arXiv subjects

Alejandro H. Morales

Publications and source records attributed to Alejandro H. Morales.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Ehrhart positivity for lattice path matroids

We prove that all lattice path matroids are Ehrhart positive. This unifies and generalizes numerous results on the Ehrhart positivity of matroids developed over the last two decades. We rely on our previous work on the positivity of order polynomials of fences. Our main result supports the conjecture by Ferroni, Jochemko, and Schröter (2022) on the Ehrhart positivity of positroids. Furthermore, our main result implies that all Schubert matroids are Ehrhart positive, which thus settles a conjecture by Fan and Li (2024), and shows Newton polytopes of certain Schubert and key polynomials are Ehrhart positive.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Chromatic symmetric functions of claw-free graphs are not Schur positive

Chromatic symmetric functions are well-studied symmetric functions in algebraic combinatorics that generalize chromatic polynomials of graphs. In 1995, Stanley introduced these symmetric functions and conjectured that they are Schur positive for claw-free graphs. We give examples of a line graphs, which are thus claw-free, whose chromatic symmetric function have a negative coefficient in its Schur expansion. We also give a counterexample to the 2018 conjecture of Monical that Schur positive chromatic symmetric functions have saturated Newton polytope when expanded in any finite number of variables. Both of these examples were found using ChatGPT-5.6 Sol Pro.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Skew shapes, Ehrhart positivity and beyond

A classical result by Kreweras (1965) allows one to compute the number of plane partitions of a given skew shape and bounded parts as certain determinants. We prove that these determinants expand as polynomials with nonnegative coefficients. This result can be reformulated in terms of order polynomials of cell posets of skew shapes, and explains important positivity phenomena about the Ehrhart polynomials of shard polytopes, matroids, and order polytopes. Among other applications, we generalize a positivity statement from Schubert calculus by Fomin and Kirillov (1997) from straight shapes to skew shapes. We show that all shard polytopes are Ehrhart positive and, stronger, that all fence posets, including the zig-zag poset, and all circular fence posets have order polynomials with nonnegative coefficients. We discuss a general method for proving positivity which reduces to showing positivity of the linear terms of the order polynomials. We propose positivity conjectures on other relevant classes of posets.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Luck and magic for Pitman-Stanley polytopes and parking functions

Motivated by the combinatorics of parking functions and their several generalizations, we study the Ehrhart theory of Pitman--Stanley polytopes. We prove a strong positivity phenomenon called \emph{magic positivity} for the Ehrhart polynomials of these polytopes, which in turn implies that their $h^*$-polynomials are real-rooted (and thus log-concave and unimodal). Our result is achieved by interpreting the coefficients of these Ehrhart polynomials in the \emph{magic basis} in terms of the number of \emph{lucky cars} in a modified parking protocol. Furthermore, we address the magic positivity problem for $\mathbf{y}$-generalized permutohedra and also discuss a \emph{magic} combinatorial interpretation for them, under the assumption that the input parameters are sufficiently large.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Flows on graphs with cycles, locally gentle algebras, and the Mutoperhedron

Flow cones of a directed acyclic graph admit a family of unimodular triangulations given by Danilov, Karzanov, and Koshevoy (DKK) whose normal fans are related to (generalizations) of the associahedron and permutahedron. A correspondence between these triangulations for certain graphs and maximal cones of a $g$-vector fan of a gentle quiver associated to the graph was discovered by von Bell, Braun, Bruegge, Hanely, Peterson, Serhiyenko, and Yip in 2022. This correspondence has been fruitful in uncovering lattice structures in the triangulations. We start by showing that this correspondence is actually a linear isomorphism. We then consider flow cones of certain graphs with cycles. For this case, we give a DKK-like triangulation of the cone, and extend the correspondence to the finite $g$-vector fan of a corresponding locally gentle quiver. In addition, we extend to cyclic graphs a mysterious result of Postnikov--Stanley and Baldoni--Vergne, giving the volume of flow polytopes of acyclic graphs as the number of certain integer flows on the same graph. We illustrate our results with a two-parameter family of cyclic graphs that includes a cycle graph and nested 2-cycles as special cases. We show that the fans of its DKK-like triangulations are respectively isomorphic to the normal fan of the cyclohedron and of a new polytope with the same $f$-vector but different combinatorial type than the permutohedron, which we call the mutoperhedron.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Garsia--Remmel $q$-rook numbers are not always unimodal

We show by an explicit example that the Garsia--Remmel $q$-rook numbers of Ferrers boards do not all have unimodal sequences of coefficients. This resolves in the negative a question from 1986 by the aforementioned authors.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Factorizations in Hecke algebras I: long cycle factorizations and Jucys-Murphy elements

