The th central trinomial coefficient is defined as the coefficient of in the expansion of . It is therefore the middle column of the trinomial triangle, i.e., the trinomial coefficient . The first few central trinomial coefficients for , 2, ... are 1, 3, 7, 19, 51, 141, 393, ... (Sloane's A002426).
The central trinomial coefficient is also gives the number of permutations of symbols, each , 0, or 1, which sum to 0. For example, there are seven such permutations of three symbols: , , , , and , , .
The generating function is given by
The central trinomial coefficients are given by the recurrence equation
 |
(3) |
with , but cannot be expressed as a fixed number of hypergeometric terms (Petkovšek et al. 1996, p. 160).
The coefficients satisfy the congruence
 |
(4) |
(T. D. Noe, pers. comm., Mar. 15, 2005) and
 |
(5) |
for a prime, which is easy to show using Fermat's little theorem (T. D. Noe, pers. comm., Oct. 26, 2005).
Sum are given by
Closed form include
where is a Gegenbauer polynomial, is a Legendre polynomial, and is a regularized hypergeometric function.
The numbers of prime factors (with multiplicity) for , 2, ... are 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 2, 2, 3, 2, ... (Sloane's A102445). is therefore prime for , 3, and 4, with no others for (E. W. Weisstein, Mar. 14, 2005). It has apparently not been proved that no prime central trinomials exist. Moreover, a more general unproven conjecture states that there are no prime trinomial coefficients except these three central trinomials and all trinomials of the form .
A plot of the central trinomial coefficient in the complex plane is given above.
Considering instead the coefficient of in the expansion of for , 2, ... gives the corresponding sequence , , 5, , , 41, , , 365, , ... (Sloane's A098331), with closed form
 |
(14) |
where is a Gegenbauer polynomial. These numbers are prime for , 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 26, 160, 3787, ... (Sloane's A112874), with no others for (E. W. Weisstein, Mar. 7, 2005).
|