arXiv subjects

Robert Davis

Publications and source records attributed to Robert Davis.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Ehrhart Theory over Abelian Group Rings

We introduce a unified framework for Ehrhart theory in which lattice point enumerators take coefficients in an Abelian group ring, encoding substantially richer algebraic data than classical counts. We prove that fundamental results of Ehrhart theory extend to this setting through a generalized Brion theorem, including rational generating functions, reciprocity phenomena, connections to volume, and vertex-cone decompositions. We further show how to derive $q$-enumerative and weighted theories from this setting, recasting several major refinements of Ehrhart theory as consequences of a single algebraic mechanism. We also show how our framework combines with equivariant Ehrhart theory.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

A Note on Conjectures of Gullerud, Johnson, and Mbirika

In 2023, Gullerud, Johnson, and Mbirika presented results on their study of certain tridiagonal real symmetric matrices. As part of their work, they studied the roots to nonhomogeneous equations related to characteristic polynomials of adjacency matrices for path graphs. They showed that a subset of these polynomials give a Fibonacci number when evaluated at the imaginary unit, leading them to make several intriguing conjectures. In this work, we further explore their conjectures regarding the distribution of roots. We make partial progress towards establishing two conjectures, identify an infinite class of polynomials for which a third is false, and give evidence against a fourth.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Flow polytopes for extensions of bipartite graphs

The space of unit flows on a finite acyclic directed graph is a lattice polytope called the flow polytope of the graph. Given a bipartite graph $G$ with minimum degree at least two, we construct two associated acyclic directed graphs: the extension of $G$ and the almost-degree-whiskered graph of $G$. We prove that the normalized volume of the flow polytope for the extension of $G$ is equal to the number of matchings in the almost-degree-whiskered graph of $G$. Further, we refine this result by proving that the Ehrhart $h^*$-polynomial of the flow polytope for the extension of $G$ is equal to the unsigned matching polynomial of the almost-degree-whiskered graph of $G$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Technical Report: Facilitating the Adoption of Causal Inference Methods Through LLM-Empowered Co-Pilot

Estimating treatment effects (TE) from observational data is a critical yet complex task in many fields, from healthcare and economics to public policy. While recent advances in machine learning and causal inference have produced powerful estimation techniques, their adoption remains limited due to the need for deep expertise in causal assumptions, adjustment strategies, and model selection. In this paper, we introduce CATE-B, an open-source co-pilot system that uses large language models (LLMs) within an agentic framework to guide users through the end-to-end process of treatment effect estimation. CATE-B assists in (i) constructing a structural causal model via causal discovery and LLM-based edge orientation, (ii) identifying robust adjustment sets through a novel Minimal Uncertainty Adjustment Set criterion, and (iii) selecting appropriate regression methods tailored to the causal structure and dataset characteristics. To encourage reproducibility and evaluation, we release a suite of benchmark tasks spanning diverse domains and causal complexities. By combining causal inference with intelligent, interactive assistance, CATE-B lowers the barrier to rigorous causal analysis and lays the foundation for a new class of benchmarks in automated treatment effect estimation.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

Looking into the Future of Health-Care Services: Can Life-Like Agents Change the Future of Health-Care Services?

Time constraints on doctor patient interaction and restricted access to specialists under the managed care system led to increasingly referring to computers as a medical information source and a self-health-care management tool. However, research show that less than 40% of information seekers indicated that online information helped them to make a decision about their health. Searching multiple web sites that need basic computer skills, lack of interaction and no face to face interaction in most search engines and some social issues, led us to develop a specialized life-like agent that would overcome mentioned problems.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2024

Helical Phononic Modes Induced by a Screw Dislocation

In this study, we investigate a one-dimensional (1D) unidirectional phononic waveguide embedded within a three-dimensional (3D) hexagonal close-packed phononic crystal, achieved by the introduction of a screw dislocation. This approach does not rely on the non-trivial topological characteristics of the 3D crystal. We discover that this dislocation induces a pair of helical modes, characterized by their orthogonal $x$- and $y$-directional displacements being out of phase by 90 degrees, which results in a distinctive rotational motion. These helical modes demonstrate directional propagation, tightly linked to the helicity of the screw dislocation. Through considerations of symmetry, we reveal that the emergence of these helical modes is governed by the symmetry of the screw dislocation itself. Our findings not only provide insights into the interplay between dislocation-induced symmetry and wave propagation in phononic systems but also open new avenues for designing directionally selective waveguides without relying on the crystal's topological properties.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2024

On the Ehrhart Theory of Generalized Symmetric Edge Polytopes

The symmetric edge polytope (SEP) of a (finite, undirected) graph is a centrally symmetric lattice polytope whose vertices are defined by the edges of the graph. SEPs have been studied extensively in the past twenty years. Recently, T\'othm\'er\'esz and, independently, D'Al\'i, Juhnke-Kubitzke, and Koch generalized the definition of an SEP to regular matroids, which are the matroids that can be represented by totally unimodular matrices. Generalized SEPs are known to have symmetric Ehrhart $h^*$-polynomials, and Ohsugi and Tsuchiya conjectured that (ordinary) SEPs have nonnegative $\gamma$-vectors. In this article, we use combinatorial and Gr\"obner basis techniques to extend additional known properties of SEPs to generalized SEPs. Along the way, we show that generalized SEPs are not necessarily $\gamma$-nonnegative by providing explicit examples. We prove that the polytopes we construct are ``nearly'' $\gamma$-nonnegative in the sense that, by deleting exactly two elements from the matroid, one obtains SEPs for graphs that are $\gamma$-nonnegative. This provides further evidence that Ohsugi and Tsuchiya's conjecture holds in the ordinary case.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Weighted Ehrhart Theory: Extending Stanley's nonnegativity theorem