Given a permutation, there is a well-developed literature studying the number of ways one can factor it into a product of other permutations subject to certain conditions. We initiate the analogous theory for the type A Iwahori-Hecke algebra by generalizing the notion of factorization in terms of the Jucys-Murphy elements. Some of the oldest and most foundational factorization results for the symmetric groups pertain to the long cycle. Our main results give q-deformations of these long cycle factorizations and reveal q-binomial, q-Catalan, and q-Narayana numbers along the way.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Generalized Pitman-Stanley polytope: vertices and faces

In 1999, Pitman and Stanley introduced the polytope bearing their name along with a study of its faces, lattice points, and volume. The Pitman-Stanley polytope is well-studied due to its connections to probability, parking functions, the generalized permutahedra, and flow polytopes. Its lattice points correspond to plane partitions of skew shape with entries 0 and 1. Pitman and Stanley remarked that their polytope can be generalized so that lattice points correspond to plane partitions of skew shape with entries $0,1, \ldots , m$. Since then, this generalization has been untouched. We study this generalization and show that it can also be realized as a flow polytope of a grid graph. We give multiple characterizations of its vertices in terms of plane partitions of skew shape and integer flows. For a fixed skew shape, we show that the number of vertices of this polytope is a polynomial in $m$ whose leading term, in certain cases, counts standard Young tableaux of a shifted shape. Moreover, we give formulas for the number of faces, as well as generating functions for the number of vertices.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Grothendieck Shenanigans: Permutons from pipe dreams via integrable probability

We study random permutations arising from reduced pipe dreams. Our main model is motivated by Grothendieck polynomials with parameter $β=1$ arising in K-theory of the flag variety. The probability weight of a permutation is proportional to the principal specialization (setting all variables to 1) of the corresponding Grothendieck polynomial. By mapping this random permutation to a version of TASEP (Totally Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process), we describe the limiting permuton and fluctuations around it as the order $n$ of the permutation grows to infinity. The fluctuations are of order $n^{\frac13}$ and have the Tracy-Widom GUE distribution, which places this algebraic (K-theoretic) model into the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class. We also investigate non-reduced pipe dreams and make progress on a recent open problem on the asymptotic number of inversions of the resulting permutation. Inspired by Stanley's question for the maximal value of principal specializations of Schubert polynomials, we resolve the analogous question for $β=1$ Grothendieck polynomials, and provide bounds for general $β$.

math.PR↗

arXiv2025

The Newton polytope and Lorentzian property of chromatic symmetric functions

Chromatic symmetric functions are well-studied symmetric functions in algebraic combinatorics that generalize the chromatic polynomial and are related to Hessenberg varieties and diagonal harmonics. Motivated by the Stanley--Stembridge conjecture, we show that the allowable coloring weights for indifference graphs of Dyck paths are the lattice points of a permutahedron $\mathcal{P}_λ$, and we give a formula for the dominant weight $λ$. Furthermore, we conjecture that such chromatic symmetric functions are Lorentzian, a property introduced by Brändén and Huh as a bridge between discrete convex analysis and concavity properties in combinatorics, and we prove this conjecture for abelian Dyck paths. We extend our results on the Newton polytope to incomparability graphs of (3+1)-free posets, and we give a number of conjectures and results stemming from our work, including results on the complexity of computing the coefficients and relations with the $ζ$ map from diagonal harmonics.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

Capacity bounds on integral flows and the Kostant partition function

The type $A$ Kostant partition function is an important combinatorial object with various applications: it counts integer flows on the complete directed graph, computes Hilbert series of spaces of diagonal harmonics, and can be used to compute weight and tensor product multiplicities of representations. In this paper we study asymptotics of the Kostant partition function, improving on various previously known lower bounds and settling conjectures of O'Neill and Yip. Our methods build upon recent results and techniques of Brändén-Leake-Pak, who used Lorentzian polynomials and Gurvits' capacity method to bound the number of lattice points of transportation and flow polytopes. Finally, we also give new two-sided bounds using the Lidskii formulas from subdivisions of flow polytopes.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

LLT Polynomials and Hecke Algebra Traces

We show that coefficients in unicellular LLT polynomials are evaluations of Hecke algebra traces at Kazhdan-Lusztig basis elements. We express these in terms of traditional trace bases, induction, and Kazhdan-Lusztig R-polynomials.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Minimal skew semistandard tableaux and the Hillman--Grassl correspondence

