Number of partitions of a number into distinct parts.

integer-partitionsnumber theory

Let $\pi$ be the partition of $n=a_1+a_2+…+a_r$, where $a_1\geq a_2 \geq ….\geq a_r\gt0$. Prove that number of partition $\pi$ of $n$ with $a_r=1$ and $a_j-a_{j+1}$ = 0 or 1 for $1\leq j\leq r-1$ equals $p^d (n)$, i.e the number of partitions of n into distinct parts.

What i have so Far:

I can see that since $a_r=1$ and $a_j-a_{j+1}$=0 or 1 so putting j = r-1 we have $a_{r-1}=1$. Similarly all $a_j$ must be 1.This implies that no two $a_j$ are equal. Please help

Best Answer

Set $$\epsilon_j=a_j-a_{j+1} \quad \text{ for } \quad 1\leq j\leq r-1.$$ Then we have
$$ a_{r-j}=1+\epsilon_{r-1}+\cdots +\epsilon_{r-j} \quad \text{ for } \quad 1\leq j\leq r-1,$$ so $$ n=r+(r-1)\epsilon_{r-1}+ (r-2)\epsilon_{r-2}+\cdots +2\epsilon_2+\epsilon_1 $$ defines a partition of $n$ with all distinct parts (ignoring the summands with $\epsilon_j=0$) and highest part being $r$. The correspondence thus defined is bijective: follow the same steps in reverse order.

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