Double factorial

In mathematics, the double factorial or semifactorial of a

number n(denoted by n!!) is the product of all the integers from 1 up
to n that have the same parity (odd or even) as n.[1] That is,

(A consequence of this definition is that 0!! = 1, as an empty product.)

Therefore, for even n the double factorial is

The fifteen different chord diagrams on six points, or

equivalently the fifteen different perfect matchings on a six-
vertex complete graph. These are counted by the double
factorial 15 = (6 − 1)!!.

and for odd n it is

For example, 9!! = 9 × 7 × 5 × 3 × 1 = 945.

The double factorial should not be confused with the factorial function iterated twice, which is written as (n!)! and not n!!.

The sequence of double factorials for even n = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8,... starts as

1, 2, 8, 48, 384, 3840, 46080, 645120,... (sequence A000165 in the OEIS)

The sequence of double factorials for odd n = 1, 3, 5, 7, 9,... starts as

1, 3, 15, 105, 945, 10395, 135135,... (sequence A001147 in the OEIS)

Meserve (1948)[2] (possibly the earliest publication to use double factorial notation)[3] states that the double factorial was
originally introduced in order to simplify the expression of certain trigonometric integrals arising in the derivation of the Wallis
product. Double factorials also arise in expressing the volume of a hypersphere, and they have many applications in enumerative
combinatorics.[1][4] They occur in Student's t-distribution (1908), though Gosset did not use the double exclamation point
notation.

The term odd factorial is sometimes used for the double factorial of an odd number.[5] [6]

Contents
Relation to the factorial
Applications in enumerative combinatorics
Extensions
Negative arguments
Complex arguments
Additional identities
Generalizations
Definitions
Alternative extension of the multifactorial
Generalized Stirling numbers expanding the multifactorial functions
Exact finite sums involving multiple factorial functions
References
External links

Relation to the factorial

Because the double factorial only involves about half the factors of the ordinary factorial, its value is not substantially larger than
the square root of the factorial n!, and it is much smaller than the iterated factorial (n!)!.
The factorial of a non-zero n may be written as the product of two double factorials:

and therefore

where the denominator cancels the unwanted factors in the numerator. (The last form also applies when n = 0.)

For an even positive integer n = 2k, k ≥ 0, the double factorial may be expressed as

Combining these two, For odd n = 2k − 1, k ≥ 1, the double factorial may be written

For an odd positive integer n = 2k − 1, k ≥ 1, the double factorial may be expressed in terms of k-permutations of 2k as[1][3]

Applications in enumerative combinatorics

Double factorials are motivated by the fact that they occur frequently
in enumerative combinatorics and other settings. For instance, n!! for odd values
of n counts

Perfect matchings of the complete graph Kn + 1 for odd n. In such a graph,

any single vertex v has n possible choices of vertex that it can be matched
to, and once this choice is made the remaining problem is one of selecting a
perfect matching in a complete graph with two fewer vertices. For instance, a
complete graph with four vertices a, b, c, and d has three perfect
matchings: ab and cd, ac and bd, and ad and bc.[1] Perfect matchings may
be described in several other equivalent ways, including involutions without
fixed points on a set of n + 1 items (permutations in which each cycle is a The fifteen different rooted binary trees (with
pair)[1] or chord diagrams (sets of chords of a set of n + 1 points evenly unordered children) on a set of four labeled
spaced on a circle such that each point is the endpoint of exactly one chord, leaves, illustrating 15 = (2 × 4 − 3)!! (see article
also called Brauerdiagrams).[4][7][8] The numbers of matchings in complete text).
graphs, without constraining the matchings to be perfect, are instead given
by the telephone numbers, which may be expressed as a summation
involving double factorials.[9]
Stirling permutations, permutations of the multiset of numbers 1, 1, 2, 2, ..., k, k in which each pair of equal numbers is
n+1
separated only by larger numbers, where k =
2 . The two copies of k must be adjacent; removing them from the
permutation leaves a permutation in which the maximum element is k − 1, with n positions into which the adjacent pair
of kvalues may be placed. From this recursive construction, a proof that the Stirling permutations are counted by the double
permutations follows by induction.[1] Alternatively, instead of the restriction that values between a pair may be larger than it,
one may also consider the permutations of this multiset in which the first copies of each pair appear in sorted order; such a
permutation defines a matching on the 2k positions of the permutation, so again the number of permutations may be
counted by the double permutations.[4]
Heap-ordered trees, trees with k + 1 nodes labeled 0, 1, 2, ... k, such that the root of the tree has label 0, each other node
has a larger label than its parent, and such that the children of each node have a fixed ordering. An Euler tour of the tree
(with doubled edges) gives a Stirling permutation, and every Stirling permutation represents a tree in this way.[1][10]
n+5
Unrooted binary trees with 2 labeled leaves. Each such tree may be formed from a tree with one fewer leaf, by
subdividing one of the n tree edges and making the new vertex be the parent of a new leaf.
n+3
Rooted binary trees with
2 labeled leaves. This case is similar to the unrooted case, but the number of edges that can be
subdivided is even, and in addition to subdividing an edge it is possible to add a node to a tree with one fewer leaf by adding
a new root whose two children are the smaller tree and the new leaf.[1][4]

