arXiv subjects

Nathan Reading

Publications and source records attributed to Nathan Reading.

51 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Noncrossing arc diagrams and canonical join representations

We consider two problems that appear at first sight to be unrelated. The first problem is to count certain diagrams consisting of noncrossing arcs in the plane. The second problem concerns the weak order on the symmetric group. Each permutation $x$ has a canonical join representation: a unique lowest set of permutations joining to $x$. The second problem is to determine which sets of permutations appear as canonical join representations. The two problems turn out to be closely related because the noncrossing arc diagrams provide a combinatorial model for canonical join representations. The same considerations apply to more generally to lattice quotients of the weak order. Considering quotients produces, for example, a new combinatorial object counted by the Baxter numbers and an analogous new object in bijection with generic rectangulations.

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arXiv2012

Generic rectangulations

A rectangulation is a tiling of a rectangle by a finite number of rectangles. The rectangulation is called generic if no four of its rectangles share a single corner. We initiate the enumeration of generic rectangulations up to combinatorial equivalence by establishing an explicit bijection between generic rectangulations and a set of permutations defined by a pattern-avoidance condition analogous to the definition of the twisted Baxter permutations.

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arXiv2011

From the Tamari lattice to Cambrian lattices and beyond

In this chapter, we trace the path from the Tamari lattice, via lattice congruences of the weak order, to the definition of Cambrian lattices in the context of finite Coxeter groups, and onward to the construction of Cambrian fans. We then present sortable elements, the key combinatorial tool for studying Cambrian lattices and fans. The chapter concludes with a brief description of the applications of Cambrian lattices and sortable elements to Coxeter-Catalan combinatorics and to cluster algebras.

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arXiv2011

The Hopf algebra of diagonal rectangulations

We define and study a combinatorial Hopf algebra dRec with basis elements indexed by diagonal rectangulations of a square. This Hopf algebra provides an intrinsic combinatorial realization of the Hopf algebra tBax of twisted Baxter permutations, which previously had only been described extrinsically as a sub Hopf algebra of the Malvenuto-Reutenauer Hopf algebra of permutations. We describe the natural lattice structure on diagonal rectangulations, analogous to the Tamari lattice on triangulations, and observe that diagonal rectangulations index the vertices of a polytope analogous to the associahedron. We give an explicit bijection between twisted Baxter permutations and the better-known Baxter permutations, and describe the resulting Hopf algebra structure on Baxter permutations.

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arXiv2010

Noncrossing partitions, clusters and the Coxeter plane

When W is a finite Coxeter group of classical type (A, B, or D), noncrossing partitions associated to W and compatibility of almost positive roots in the associated root system are known to be modeled by certain planar diagrams. We show how the classical-type constructions of planar diagrams arise uniformly from projections of small W-orbits to the Coxeter plane. When the construction is applied beyond the classical cases, simple criteria are apparent for noncrossing and for compatibility for W of types H_3 and I_2(m) and less simple criteria can be found for compatibility in types E_6, F_4 and H_4. Our construction also explains why simple combinatorial models are elusive in the larger exceptional types.

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arXiv2010

Sortable elements in infinite Coxeter groups

In a series of previous papers, we studied sortable elements in finite Coxeter groups, and the related Cambrian fans. We applied sortable elements and Cambrian fans to the study of cluster algebras of finite type and the noncrossing partitions associated to Artin groups of finite type. In this paper, as the first step towards expanding these applications beyond finite type, we study sortable elements in a general Coxeter group W. We supply uniform arguments which transform all previous finite-type proofs into uniform proofs (rather than type by type proofs), generalize many of the finite-type results and prove new and more refined results. The key tools in our proofs include a skew-symmetric form related to (a generalization of) the Euler form of quiver theory and the projection \pidown^c mapping each element of W to the unique maximal c-sortable element below it in the weak order. The fibers of \pidown^c essentially define the c-Cambrian fan. The most fundamental results are, first, a precise statement of how sortable elements transform under (BGP) reflection functors and second, a precise description of the fibers of \pidown^c. These fundamental results and others lead to further results on the lattice theory and geometry of Cambrian (semi)lattices and Cambrian fans.

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arXiv2008

Cambrian fans

For a finite Coxeter group W and a Coxeter element c of W, the c-Cambrian fan is a coarsening of the fan defined by the reflecting hyperplanes of W. Its maximal cones are naturally indexed by the c-sortable elements of W. The main result of this paper is that the known bijection cl_c between c-sortable elements and c-clusters induces a combinatorial isomorphism of fans. In particular, the c-Cambrian fan is combinatorially isomorphic to the normal fan of the generalized associahedron for W. The rays of the c-Cambrian fan are generated by certain vectors in the W-orbit of the fundamental weights, while the rays of the c-cluster fan are generated by certain roots. For particular ("bipartite") choices of c, we show that the c-Cambrian fan is linearly isomorphic to the c-cluster fan. We characterize, in terms of the combinatorics of clusters, the partial order induced, via the map cl_c, on c-clusters by the c-Cambrian lattice. We give a simple bijection from c-clusters to c-noncrossing partitions that respects the refined (Narayana) enumeration. We relate the Cambrian fan to well known objects in the theory of cluster algebras, providing a geometric context for g-vectors and quasi-Cartan companions.

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arXiv2008

Root systems and generalized associahedra

These lecture notes for the IAS/Park City Graduate Summer School in Geometric Combinatorics (July 2004) provide an overview of root systems, generalized associahedra, and the combinatorics of clusters. Lectures 1-2 cover classical material: root systems, finite reflection groups, and the Cartan-Killing classification. Lectures 3-4 provide an introduction to cluster algebras from a combinatorial perspective. Lecture 5 is devoted to related topics in enumerative combinatorics.

