Bulgarian Solitaire: A new representation for depth generating functions

Abstract

Bulgarian Solitaire is an interesting self-map on the set of integer partitions of a fixed number $n$. As a finite dynamical system, its long-term behavior is well-understood, having recurrent orbits parametrized by necklaces of beads with two colors black $B$ and white $W$. However, the behavior of the transient elements within each orbit is much less understood. Recent work of Pham considered the orbits corresponding to a family of necklaces $P^\ell$ that are concatenations of $\ell$ copies of a fixed primitive necklace $P$. She proved striking limiting behavior as $\ell$ goes to infinity: the level statistic for the orbit, counting how many steps it takes a partition to reach the recurrent cycle, has a limiting distribution, whose generating function $H_p(x)$ is rational. Pham also conjectured that $H_P(x), H_{P^*}(x)$ share the same denominator whenever $P^*$ is obtained from $P$ by reading it backwards and swapping $B$ for $W$. Here we introduce a new representation of Bulgarian Solitaire that is convenient for the study of these generating functions. We then use it to prove two instances of Pham's conjecture, showing that $$H_{BWBWB \cdots WB}(x)=H_{WBWBW \cdots BW}(x)$$ and that $H_{BWWW\cdots W}(x),H_{WBBB\cdots B}(x)$ share the same denominator.