Determinants and Compositions of Natural Numbers

Abstract: We consider a particular type of matrices which belong at the same time to the class of Hessenberg and Toeplitz matrices, and whose determinants are equal to the number of a type of compositions of natural numbers. We prove a formula in which the number of weak compositions with a fixed number of zeroes is expressed in terms of the number of compositions without zeroes. Then we find a relationship between weak compositions and coefficients of characteristic polynomials of appropriate matrices. Finally, we prove three explicit formulas for weak compositions of a special kind.