aDepartment of Mathematics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA;bResearch Institute for Symbolic Computation, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenberger Str. 69, A-4040 Linz, Austria
Abstract:
We provide a new proof of Stembridge's theorem which validated the Totally Symmetric Plane Partitions (TSPP) Conjecture. The overall strategy of our proof follows the same general pattern of determinant evaluation as discussed by the first named author in a series of papers. The resulting hypergeometric multiple sum identities turn out to be quite complicated. Their correctness is proved by applying new algorithmic methods from symbolic summation.