How do you find the number of unique parts in a partition of an integer $n$ into $k$ parts

combinationscombinatoricsinteger-partitions

Suppose I have an integer $n$ and I partition it into $k$ parts. The number of ways this can be done is given by $P(n,k)$, and it satisfies the recurrence relation:

$P(n,k) = P(n-1,k-1) + P(n-k,k)$

Now, I'm interested in finding the number of unique parts for a partition of integers into $k$ parts. Suppose $E(n,k)$ denotes this number. For example, when $n=6$ and $k=4$, the unique partitions are:

$3+1+1+1$

$2+2+1+1$

and so $P(6,4)=2$. Each partition has two unique parts, ($\{3,1\}$ for the first, $\{2,1\}$ for the second) giving us $E(6,4)=2+2=4$. I'm looking for a formula or recurrence relation for this quantity, or at least a tight upper bound for it. How do I go about in solving this problem? Thank you.

Best Answer

Consider the generating function $f(x,y,z)=\sum_{nkl}f_{nkl}x^ny^kz^l$, where $f_{nkl}$ is the number of partitions of $n$ into $k$ parts of which $l$ are distinct. This is

\begin{eqnarray} f(x,y,z) &=& \prod_{j=1}^\infty\left(1+z\left(yx^j+\left(yx^j\right)^2+\cdots\right)\right) \\ &=& \prod_{j=1}^\infty\left(1+z\left(\frac1{1-yx^j}-1\right)\right)\;. \end{eqnarray}

Then

\begin{eqnarray} E(n,k) &=& \sum_llf_{nkl} \\ &=& \left[x^ny^k\right]\left.\frac\partial{\partial z}f(x,y,z)\right|_{z=1} \\ &=& \left[x^ny^k\right]\sum_{m=1}^\infty yx^m\prod_{j=1}^\infty\frac1{1-yx^j} \\ &=& \left[x^ny^{k-1}\right]\sum_{m=1}^\infty x^m\prod_{j=1}^\infty\frac1{1-yx^j} \\ &=& \left[x^ny^{k-1}\right]\sum_{m=1}^\infty x^m\sum_{r,s}P(r,s)x^ry^s \\ &=& \left[x^n\right]\sum_{m=1}^\infty x^m\sum_{r=0}^\infty P(r,k-1)x^r \\ &=& \sum_{r=k-1}^{n-1}P(r,k-1)\;. \end{eqnarray}

This implies the recurrence relation

$$ E(n,k)=E(n-1,k)+P(n-1,k-1)\;. $$

This is OEIS sequence A092905, and that entry provides the recurrence relation

$$ E(n,k)=\sum_{j=0}^kE(n-k,j)\;. $$

Note that this implies that $E(k+m,k)$ is independent of $k$ for $k\ge m$, so if you arrange the values of $E(n,k)$ in a triangular array, each diagonal $E(k+m,k)$ is eventually constant.