arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Richard Ehrenborg.
We give combinatorial proofs of $q$-Stirling identities using restricted growth words. This includes a poset theoretic proof of Carlitz's identity, a new proof of the $q$-Frobenius identity of Garsia and Remmel and of Ehrenborg's Hankel $q$-Stirling determinantal identity. We also develop a two parameter generalization to unify identities of Mercier and include a symmetric function version.
We introduce the van der Waerden complex ${\rm vdW}(n,k)$ defined as the simplicial complex whose facets correspond to arithmetic progressions of length $k$ in the vertex set $\{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$. We show the van der Waerden complex ${\rm vdW}(n,k)$ is homotopy equivalent to a $CW$-complex whose cells asymptotically have dimension at most $\log k / \log \log k$. Furthermore, we give bounds on $n$ and $k$ which imply that the van der Waerden complex is contractible.
We give a new $q$-$(1+q)$-analogue of the Gaussian coefficient, also known as the $q$-binomial which, like the original $q$-binomial $\genfrac{[}{]}{0pt}{}{n}{k}_{q}$, is symmetric in $k$ and $n-k$. We show this $q$-$(1+q)$-binomial is more compact than the one discovered by Fu, Reiner, Stanton and Thiem. Underlying our $q$-$(1+q)$-analogue is a Boolean algebra decomposition of an associated poset. These ideas are extended to the Birkhoff transform of any finite poset. We end with a discussion of higher analogues of the $q$-binomial.
We show that Simion's type $B$ associahedron is combinatorially equivalent to a pulling triangulation of a type $B$ root polytope called the Legendre polytope. Furthermore, we show that every pulling triangulation of the Legendre polytope yields a flag complex. Our triangulation refines a decomposition of the Legendre polytope given by Cho. We extend Cho's cyclic group action to the triangulation in such a way that it corresponds to rotating centrally symmetric triangulations of a regular $(2n+2)$-gon. Finally, we present a bijection between the faces of the Simion's type $B$ associahedron and Delannoy paths.
Given a filter $Δ$ in the poset of compositions of $n$, we form the filter $Π^{*}_Δ$ in the partition lattice. We determine all the reduced homology groups of the order complex of $Π^{*}_Δ$ as ${\mathfrak S}_{n-1}$-modules in terms of the reduced homology groups of the simplicial complex $Δ$ and in terms of Specht modules of border shapes. We also obtain the homotopy type of this order complex. These results generalize work of Calderbank--Hanlon--Robinson and Wachs on the $d$-divisible partition lattice. Our main theorem applies to a plethora of examples, including filters associated to integer knapsack partitions and filters generated by all partitions having block sizes $a$ or~$b$. We also obtain the reduced homology groups of the filter generated by all partitions having block sizes belonging to the arithmetic progression $a, a + d, \ldots, a + (a-1) \cdot d$, extending work of Browdy.
Let ${\mathcal A}$ be a finite real linear hyperplane arrangement in three dimensions. Suppose further that all the regions of ${\mathcal A}$ are isometric. We prove that ${\mathcal A}$ is necessarily a Coxeter arrangement. As it is well known that the regions of a Coxeter arrangement are isometric, this characterizes three-dimensional Coxeter arrangements precisely as those arrangements with isometric regions. It is an open question whether this suffices to characterize Coxeter arrangements in higher dimensions. We also present the three families of affine arrangements in the plane which are not reflection arrangements, but in which all the regions are isometric.
We continue to explore cyclotomic factors in the descent set polynomial $Q_{n}(t)$, which was introduced by Chebikin, Ehrenborg, Pylyavskyy and Readdy. We obtain large classes of factors of the form $Φ_{2s}$ or $Φ_{4s}$ where $s$ is an odd integer, with many of these being of the form $Φ_{2p}$ where $p$ is a prime. We also show that if $Φ_{2}$ is a factor of $Q_{2n}(t)$ then it is a double factor. Finally, we give conditions for an odd prime power $q = p^{r}$ for which $Φ_{2p}$ is a double factor of $Q_{2q}(t)$ and of $Q_{q+1}(t)$.
We introduce the Major MacMahon map and show how this map interacts with the pyramid and bipyramid operators. When the Major MacMahon map is applied to the ab-index of a simplicial poset, it yields the q-analogue of n! times the h-polynomial of the poset. Applying the map to the Boolean algebra gives the distribution of the major index on the symmetric group, a seminal result due to MacMahon. Similarly, when applied to the cross-polytope we obtain the distribution of one of the major indexes on signed permutations due to Reiner.
