Ballantine–Burson–Craig–Folsom–Wen hook-count conjecture

From papers

Let at(n)a_t(n) be the total number of tt-hooks in all partitions of nn into odd parts, and let bt(n)b_t(n) be the total number of tt-hooks in all partitions of nn into distinct parts. For n1n\geq 1, one has t1at(n)=t1bt(n)\sum_{t\geq 1}a_t(n)=\sum_{t\geq 1}b_t(n), and Andrews's inequality gives a1(n)b1(n)a_1(n)\geq b_1(n). Ballantine–Burson–Craig–Folsom–Wen conjecture. For every integer t2t\geq 2,

at(n)bt(n)as n.a_t(n)-b_t(n)\to\infty \quad\text{as }n\to\infty.

The conjecture reverses Andrews's inequality for every hook length t>1t>1 in the asymptotic sense. It was proved for t=2,3t=2,3 by Ballantine, Burson, Craig, Folsom, and Wen, and the remaining cases were settled by Craig, Dawsey, and Han.

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Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Aritram Dhar, Byungchan Kim, Eunmi Kim and Ae Ja Yee, “Inequalities for the number of t-hooks in two partition classes arising from sum-product identities”, arXiv:2603.01112 (2026).

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