On congruences related to central binomial coefficients

Zhi-Wei Sun

Published 2009-11-12, updated 2011-08-02Version 16

It is known that $\sum_{k=0}^\infty\binom{2k}{k}/((2k+1)4^k)=\pi/2$ and $\sum_{k=0}^\infty\binom{2k}{k}/((2k+1)16^k)=\pi/3$. In this paper we obtain their p-adic analogues such as $$\sum_{p/2<k<p}\binom{2k}{k}/((2k+1)4^k)=3\sum_{p/2<k<p}\binom{2k}{k}/((2k+1)16^k)= pE_{p-3} (mod p^2),$$ where p>3 is a prime and E_0,E_1,E_2,... are Euler numbers. Besides these, we also deduce some other congruences related to central binomial coefficients. In addition, we pose some conjectures one of which states that for any odd prime p we have $$\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}\binom{2k}{k}^3=4x^2-2p (mod p^2)$$ if (p/7)=1 and p=x^2+7y^2 with x,y integers, and $$\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}\binom{2k}{k}^3=0 (mod p^2)$$ if (p/7)=-1, i.e., p=3,5,6 (mod 7).