Asymptotics of partial sums of central binomial coefficients and Catalan numbers

Sandro Mattarei

Published 2009-06-23, updated 2010-01-13Version 3

We prove exact asymptotic expansions for the partial sums of the sequences of central binomial coefficients and Catalan numbers, $\sum_{k=0}^n \binom{2k}{k}$ and $\sum_{k=0}^n C_n$. We also obtain closed forms for the polynomials $\sum_{k=0}^{q-1}\binom{2k}{k}x^k$ and $\sum_{k=0}^{q-1}C_kx^k$ over the field of $p$ elements, where $q$ is a power of the prime $p$.