Callan (2009) and Dale & Moon (1993) list several additional objects with the same counting sequence, including "trapezoidal
words" (numerals in a mixed radix system with increasing odd radixes), height-labeled Dyck paths, height-labeled ordered trees,
"overhang paths", and certain vectors describing the lowest-numbered leaf descendant of each node in a rooted binary tree.
For bijective proofs that some of these objects are equinumerous, see Rubey (2008) and Marsh & Martin (2011).[11][12]
The even double factorials give the numbers of elements of the hyperoctahedral groups (signed permutations or symmetries of
a hypercube)

Extensions

Negative arguments

The ordinary factorial, when extended to the gamma function, has a pole at each negative integer, preventing the factorial from
being defined at these numbers. However, the double factorial of odd numbers may be extended to any negative odd integer
argument by inverting its recurrence relation

to give

Using this inverted recurrence, −1!! = 1, −3!! = −1, and −5!! = 31 ; negative odd numbers with greater magnitude have fractional
double factorials.[1] In particular, this gives, when n is an odd number,

Complex arguments

Disregarding the above definition of n!! for even values of n, the double factorial for odd integers can be extended to most real
and complex numbers z by noting that when z is a positive odd integer then[13][14]

From this one can derive an alternative definition of z!! for non-negative even integer values of z:

with the value for 0!! in this case being

The expression found for z!! is defined for all complex numbers except the negative even integers. Using it as the definition,
the volume of an n-dimensional hypersphere of radius R can be expressed as[15]

Additional identities
For integer values of n,

Using instead the extension of the double factorial of odd numbers to complex numbers, the formula is
Double factorials can also be used to evaluate integrals of more complicated trigonometric polynomials.[2][16]

Double factorials of odd numbers are related to the gamma function by the identity:

Some additional identities involving double factorials of odd numbers are:[1]

An approximation for the ratio of the double factorial of two consecutive integers is

This approximation gets more accurate as n increases.

Generalizations

Definitions

In the same way that the double factorial generalizes the notion of the single factorial, the following definition of the integer-
valued multiple factorial functions (multifactorials), or α-factorial functions, extends the notion of the double factorial function
for α ∈ ℤ+:

Alternative extension of the multifactorial

Alternatively, the multifactorial n!(α) can be extended to most real and complex numbers n by noting that when n is one more
than a positive multiple of α then

This last expression is defined much more broadly than the original. In the same way that n! is not defined for negative integers,
and n!! is not defined for negative even integers, n!(α) is not defined for negative multiples of α. However, it is defined for all
other complex numbers. This definition is consistent with the earlier definition only for those integers n satisfying n ≡ 1 mod α.

In addition to extending n!(α) to most complex numbers n, this definition has the feature of working for all positive real values
of α. Furthermore, when α = 1, this definition is mathematically equivalent to the Π(n) function, described above. Also,
when α = 2, this definition is mathematically equivalent to the alternative extension of the double factorial.

Generalized Stirling numbers expanding the multifactorial functions

A class of generalized Stirling numbers of the first kind is defined for α > 0 by the following triangular recurrence relation:
These generalized α-factorial coefficients then generate the distinct symbolic polynomial products defining the multiple
factorial, or α-factorial functions, (x − 1)!(α), as

The distinct polynomial expansions in the previous equations actually define the α-factorial products for multiple distinct cases
of the least residues x ≡ n0 mod α for n0 ∈ {0, 1, 2, ..., α − 1}.

(α) (1)
The generalized α-factorial polynomials, σn (x) where σn (x) ≡ σn(x), which generalize the Stirling convolution
polynomialsfrom the single factorial case to the multifactorial cases, are defined by

for 0 ≤ n ≤ x. These polynomials have a particularly nice closed-form ordinary generating function given by

Other combinatorial properties and expansions of these generalized α-factorial triangles and polynomial sequences are
considered in Schmidt (2010).[17]

Exact finite sums involving multiple factorial functions

Suppose that n ≥ 1 and α ≥ 2 are integer-valued. Then we can expand the next single finite sums involving the multifactorial,
or α-factorial functions, (αn − 1)!(α), in terms of the Pochhammer symbol and the generalized, rational-valued binomial
coefficientsas

and moreover, we similarly have double sum expansions of these functions given by

The first two sums above are similar in form to a known non-round combinatorial identity for the double factorial function
when α := 2 given by Callan (2009).