Standard tableaux of skew shape are fundamental objects in enumerative and algebraic combinatorics and no product formula for the number is known. In 2014, Naruse gave a formula (NHLF) as a positive sum over excited diagrams of products of hook-lengths. Subsequently, Morales, Pak, and Panova gave a $q$-analogue of this formula in terms of skew semistandard tableaux (SSYT). They also showed, partly algebraically, that the Hillman--Grassl map, restricted to skew semistandard tableaux, is behind their $q$-analogue. We study the problem of circumventing the algebraic part and proving the bijection completely combinatorially, which we do for border strips. For a skew shape, we define minimal semistandard Young tableaux, that are in correspondence with excited diagrams via a new description of the Hillman--Grassl bijection and have an analogue of excited moves. Lastly, we relate the minimal skew SSYT with the terms of the Okounkov-Olshanski formula (OOF) for counting standard tableaux of skew shape. Our construction immediately implies that the summands in the NHLF are less than the summands in the OOF and we characterize the shapes where both formulas have the same number of summands.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Enumeration of max-pooling responses with generalized permutohedra

We investigate the combinatorics of max-pooling layers, which are functions that downsample input arrays by taking the maximum over shifted windows of input coordinates, and which are commonly used in convolutional neural networks. We obtain results on the number of linearity regions of these functions by equivalently counting the number of vertices of certain Minkowski sums of simplices. We characterize the faces of such polytopes and obtain generating functions and closed formulas for the number of vertices and facets in a 1D max-pooling layer depending on the size of the pooling windows and stride, and for the number of vertices in a special case of 2D max-pooling.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

On the Okounkov-Olshanski formula for standard tableaux of skew shapes

The classical hook length formula counts the number of standard tableaux of straight shapes. In 1996, Okounkov and Olshanski found a positive formula for the number of standard Young tableaux of a skew shape. We prove various properties of this formula, including three determinantal formulas for the number of nonzero terms, an equivalence between the Okounkov-Olshanski formula and another skew tableaux formula involving Knutson-Tao puzzles, and two $q$-analogues for reverse plane partitions, which complements work by Stanley and Chen for semistandard tableaux. We also give several reformulations of the formula, including two in terms of the excited diagrams appearing in a more recent skew tableaux formula by Naruse. Lastly, for thick zigzag shapes we show that the number of nonzero terms is given by a determinant of the Genocchi numbers and improve on known upper bounds by Morales-Pak-Panova on the number of standard tableaux of these shapes.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Hurwitz numbers for reflection groups III: Uniform formulas

We give uniform formulas for the number of full reflection factorizations of a parabolic quasi-Coxeter element in a Weyl group or complex reflection group, generalizing the formula for the genus-0 Hurwitz numbers. This paper is the culmination of a series of three.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Realizing the $s$-permutahedron via flow polytopes

Ceballos and Pons introduced the $s$-weak order on $s$-decreasing trees, for any weak composition $s$. They proved that it has a lattice structure and further conjectured that it can be realized as the $1$-skeleton of a polyhedral subdivision of a polytope. We answer their conjecture in the case where $s$ is a strict composition by providing three geometric realizations of the $s$-permutahedron. The first one is the dual graph of a triangulation of a flow polytope of high dimension. The second one, obtained using the Cayley trick, is the dual graph of a fine mixed subdivision of a sum of hypercubes that has the conjectured dimension. The third one, obtained using tropical geometry, is the $1$-skeleton of a polyhedral complex for which we can provide explicit coordinates of the vertices and whose support is a permutahedron as conjectured.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Chromatic symmetric functions of Dyck paths and q-rook theory

The chromatic symmetric function (CSF) of Dyck paths of Stanley and its Shareshian-Wachs $q$-analogue have important connections to Hessenberg varieties, diagonal harmonics and LLT polynomials. In the, so called, abelian case they are also curiously related to placements of non-attacking rooks by results of Stanley-Stembridge (1993) and Guay-Paquet (2013). For the $q$-analogue, these results have been generalized by Abreu-Nigro (2020) and Guay-Paquet (private communication), using $q$-hit numbers. Among our main results is a new proof of Guay-Paquet's elegant identity expressing the $q$-CSFs in a CSF basis with $q$-hit coefficients. We further show its equivalence to the Abreu-Nigro identity expanding the $q$-CSF in the elementary symmetric functions. In the course of our work we establish that the $q$-hit numbers in these expansions differ from the originally assumed Garsia-Remmel $q$-hit numbers by certain powers of $q$. We prove new identities for these $q$-hit numbers, and establish connections between the three different variants.

math.CO↗