arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Steve Butler.
We consider a generalization of Eulerian numbers which count the number of placements of $cn$ "rooks" on an $n\times n$ board where there are exactly $c$ rooks in each row and each column, and exactly $k$ rooks below the main diagonal. The standard Eulerian numbers correspond to the case $c=1$. We show that for any $c$ the resulting numbers are symmetric and give generating functions of these numbers for small values of $k$.
We give a construction of a family of (weighted) graphs that are pairwise cospectral with respect to the normalized Laplacian matrix, or equivalently probability transition matrix. This construction can be used to form pairs of cospectral graphs with differing number of edges, including situations where one graph is a subgraph of the other. The method used to demonstrate cospectrality is by showing the characteristic polynomials are equal.
Juggling patterns can be described by a sequence of cards which keep track of the relative order of the balls at each step. This interpretation has many algebraic and combinatorial properties, with connections to Stirling numbers, Dyck paths, Narayana numbers, boson normal ordering, arc-labeled digraphs, and more. Some of these connections are investigated with a particular focus on enumerating juggling patterns satisfying certain ordering constraints, including where the number of crossings is fixed.
We consider the following "partition and sum" operation on a natural number: Treating the number as a long string of digits insert several plus signs in between some of the digits and carry out the indicated sum. This results in a smaller number and repeated application can always reduce the number to a single digit. We show that surprisingly few iterations of this operation are needed to get down to a single digit.
We consider new types of perfect shuffles wherein a deck is split in half, one half of the deck is "reversed", and then the cards are interlaced. Flip shuffles are when the reversal comes from flipping the half over so that we also need to account for face-up/face-down configurations while horseshoe shuffles are when the order of the cards are reversed but all cards still face the same direction. We show that these shuffles are closely related to faro shuffling and determine the order of the associated shuffling groups.
The spectrum of the normalized Laplacian matrix cannot determine the number of edges in a graph, however finding constructions of cospectral graphs with differing number of edges has been elusive. In this paper we use basic properties of twins and scaling to show how to construct such graphs. We also give examples of families of graphs which are cospectral with a subgraph for the normalized Laplacian matrix.
Zero forcing is a combinatorial game played on a graph with a goal of turning all of the vertices of the graph black while having to use as few "unforced" moves as possible. This leads to a parameter known as the zero forcing number which can be used to give an upper bound for the maximum nullity of a matrix associated with the graph. We introduce a new variation on the zero forcing game which can be used to give an upper bound for the maximum nullity of a matrix associated with a graph that has $q$ negative eigenvalues. This gives some limits to the number of positive eigenvalues that such a graph can have and so can be used to form lower bounds for the inertia set of a graph.
We consider the problem of coloring $[n]={1,2,...,n}$ with $r$ colors to minimize the number of monochromatic $k$ term arithmetic progressions (or $k$-APs for short). We show how to extend colorings of $\mathbb{Z}_m$ which avoid nontrivial $k$-APs to colorings of $[n]$ by an unrolling process. In particular, by using residues to color $\mathbb{Z}_m$ we produce the best known colorings for minimizing the number of monochromatic $k$-APs for coloring with $r$ colors for several small values of $r$ and $k$.
We give a method to construct cospectral graphs for the normalized Laplacian by a local modification in some graphs with special structure. Namely, under some simple assumptions, we can replace a small bipartite graph with a cospectral mate without changing the spectrum of the entire graph. We also consider a related result for swapping out biregular bipartite graphs for the matrix $A+tD$. We produce (exponentially) large families of non-bipartite, non-regular graphs which are mutually cospectral, and also give an example of a graph which is cospectral with its complement but is not self-complementary.
Motivated by a question in origami, we consider sets of points in the complex plane constructed in the following way. Let $L_α(p)$ be the line in the complex plane through $p$ with angle $α$ (with respect to the real axis). Given a fixed collection $U$ of angles, let $\RU$ be the points that can be obtained by starting with $0$ and $1$, and then recursively adding intersection points of the form $L_α(p) \cap L_β(q)$, where $p, q$ have been constructed already, and $α, β$ are distinct angles in $U$. Our main result is that if $U$ is a group with at least three elements, then $\RU$ is a subring of the complex plane, i.e., it is closed under complex addition and multiplication. This enables us to answer a specific question about origami folds: if $n \ge 3$ and the allowable angles are the $n$ equally spaced angles $kπ/n$, $0 \le k < n$, then $\RU$ is the ring $\Z[ζ_n]$ if $n$ is prime, and the ring $\Z[1/n,ζ_{n}]$ if $n$ is not prime, where $ζ_n := \exp(2πi/n)$ is a primitive $n$-th root of unity.
Starting with any nondegenerate triangle we can use a well defined interior point of the triangle to subdivide it into six smaller triangles. We can repeat this process with each new triangle, and continue doing so over and over. We show that starting with any arbitrary triangle, the resulting set of triangles formed by this process contains triangles arbitrarily close (up to similarity) any given triangle when the point that we use to subdivide is the incenter. We also show that the smallest angle in a "typical" triangle after repeated subdivision for many generations does not have the smallest angle going to zero.
We consider the problem of orienting the edges of the $n$-dimensional hypercube so only two different in-degrees $a$ and $b$ occur. We show that this can be done, for two specified in-degrees, if and only if an obvious necessary condition holds. Namely, there exist non-negative integers $s$ and $t$ so that $s+t=2^n$ and $as+bt=n2^{n-1}$. This is connected to a question arising from constructing a strategy for a "hat puzzle."
In this short note we look at the problem of counting juggling patterns with one ball or two balls with a throw at every occurrence. We will do this for both traditional juggling and for spherical juggling. In the latter case we will show a connection to the "associated Mersenne numbers" (A001350) and so as a result will be able to recover a proof that the $p$th Lucas number is congruent to 1 modulo p when p is a prime.
We consider a problem of shuffling a deck of cards with ordered labels. Namely we split the deck of N=k^tq cards (where t>=1 is maximal) into k equally sized stacks and then take the top card off of each stack and sort them by the order of their labels and add them to the shuffled stack. We show how to find stacks of cards invariant and periodic under the shuffling. We also show when gcd(q,k)=1 the possible periods of this shuffling are all divisors of order_k(N-q).
An integer sequence a(n) is called a jump sequence if a(1)=1 and 1<=a(n) =2. Such a sequence has the property that a^k(n)=a(a(...(a(n))...)) goes to 1 in finitely many steps and we call the pattern (n,a(n),a^2(n),...,a^k(n)=1) a jumping pattern from n down to 1. In this paper we look at jumping sequences which are weight minimizing with respect to various weight functions (where a weight w(i,j) is given to each jump from j down to i). Our main result is to show that if w(i,j)=(i+j)/i^2 then the cost minimizing jump sequence has the property that the number m satisfies m=a^q(p) for arbitrary q and some p (depending on q) if and only if m is a Pell number.
We consider the problem of enumerating periodic $σ$-juggling sequences of length $n$ for multiplex juggling, where $σ$ is the initial state (or {\em landing schedule}) of the balls. We first show that this problem is equivalent to choosing 1's in a specified matrix to guarantee certain column and row sums, and then using this matrix, derive a recursion. This work is a generalization of earlier work of Fan Chung and Ron Graham.