MacMahon's Partition Analysis VI: A New Reduction Algorithm

Abstract

In his famous book "Combinatory Analysis" MacMahon introduced Partition Analysis as a computational method for solving combinatorial problems in connection with systems of linear diophantine inequalities and equations. By developing the Omega package we have shown that Partition Analysis is ideally suited for being supplemented by computer algebra methods. The object of this paper is to present a significant algorithmic improvement of this package. It overcomes a problem related to the computational treatment of roots of unity. Moreover, this new reduction strategy turns out to be superior to "The Method of Elliott" which is described in MacMahon's book. In order to make this article as self-contained as possible we give a brief introduction to Partition Analysis together with a variety of illustrative examples. For instance, the generating function of magic pentagrams is computed.