A Combinatorial Identity with Application to Catalan Numbers 3

l k=0 (−1) m−k l k m − k n 2k k − 2l + m = l k=0 l k 2k n n − l m + n − 3k − l. On the basis of this identity, for d ∈ {0, 1, 2,. .. } and ε ∈ {0, ±1} we construct explicit f ε (d) and g ε (d) such that for any prime p > d we have p−1 k=1 k ε C k+d ≡ f ε (d) if p ≡ 1 (mod 3), g ε (d) if p ≡ 2 (mod 3), where C n denotes the Catalan number 1 n+1 2n n ; for example, if p 5 is a prime then 0<k<p−4 C k+4 k ≡ 503/30 (mod p) if p ≡ 1 (mod 3), −100/3 (mod p) if p ≡ 2 (mod 3). This paper also contains some new recurrence relations for Catalan numbers.