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Algebra Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Find the answer

Find (in terms of n1n \geq 1) the number of terms with odd coefficients after expanding the product: 1i<jn(xi+xj)\prod_{1 \leq i<j \leq n}\left(x_{i}+x_{j}\right)

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

Note that if we take (mod2)(\bmod 2), we get that 1i<jn(xi+xj)1i<jn(xjxi)=det(M)\prod_{1 \leq i<j \leq n}\left(x_{i}+x_{j}\right) \equiv \prod_{1 \leq i<j \leq n}\left(x_{j}-x_{i}\right)=\operatorname{det}(M) where MM is the matrix with Mij=xij1M_{ij}=x_{i}^{j-1}. This is called a Vandermonde determinant. Expanding this determinant using the formula det(M)=σi=1nxσ(i)i1\operatorname{det}(M)=\sum_{\sigma} \prod_{i=1}^{n} x_{\sigma(i)}^{i-1} where the sum if over all nn! permutations σ\sigma, gives the result.

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Source: Omni-MATH, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.