On identities of the Rogers-Ramanujan type

A generalized Bailey pair, which contains several special cases considered by Bailey (Proc. London Math. Soc. (2), 50, 421–435 (1949)), is derived and used to find a number of new Rogers-Ramanujan type identities. Consideration of associated q-difference equations points to a connection with a mild extension of Gordon’s combinatorial generalization of the Rogers-Ramanujan identities (Amer. J. Math., 83, 393–399 (1961)). This, in turn, allows the formulation of natural combinatorial interpretations of many of the identities in Slater’s list (Proc. London Math. Soc. (2) 54, 147–167 (1952)), as well as the new identities presented here. A list of 26 new double sum–product Rogers-Ramanujan type identities are included as an Appendix. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification Primary—11B65; Secondary—11P81, 05A19, 39A13