Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2020
For positive integers $n$ and $k$, let $r_{k}(n)$ denote the number of representations of $n$ as a sum of $k$ squares, where representations with different orders and different signs are counted as distinct. For a given positive integer $m$, by means of some properties of binomial coefficients, we derive some infinite families of congruences for $r_{k}(n)$ modulo $2^{m}$. Furthermore, in view of these arithmetic properties of $r_{k}(n)$, we establish many infinite families of congruences for the overpartition function and the overpartition pair function.
Communicated by M. Coons
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China, the Natural Science Foundation for Young Scientists of Qinghai Province and Outstanding Chinese, and the Foreign Youth Exchange Program of the China Association of Science and Technology.