Lattice and Schröder paths with periodic boundaries

We consider paths in the plane with (1,0), (0,1), and (a,b)-steps that start at the origin, end at height n, and stay strictly to the left of a given non-decreasing right boundary. We show that if the boundary is periodic and has slope at most b/a, then the ordinary generating function for the number of such paths ending at height n is algebraic. Our argument is in two parts. We use a simple combinatorial decomposition to obtain an Appell relation or “umbral” generating function, in which the power zn is replaced by a power series of the form znφn(z), where φn(0)=1. Then we convert (in an explicit way) the umbral generating function to an ordinary generating function by solving a system of linear equations and a polynomial equation. This conversion implies that the ordinary generating function is algebraic. We give several concrete examples, including an alternative way to solve the tennis ball problem.