The flag vector contains all the face incidence data of a polytope, and in the poset setting, the chain enumerative data. It is a classical result due to Bayer and Klapper that for face lattices of polytopes, and more generally, Eulerian graded posets, the flag vector can be written as a cd-index, a non-commutative polynomial which removes all the linear redundancies among the flag vector entries. This result holds for regular CW complexes. We relax the regularity condition to show the cd-index exists for Whitney stratified manifolds by extending the notion of a graded poset to that of a quasi-graded poset. This is a poset endowed with an order-preserving rank function and a weighted zeta function. This allows us to generalize the classical notion of Eulerianness, and obtain a cd-index in the quasi-graded poset arena. We also extend the semi-suspension operation to that of embedding a complex in the boundary of a higher dimensional ball and study the simplicial shelling components.
The graph of overlapping permutations is defined in a way analogous to the De Bruijn graph on strings of symbols. That is, for every permutation $π= π_{1} π_{2} ... π_{n+1}$ there is a directed edge from the standardization of $π_{1} π_{2} ... π_{n}$ to the standardization of $π_{2} π_{3} ... π_{n+1}$. We give a formula for the number of cycles of length $d$ in the subgraph of overlapping 312-avoiding permutations. Using this we also give a refinement of the enumeration of 312-avoiding affine permutations and point out some open problems on this graph, which so far has been little studied.
We evaluate the hyperpfaffian of a skew-symmetric $k$-ary polynomial $f$ of degree $k/2 \cdot (n-1)$. The result is a product of the Vandermonde product and a certain expression involving the coefficients of the polynomial $f$. The proof utilizes a sign reversing involution on a set of weighted, oriented partitions. When restricting to the classical case when $k=2$ and the polynomial is $(x_{j} - x_{i})^{n-1}$, we obtain an identity due to Torelli.
We determine the cd-index of the induced subdivision arising from a manifold arrangement. This generalizes earlier results in several directions: (i) One can work with manifolds other than the n-sphere and n-torus, (ii) the induced subdivision is a Whitney stratification, and (iii) the submanifolds in the arrangement are no longer required to be codimension one.
We give an explicit formula for the number of permutations avoiding cyclically a consecutive pattern in terms of the spectrum of the associated operator of the consecutive pattern. As an example, the number of cyclically consecutive $123$-avoiding permutations in ${\mathfrak S}_{n}$ is given by $n!$ times the convergent series ${\displaystyle \sum_{k=-\infty}^{\infty} \left(\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2π(k+1/3)}\right)^{n}}$ for $n \geq 2$.
For each composition $\vec{c}$ we show that the order complex of the poset of pointed set partitions $Π^{\bullet}_{\vec{c}}$ is a wedge of spheres of the same dimension with the multiplicity given by the number of permutations with descent composition $\vec{c}$. Furthermore, the action of the symmetric group on the top homology is isomorphic to the Specht module $S^{B}$ where $B$ is a border strip associated to the composition. We also study the filter of pointed set partitions generated by a knapsack integer partition and show the analogous results on homotopy type and action on the top homology.
We extend the notion of consecutive pattern avoidance to considering sums over all permutations where each term is a product of weights depending on each consecutive pattern of a fixed length. We study the problem of finding the asymptotics of these sums. Our technique is to extend the spectral method of Ehrenborg, Kitaev and Perry. When the weight depends on the descent pattern we show how to find the equation determining the spectrum. We give two length $4$ applications. First, we find the asymptotics of the number of permutations with no triple ascents and no triple descents. Second, we give the asymptotics of the number of permutations with no isolated ascents or descents. Our next result is a weighted pattern of length $3$ where the associated operator only has one non-zero eigenvalue. Using generating functions we show that the error term in the asymptotic expression is the smallest possible.
We consider the problem of enumerating permutations in the symmetric group on $n$ elements which avoid a given set of consecutive pattern $S$, and in particular computing asymptotics as $n$ tends to infinity. We develop a general method which solves this enumeration problem using the spectral theory of integral operators on $L^{2}([0,1]^{m})$, where the patterns in $S$ has length $m+1$. Kre\uın and Rutman's generalization of the Perron--Frobenius theory of non-negative matrices plays a central role. Our methods give detailed asymptotic expansions and allow for explicit computation of leading terms in many cases. As a corollary to our results, we settle a conjecture of Warlimont on asymptotics for the number of permutations avoiding a consecutive pattern.
For a positive integer n and a subset S of [n-1], the descent polytope DP_S is the set of points x_1, ..., x_n in the n-dimensional unit cube [0,1]^n such that x_i >= x_{i+1} for i in S and x_i <= x_{i+1} otherwise. First, we express the f-vector of DP_S as a sum over all subsets of [n-1]. Second, we use certain factorizations of the associated word over a two-letter alphabet to describe the f-vector. We show that the f-vector is maximized when the set S is the alternating set {1,3,5, ...}. We derive a generating function for the f-polynomial F_S(t) of DP_S, written as a formal power series in two non-commuting variables with coefficients in Z[t]. We also obtain the generating function for the Ehrhart polynomials of the descent polytopes.
We present a family of Eulerian posets which does not have any R-labeling. The result uses a structure theorem for R-labelings of the butterfly poset.