We generalize R. P. Stanley's celebrated theorem that the $h^\ast$-polynomial of the Ehrhart series of a rational polytope has nonnegative coefficients and is monotone under containment of polytopes. We show that these results continue to hold for weighted Ehrhart series where lattice points are counted with polynomial weights, as long as the weights are homogeneous polynomials decomposable as sums of products of linear forms that are nonnegative on the polytope. We also show nonnegativity of the $h^\ast$-polynomial as a real-valued function for a larger family of weights. We then target the case when the weight function is the square of a single (arbitrary) linear form. We show stronger results for two-dimensional convex lattice polygons and give concrete examples showing tightness of the hypotheses. As an application, we construct a counterexample to a conjecture by Berg, Jochemko, and Silverstein on Ehrhart tensor polynomials.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Ising Meson Spectroscopy on a Noisy Digital Quantum Simulator

Quantum simulation has the potential to be an indispensable technique for the investigation of non-perturbative phenomena in strongly-interacting quantum field theories (QFTs). In the modern quantum era, with Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum~(NISQ) simulators widely available and larger-scale quantum machines on the horizon, it is natural to ask: what non-perturbative QFT problems can be solved with the existing quantum hardware? We show that existing noisy quantum machines can be used to analyze the energy spectrum of a large family of strongly-interacting 1+1D QFTs. The latter exhibit a wide-range of non-perturbative effects like `quark confinement' and `false vacuum decay' which are typically associated with higher-dimensional QFTs of elementary particles. We perform quench experiments on IBM's ibmq_mumbai quantum simulator to compute the energy spectrum of 1+1D quantum Ising model with a longitudinal field. The latter model is particularly interesting due to the formation of mesonic bound states arising from a confining potential for the Ising domain-walls, reminiscent of t'Hooft's model of two-dimensional quantum chromodynamics. Our results demonstrate that digital quantum simulation in the NISQ era has the potential to be a viable alternative to numerical techniques such as density matrix renormalization group or the truncated conformal space methods for analyzing QFTs.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Perfectly Matchable Set Polynomials and $h^*$-polynomials for Stable Set Polytopes of Complements of Graphs

A subset $S$ of vertices of a graph $G$ is called a perfectly matchable set of $G$ if the subgraph induced by $S$ contains a perfect matching. The perfectly matchable set polynomial of $G$, first made explicit by Ohsugi and Tsuchiya, is the (ordinary) generating function $p(G; z)$ for the number of perfectly matchable sets of $G$. In this work, we provide explicit recurrences for computing $p(G; z)$ for an arbitrary (simple) graph and use these to compute the Ehrhart $h^*$-polynomials for certain lattice polytopes. Namely, we show that $p(G; z)$ is the $h^*$-polynomial for certain classes of stable set polytopes, whose vertices correspond to stable sets of $G$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Normalized Volumes of Type-PQ Adjacency Polytopes for Certain Classes of Graphs

The type-PQ adjacency polytope associated to a simple graph is a $0/1$-polytope containing valuable information about an underlying power network. Chen and the first author have recently demonstrated that, when the underlying graph $G$ is connected, the normalized volumes of the adjacency polytopes can be computed by counting sequences of nonnegative integers satisfying restrictions determined by $G$. This article builds upon their work, namely by showing that one of their main results -- the so-called "triangle recurrence" -- applies in a more general setting. Formulas for the normalized volumes when $G$ is obtained by deleting a path or a cycle from a complete graph are also established.

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

Facets and facet subgraphs of symmetric edge polytopes

Symmetric edge polytopes, a.k.a. PV-type adjacency polytopes, associated with undirected graphs have been defined and studied in several seemingly independent areas including number theory, discrete geometry, and dynamical systems. In particular, the authors are motivated by the study of the algebraic Kuramoto equations of unmixed form whose Newton polytopes are the symmetric edge polytopes. The interplay between the geometric structure of symmetric edge polytopes and the topological structure of the underlying graphs has been a recurring theme in recent studies. In particular, ``facet/face subgraphs'' have emerged as one of the central concepts in describing this symmetry. Continuing along this line of inquiry we provide a complete description of the correspondence between facets/faces of a symmetric edge polytope and maximal bipartite subgraphs of the underlying connected graph.