Additional finite sum expansions of congruences for the α-factorial functions, (αn − d)!(α), modulo any prescribed
integer h ≥ 2for any 0 ≤ d < α are given by Schmidt (2017).[18]

References
1. Callan, David (2009). "A combinatorial survey of identities for the double factorial". arXiv:0906.1317 [math.CO].
 2. Meserve, B. E. (1948). "Classroom Notes: Double Factorials". The American Mathematical Monthly. 55 (7): 425–
426. doi:10.2307/2306136. JSTOR 2306136. MR 1527019.
3. Gould, Henry; Quaintance, Jocelyn (2012). "Double fun with double factorials". Mathematics Magazine. 85 (3): 177–
192. doi:10.4169/math.mag.85.3.177. MR 2924154.
4. Dale, M. R. T.; Moon, J. W. (1993). "The permuted analogues of three Catalan sets". Journal of Statistical Planning and
Inference. 34 (1): 75–87. doi:10.1016/0378-3758(93)90035-5. MR 1209991.
5. Henderson, Daniel J.; Parmeter, Christopher F. (2012). "Canonical higher-order kernels for density derivative
estimation". Statistics & Probability Letters. 82 (7): 1383–1387. doi:10.1016/j.spl.2012.03.013. MR 2929790.
6. Nielsen, B. (1999). "The likelihood-ratio test for rank in bivariate canonical correlation analysis". Biometrika. 86 (2): 279–
288. doi:10.1093/biomet/86.2.279. MR 1705359.
7. Kitaev, Sergey (2011). Patterns in Permutations and Words. EATCS Monographs in Theoretical Computer Science. Springer.
p. 96. ISBN 9783642173332.
8. Dale, M. R. T.; Narayana, T. V. (1986). "A partition of Catalan permuted sequences with applications". Journal of Statistical
Planning and Inference. 14 (2): 245–249. doi:10.1016/0378-3758(86)90161-8. MR 0852528.
9. Tichy, Robert F.; Wagner, Stephan (2005). "Extremal problems for topological indices in combinatorial
chemistry" (PDF). Journal of Computational Biology. 12 (7): 1004–1013. doi:10.1089/cmb.2005.12.1004.
10. Janson, Svante (2008). "Plane recursive trees, Stirling permutations and an urn model". Fifth Colloquium on Mathematics
and Computer Science. Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci. Proc., AI. Assoc. Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci., Nancy.
pp. 541–547. arXiv:0803.1129. Bibcode:2008arXiv0803.1129J. MR 2508813.
11. Rubey, Martin (2008). "Nestings of matchings and permutations and north steps in PDSAWs". 20th Annual International
Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC 2008). Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci. Proc.,
AJ. Assoc. Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci., Nancy. pp. 691–704. MR 2721495.
12. Marsh, Robert J.; Martin, Paul (2011). "Tiling bijections between paths and Brauer diagrams". Journal of Algebraic
Combinatorics. 33 (3): 427–453. arXiv:0906.0912. doi:10.1007/s10801-010-0252-6. MR 2772541.
13. Hassani, Sadri (2000). Mathematical Methods: For Students of Physics and Related Fields. Undergraduate Texts in
Mathematics. Springer. p. 266. ISBN 9780387989587.
14. "Double factorial: Specific values (formula 06.02.03.0005)". Wolfram Research. 2001-10-29. Retrieved 2013-03-23.
15. Mezey, Paul G. (2009). "Some dimension problems in molecular databases". Journal of Mathematical Chemistry. 45 (1): 1–
6. doi:10.1007/s10910-008-9365-8.
16. Dassios, George; Kiriaki, Kiriakie (1987). "A useful application of Gauss theorem". Bulletin de la Société Mathématique de
Grèce. 28 (A): 40–43. MR 0935868.
17. Schmidt, Maxie D. (2010). "Generalized j-Factorial Functions, Polynomials, and Applications". J. Integer Seq. 13.
18. Schmidt, Maxie D. (2017). "New Congruences and Finite Difference Equations for Generalized Factorial
Functions". arXiv:1701.04741 [math.CO].

External links
Weisstein, Eric W. "Double Factorial". MathWorld.