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arXiv2006

Generalized cluster complexes and Coxeter combinatorics

We introduce and study a family of simplicial complexes associated to an arbitrary finite root system and a nonnegative integer parameter m. For m=1, our construction specializes to the (simplicial) generalized associahedra or, equivalently, to the cluster complexes for the cluster algebras of finite type. Our computation of the face numbers and h-vectors of these complexes produces the enumerative invariants defined in other contexts by C.A.Athanasiadis, suggesting links to a host of well studied problems in algebraic combinatorics of finite Coxeter groups, root systems, and hyperplane arrangements. Recurrences satisfied by the face numbers of our complexes lead to combinatorial algorithms for determining Coxeter-theoretic invariants. That is, starting with a Coxeter diagram of a finite Coxeter group, one can compute the Coxeter number, the exponents, and other classical invariants by a recursive procedure that only uses most basic graph-theoretic concepts applied to the input diagram. In types A and B, we rediscover the constructions and results obtained by E.Tzanaki .

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arXiv2005

Sortable elements and Cambrian lattices

We show that the Coxeter-sortable elements in a finite Coxeter group W are the minimal congruence-class representatives of a lattice congruence of the weak order on W. We identify this congruence as the Cambrian congruence on W, so that the Cambrian lattice is the weak order on Coxeter-sortable elements. These results exhibit W-Catalan combinatorics arising in the context of the lattice theory of the weak order on W.

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arXiv2005

Clusters, Coxeter-sortable elements and noncrossing partitions

We introduce Coxeter-sortable elements of a Coxeter group W. For finite W, we give bijective proofs that Coxeter-sortable elements are equinumerous with clusters and with noncrossing partitions. We characterize Coxeter-sortable elements in terms of their inversion sets and, in the classical cases, in terms of permutations.

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arXiv2005

Cambrian Lattices

For an arbitrary finite Coxeter group W we define the family of Cambrian lattices for W as quotients of the weak order on W with respect to certain lattice congruences. We associate to each Cambrian lattice a complete fan, which we conjecture is the normal fan of a polytope combinatorially isomorphic to the generalized associahedron for W. In types A and B we obtain, by means of a fiber-polytope construction, combinatorial realizations of the Cambrian lattices in terms of triangulations and in terms of permutations. Using this combinatorial information, we prove in types A and B that the Cambrian fans are combinatorially isomorphic to the normal fans of the generalized associahedra and that one of the Cambrian fans is linearly isomorphic to Fomin and Zelevinsky's construction of the normal fan as a "cluster fan." Our construction does not require a crystallographic Coxeter group and therefore suggests a definition, at least on the level of cellular spheres, of a generalized associahedron for any finite Coxeter group. The Tamari lattice is one of the Cambrian lattices of type A, and two "Tamari" lattices in type B are identified and characterized in terms of signed pattern avoidance. We also show that open intervals in Cambrian lattices are either contractible or homotopy equivalent to spheres.

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arXiv2004

Lattice congruences of the weak order

We study the congruence lattice of the poset of regions of a hyperplane arrangement, with particular emphasis on the weak order on a finite Coxeter group. Our starting point is a theorem from a previous paper which gives a geometric description of the poset of join-irreducibles of the congruence lattice of the poset of regions in terms of certain polyhedral decompositions of the hyperplanes. For a finite Coxeter system (W,S) and a subset K of S, let η_K:w \mapsto w_K be the projection onto the parabolic subgroup W_K. We show that the fibers of η_K constitute the smallest lattice congruence with 1\equiv s for every s\in(S-K). We give an algorithm for determining the congruence lattice of the weak order for any finite Coxeter group and for a finite Coxeter group of type A or B we define a directed graph on subsets or signed subsets such that the transitive closure of the directed graph is the poset of join-irreducibles of the congruence lattice of the weak order.

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arXiv2003

The cd-index of Bruhat intervals

We study flag enumeration in intervals in the Bruhat order on a Coxeter group by means of a structural recursion on intervals in the Bruhat order. The recursion gives the isomorphism type of a Bruhat interval in terms of smaller intervals, using basic geometric operations which preserve PL sphericity and have a simple effect on the cd-index. This leads to a new proof that Bruhat intervals are PL spheres as well a recursive formula for the cd-index of a Bruhat interval. This recursive formula is used to prove that the cd-indices of Bruhat intervals span the space of cd-polynomials. The structural recursion leads to a conjecture that Bruhat spheres are "smaller" than polytopes. More precisely, we conjecture that if one fixes the lengths of x and y, then the cd-index of a certain dual stacked polytope is a coefficientwise upper bound on the cd-indices of Bruhat intervals [x,y]. We show that this upper bound would be tight by constructing Bruhat intervals which are the face lattices of these dual stacked polytopes. As a weakening of a special case of the conjecture, we show that the flag h-vectors of lower Bruhat intervals are bounded above by the flag h-vectors of Boolean algebras (i.e. simplices).

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arXiv2003

The Order Dimension of the Poset of Regions in a Hyperplane Arrangement

We show that the order dimension of the weak order on a Coxeter group of type A, B or D is equal to the rank of the Coxeter group, and give bounds on the order dimensions for the other finite types. This result arises from a unified approach which, in particular, leads to a simpler treatment of the previously known cases, types A and B. The result for weak orders follows from an upper bound on the dimension of the poset of regions of an arbitrary hyperplane arrangement. In some cases, including the weak orders, the upper bound is the chromatic number of a certain graph. For the weak orders, this graph has the positive roots as its vertex set, and the edges are related to the pairwise inner products of the roots.

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