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

The Integer Decomposition Property and Weighted Projective Space Simplices

Reflexive lattice polytopes play a key role in combinatorics, algebraic geometry, physics, and other areas. One important class of lattice polytopes are lattice simplices defining weighted projective spaces. We investigate the question of when a reflexive weighted projective space simplex has the integer decomposition property. We provide a complete classification of reflexive weighted projective space simplices having the integer decomposition property for the case when there are at most three distinct non-unit weights, and conjecture a general classification for an arbitrary number of distinct non-unit weights. Further, for any weighted projective space simplex and $m\geq 1$, we define the $m$-th reflexive stabilization, a reflexive weighted projective space simplex. We prove that when $m$ is $2$ or greater, reflexive stabilizations do not have the integer decomposition property. We also prove that the Ehrhart $h^\ast$-polynomial of any sufficiently large reflexive stabilization is not unimodal and has only $1$ and $2$ as coefficients. We use this construction to generate interesting examples of reflexive weighted projective space simplices that are near the boundary of both $h^*$-unimodality and the integer decomposition property.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Computing Volumes of Adjacency Polytopes via Draconian Sequences

Adjacency polytopes appear naturally in the study of nonlinear emergent phenomena in complex networks. The "PQ-type" adjacency polytope, denoted $\nabla^{\mathrm{PQ}}_G$ and which is the focus of this work, encodes rich combinatorial information about power-flow solutions in sparse power networks that are studied in electric engineering. Of particular importance is the normalized volume of such an adjacency polytope, which provides an upper bound on the number of distinct power-flow solutions. In this article we show that the problem of computing normalized volumes for $\nabla^{\mathrm{PQ}}_G$ can be rephrased as counting $D(G)$-draconian sequences where $D(G)$ is a certain bipartite graph associated to the network. We prove recurrences for all networks with connectivity at most $1$ and, for $2$-connected graphs under certain restrictions, we give recurrences for subdividing an edge and taking the join of an edge with a new vertex. Together, these recurrences imply a simple, non-recursive formula for the normalized volume of $\nabla^{\mathrm{PQ}}_G$ when $G$ is part of a large class of outerplanar graphs; we conjecture that the formula holds for all outerplanar graphs. Explicit formulas for several other (non-outerplanar) classes are given. Further, we identify several important classes of graphs $G$ which are planar but not outerplanar that are worth additional study.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Further Combinatorics and Applications of Two-Toned Tilings

Integer compositions, integer partitions, Fibonacci numbers, and generalizations of these have recently been shown to be interconnected via two-toned tilings of horizontal grids. In this article, we present refinements of two-toned tilings, describe functions which analyze them, and apply these to generalizations of integer compositions and partitions which interpolate between the two.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Universal Gr\"obner Bases of Toric Ideals of Combinatorial Neural Codes

In the 1970s, O'Keefe and Dostrovsky discovered that certain neurons, called place cells, in an animal's brain are tied to its location within its arena. A combinatorial neural code is a collection of $0/1$-vectors which encode the patterns of co-firing activity among the place cells. Gross, Obatake, and Youngs have recently used techniques from toric algebra to study when a neural code is $0$- $1$-, or $2$-inductively pierced: a property that allows one to reconstruct a Venn diagram-like planar figure that acts as a geometric schematic for the neural co-firing patterns. This article examines their work closely by focusing on a variety of classes of combinatorial neural codes. In particular, we identify universal Gr\"obner bases of the toric ideal for these codes.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

A toric deformation method for solving Kuramoto equations

The study of frequency synchronization configurations in Kuramoto models is a ubiquitous mathematical problem that has found applications in many seemingly independent fields. In this paper, we focus on networks whose underlying graph are cycle graphs. Based on the recent result on the upper bound of the frequency synchronization configurations in this context, we propose a toric deformation homotopy method for locating all frequency synchronization configurations with complexity that is linear in this upper bound. Loosely based on the polyhedral homotopy method, this homotopy induces a deformation of the set of the synchronization configurations into a series of toric varieties, yet our method has the distinct advantage of avoiding the costly step of computing mixed cells. We also explore the important consequences of this homotopy method in the context of direct acyclic decomposition of Kuramoto networks and tropical stable intersection points for Kuramoto equations.

math.AG↗

arXiv2018

State Polytopes Related to Two Classes of Combinatorial Neural Codes

Combinatorial neural codes are $0/1$ vectors that are used to model the co-firing patterns of a set of place cells in the brain. One wide-open problem in this area is to determine when a given code can be algorithmically drawn in the plane as a Venn diagram-like figure. A sufficient condition to do so is for the code to have a property called $k$-inductively pierced. Gross, Obatake, and Youngs recently used toric algebra to show that a code on three neurons is $1$-inductively pierced if and only if the toric ideal is trivial or generated by quadratics. No result is known for additional neurons in the same generality, part of the difficulty coming from the large number of codewords possible when additional neurons are used. In this article, we study two infinite classes of combinatorial neural codes in detail. For each code, we explicitly compute its universal Gr\"obner basis. This is done for the first class by recognizing that the codewords form a Lawrence-type matrix. With the second class, this is done by showing that the matrix is totally unimodular. These computations allow one to compute the state polytopes of the corresponding toric ideals, from which all distinct initial ideals may be computed efficiently. Moreover, we show that the state polytopes are combinatorially equivalent to well-known polytopes: the permutohedron and the stellohedron.

math.CO↗