TITLE: Why does $\sum_{p=1}^n \exp\left(\frac{i\pi p l}{2m}\right)/\prod_{k=1,k\neq p}^n\sin\left(\frac{\pi (k-p)}{2m}\right)$ vanish?
QUESTION [15 upvotes]: While trying to prove some identities for generating functions, I ended up needing to show that 
$$\sum_{p=1}^n \exp\left(\frac{i\pi p l}{2m}\right)\prod_{\substack{k=1\\k\neq p}}^n\frac{1}{\sin\left(\frac{\pi (k-p)}{2m}\right)} \stackrel{?}{=} 0$$
for integers $m \geq 1$, $2\leq n\leq 2m$, and $l = -n+2,-n+4,\ldots n-2$. Is this identity known? I have checked it to be valid for small values, but so far I have been unable to prove the general case.

REPLY [16 votes]: Let us consider the case when $n$ is odd. Let $$P(x):=\exp\left(\frac{ixl}{2}\right)\left(\exp\left(\frac{ix}{2}\right)-\exp\left(\frac{-ix}{2}\right)\right),$$
and notice that the degree of $P$ as an exponential polynomial equals $$\max\left(\left|\frac{l+1}{2}\right|,\left|\frac{l-1}{2}\right|\right)\leq\frac{n-1}{2}.$$ Therefore this is the unique trigonometric polynomial of degree at most $\frac{n-1}{2}$ passing through any given $n$ distinct points. Let these given points be $x_p=\frac{\pi p}{m}$ for $p\in \{1,\dots,n\}$. Then, the trigonometric version of Lagrange's interpolation formula tells us that $P(x)$ can be written as 
$$P(x)=\sum _{p=1}^n P(x_p)\prod_{\substack{k=1\\k\neq p}}^n\frac{\sin\frac{1}{2}(x_k-x)}{\sin\frac{1}{2}(x_k-x_p)}.$$
By plugging $x=0$ we obtain
$$0=\sum _{p=1}^n  \exp\left(\frac{i\pi p l}{2m}\right)2i\prod_{k=1}^n\sin\left(\frac{\pi k}{2m}\right)\prod_{\substack{k=1\\k\neq p}}^n\frac{1}{\sin\left(\frac{\pi (k-p)}{2m}\right)},$$
and by dividing by the middle factors the OP's identity follows.
The case of even $n$ can be done similarly.