arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Igor Pak.
We prove the existence of signed combinatorial interpretations for several large families of structure constants. These families include standard bases of symmetric and quasisymmetric polynomials, as well as various bases in Schubert theory. The results are stated in the language of computational complexity, while the proofs are based on the effective Möbius inversion.
We give an explicit counterexample to the Bunkbed Conjecture introduced by Kasteleyn in 1985. The counterexample is given by a planar graph on $7222$ vertices, and is built on the recent work of Hollom (2024).
We employ the combinatorial atlas technology to prove new correlation inequalities for the number of linear extensions of finite posets. These include the approximate independence of probabilities and expectations of values of random linear extensions, closely related to Stanley's inequality. We also give applications to the numbers of standard Young tableaux and to Euler numbers.
We consider a probabilistic version of the depth-first search on mazes with two exits, and show that this algorithm has equal probability of finding either exit. The proof is combinatorial and uses an explicit involution.
Describing the equality conditions of the Alexandrov--Fenchel inequality has been a major open problem for decades. We prove that in the case of convex polytopes, this description is not in the polynomial hierarchy unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses to a finite level. This is the first hardness result for the problem, and is a complexity counterpart of the recent result by Shenfeld and van Handel (arXiv:archive/201104059), which gave a geometric characterization of the equality conditions. The proof involves Stanley's order polytopes and employs poset theoretic technology.
We prove that deciding the vanishing of the character of the symmetric group is $C_=P$-complete. We use this hardness result to prove that the the square of the character is not contained in $\#P$, unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses to the second level. This rules out the existence of any (unsigned) combinatorial description for the square of the characters. As a byproduct of our proof we conclude that deciding positivity of the character is $PP$-complete under many-one reductions, and hence $PH$-hard under Turing-reductions.
We introduce several new constructions of finite posets with the number of linear extensions given by generalized continued fractions. We apply our results to the problem of the minimum number of elements needed for a poset with a given number of linear extensions.
We construct a new large family of finitely generated groups with continuum many values of the following monotone parameters: spectral radius, critical percolation, and asymptotic entropy. We also present several open problems on other monotone parameters.
We address two longstanding open problems, one originating in PL topology, another in birational geometry. First, we prove the weighted version of Oda's \emph{strong factorization conjecture} (1978), and prove that every two birational toric varieties are related by a common iterated blowup (at rationally smooth points). Second, we prove that every two PL homeomorphic polyhedra have a common stellar subdivisions, as conjectured by Alexander in~1930.
We study combinatorial inequalities for various classes of set systems: matroids, polymatroids, poset antimatroids, and interval greedoids. We prove log-concavity inequalities for counting certain weighted feasible words, which generalize and extend several previous results establishing Mason conjectures for the numbers of independent sets of matroids. Notably, we prove matching equality conditions for both earlier inequalities and our extensions. In contrast with much of the previous work, our proofs are combinatorial and employ nothing but linear algebra. We use the language formulation of greedoids which allows a linear algebraic setup, which in turn can be analyzed recursively. The underlying non-commutative nature of matrices associated with greedoids allows us to proceed beyond polymatroids and prove the equality conditions. As further application of our tools, we rederive both Stanley's inequality on the number of certain linear extensions, and its equality conditions, which we then also extend to the weighted case.
Can you decide if there is a coincidence in the numbers counting two different combinatorial objects? For example, can you decide if two regions in $\mathbb{R}^3$ have the same number of domino tilings? There are two versions of the problem, with $2\times 1 \times 1$ and $2\times 2 \times 1$ boxes. We prove that in both cases the coincidence problem is not in the polynomial hierarchy unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses to a finite level. While the conclusions are the same, the proofs are notably different and generalize in different directions. We proceed to explore the coincidence problem for counting independent sets and matchings in graphs, matroid bases, order ideals and linear extensions in posets, permutation patterns, and the Kronecker coefficients. We also make a number of conjectures for counting other combinatorial objects such as plane triangulations, contingency tables, standard Young tableaux, reduced factorizations and the Littlewood--Richardson coefficients.
For uniform random 4-colorings of graph edges with colors a,b,c,d, every two colors form a 1/2-percolation, and every two overlapping pairs of colors form independent 1/2-percolations. We show joint positive dependence for pairs of colors ab, ac and ac, and joint negative dependence for pairs of colors ab, ac and bc. The proof is based on a generalization of the Harris--Kleitman inequalities. We apply the results to crossing probabilities for the colored bond and site percolation, and to colored critical percolation that we also define.
We prove a weak version of the cross--product conjecture: ${F}(k+1,\ell) {F}(k,\ell+1) \geq (\frac12+\varepsilon) {F}(k,\ell) {F}(k+1,\ell+1)$, where ${F}(k,\ell)$ is the number of linear extensions for which the values at fixed elements $x,y,z$ are $k$ and $\ell$ apart, respectively, and where $\varepsilon>0$ depends on the poset. We also prove the converse inequality and disprove the {generalized cross--product conjecture}. The proofs use geometric inequalities for mixed volumes and combinatorics of words.
We explore inequalities on linear extensions of posets and make them effective in different ways. First, we study the Björner--Wachs inequality and generalize it to inequalities on order polynomials and their $q$-analogues via direct injections and FKG inequalities. Second, we give an injective proof of the Sidorenko inequality with computational complexity significance, namely that the difference is in $\#P$. Third, we generalize the Sidorenko inequality to posets with small chain intersections and give complexity theoretic applications.
Motivated by the Lam--Pylyavskyy inequalities for Schur functions, we give a far reaching multivariate generalization of Fishburn's correlation inequality for the number of linear extensions of posets. We then give a multivariate generalization of the Daykin--Daykin--Paterson inequality proving log-concavity of the order polynomial of a poset. We also prove a multivariate $P$-partition version of the cross-product inequality by Brightwell--Felsner--Trotter. The proofs are based on a multivariate generalization of the Ahlswede--Daykin inequality.
We resolve two open problems on Kronecker coefficients $g(λ,μ,ν)$ of the symmetric group. First, we prove that for partitions $λ,μ,ν$ with fixed Durfee square size, the Kronecker coefficients grow at most polynomially. Second, we show that the maximal Kronecker coefficients $g(λ,λ,λ)$ for self-conjugate partitions $λ$ grow superexponentially. We also give applications to explicit special cases.
We prove that congruences of the cogrowth sequence in a unitriangular group UT$(m, \Bbb Z)$ are undecidable. This is in contrast with abelian groups, where the congruences of the cogrowth sequence are decidable. As an application, we conclude that there is no algorithm to present the cogrowth series as the diagonal of a rational function.
In this survey we discuss the notion of combinatorial interpretation in the context of Algebraic Combinatorics and related areas. We approach the subject from the Computational Complexity perspective. We review many examples, state a workable definition, discuss many open problems, and present recent results on the subject.