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I am trying to solve the following recurrence relation

$4 \leq n \;\; \; \; \; \;$ and $\; \; \; \; 2\leq i \leq \lfloor{\frac{n}{2}}\rfloor$

$F(2i,n)=$ $\begin{cases} \frac{1}{2(2i)-5}F(2i-2,2i-1),& \text{if } n=2i\text{, } i\geq3\\ \frac{n}{2n-5}F(4,n-1)=\frac{n!*3}{4!(2n-5)!!},& \text{if } i=2 \text{, } n\geq5\\ \frac{2i+n-4}{2n-5}F(2i,n-1)+\frac{n-2i+1}{2n-5}F(2i-2,n-1),& \text{otherwise} \end{cases}$

$F(4,4)=1$

I don't know how to solve a conditional recurrence relation, and I didn't find anything useful about it. any sugestion would be really helpful.

What I did up to now, as the first two conditions and also f(4,4) are initial and special case of the third condition, I only tried to solve the third one without any initial condition, I used generating function. But now I don’t know how to consider the other conditions and even whether the idea of solving the only third one alone was a good idea or not.

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  • $\begingroup$ What does it mean to solve it? A closed-form formula seems a priori unlikely, unless you have some reason to think it exists. (Also, is this an exercise? If so, then it doesn't belong here. If not, then how does such a recurrence arise?) $\endgroup$
    – LSpice
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 17:15
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you so much for your comment, still I am trying to get the closed formula, it is part of a project, the recurrence come from calculating a conditional expectation, we need to get the closed form for further analysis. My problem is with condition function here, how to consider the changing initial condition, the initial of one variable depends on the other variable, it seems like there is something we can do to spin this. $\endgroup$
    – Fatemeh
    Commented Jul 16, 2020 at 14:29
  • $\begingroup$ I strongly believe in the second case, it was meant to be "if $i=2$" - I took a liberty to edit it. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 17, 2020 at 18:06

1 Answer 1

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Under the assumption that $F(2i,n) = 0$ when $i<4$ or $2i>n$, the first and second cases in the recurrence become partial cases of the third one. Hence, the recurrence reduces to $$F(2i,n) = \begin{cases} 1, & \text{if } i=2,\ n=4;\\ 0, & \text{if } i<2\text{ or } 2i>n;\\ \frac{2i+n-4}{2n-5}F(2i,n-1)+\frac{n-2i+1}{2n-5}F(2i-2,n-1) & \text{otherwise}. \end{cases} $$

Consider the generating function $$f(x,y) := \sum_{i\geq 2} \sum_{n\geq 2i} F(2i,n) x^{n+2i-8} y^{n-2i+1}.$$

Then the first two cases imply $f(x,0) = 0$ and $f(0,y)=y$.

Now, the third case translates into a linear PDE: $$\frac{\partial}{\partial x} (x^2\cdot f(x,y)) + xy\frac{\partial}{\partial y} f(x,y) = 3xy + \frac{y}{x^2}\frac{\partial}{\partial x} (x^5\cdot f(x,y)) + x^4y\frac{\partial}{\partial y} (y^{-1}\cdot f(x,y)),$$ which simplifies to $$(x^2y^2-xy)f_x + (x^3y - y^2)f_y = (2y+x^3-5xy^2)f - 3y^2.$$

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you very much. $\endgroup$
    – Fatemeh
    Commented Jul 26, 2020 at 19:16

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