I need to find either the exact solution or a tight lower bound for the following sum:

$\sum_{k=0}^{n} {n \choose k} x^k y^{n-k} k^m$

For $m=0$ the solution is the Binomial Theorem $(x+y)^n$. The case for $m=1$ can be obtained by differentiation on $x$ which gives $nx(x+y)^{n-1}$. If I do this iteratively it starts getting troublesome and I don't know how to generalize the formula for the $m$th case.

Originally I got this sum for the case where $x = 1 – y$ and $x,y \in [0,1]$. But I think that the general case should have a known formula.

Best Answer

Let ${n \brace k}$ denote the $(n,k)^{th}$ Stirling number of the second kind. Using the well-known identity $$ k^m=\sum_{j=0}^m {m \brace j}\frac{k!}{(k-j)!}, $$ we have $$ \begin{align} \sum_{k=0}^n \binom{n}k k^m x^k y^{n-k} &= \sum_{k=0}^n \binom{n}k x^k y^{n-k}\sum_{j=1}^m {m\brace j}\frac{k!}{(k-j)!} \\&= \sum_{j=1}^m\frac{n!}{(n-j)!}{m \brace j}\sum_{k=0}^n \binom{n-j}{k-j}x^ky^{n-k} \\&= \sum_{j=1}^m \frac{n!}{(n-j)!}{m \brace j}x^j(x+y)^{n-j} \end{align} $$ In the special case where $y=1-x$ that you mentioned, this simplifies a bit more to $$ \sum_{j=1}^m \frac{n!}{(n-j)!}{m \brace j}x^j $$ In this special case, the summation is also equal to the $m^{th}$ binomial moment. That is, it is the expected value of $X^m$ when $X$ has the $\text{Binomial}(n,x)$ distribution. There's some more info about these moments on Wikipedia, including an upper bound, but no lower bound.

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