Symbolic method (combinatorics)

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lantonov (talk | contribs) at 10:02, 3 November 2007 (clean up using AWB). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Analytic combinatorics is a branch of combinatorics that describes combinatorial classes using generating functions, which are often analytic functions, but sometimes formal power series.

Two types of generating functions are commonly used — ordinary and exponential generating functions.

An important technique for deriving generating functions is symbolic combinatorics.

Given a generating function, analytic combinatorics attempts to describe the asymptotic behavior of a counting sequence using algebraic techniques. This often involves analysis of the function's singularities.