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Valentin Féray

Publications and source records attributed to Valentin Féray.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Mod-phi convergence I: Normality zones and precise deviations

In this paper, we use the framework of mod-$ϕ$ convergence to prove precise large or moderate deviations for quite general sequences of real valued random variables $(X_{n})_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$, which can be lattice or non-lattice distributed. We establish precise estimates of the fluctuations $P[X_{n} \in t_{n}B]$, instead of the usual estimates for the rate of exponential decay $\log( P[X_{n}\in t_{n}B])$. Our approach provides us with a systematic way to characterise the normality zone, that is the zone in which the Gaussian approximation for the tails is still valid. Besides, the residue function measures the extent to which this approximation fails to hold at the edge of the normality zone. The first sections of the article are devoted to a proof of these abstract results and comparisons with existing results. We then propose new examples covered by this theory and coming from various areas of mathematics: classical probability theory, number theory (statistics of additive arithmetic functions), combinatorics (statistics of random permutations), random matrix theory (characteristic polynomials of random matrices in compact Lie groups), graph theory (number of subgraphs in a random Erdős-Rényi graph), and non-commutative probability theory (asymptotics of random character values of symmetric groups). In particular, we complete our theory of precise deviations by a concrete method of cumulants and dependency graphs, which applies to many examples of sums of "weakly dependent" random variables. The large number as well as the variety of examples hint at a universality class for second order fluctuations.

math.PR↗

On products of long cycles: short cycle dependence and separation probabilities

We present various results on multiplying cycles in the symmetric group. Our first result is a generalisation of the following theorem of Boccara (1980): the number of ways of writing an odd permutation in the symmetric group on $n$ symbols as a product of an $n$-cycle and an $n-1$-cycle is independent of the permutation chosen. We give a number of different approaches of our generalisation. One partial proof uses an inductive method which we also apply to other problems. In particular, we give a formula for the distribution of the number of cycles over all products of cycles of fixed lengths. Another application is related to the recent notion of separation probabilities for permutations introduced by Bernardi, Du, Morales and Stanley (2014).

math.CO↗

Gaussian fluctuations of Young diagrams and structure constants of Jack characters

In this paper, we consider a deformation of Plancherel measure linked to Jack polynomials. Our main result is the description of the first and second-order asymptotics of the bulk of a random Young diagram under this distribution, which extends celebrated results of Vershik-Kerov and Logan-Shepp (for the first order asymptotics) and Kerov (for the second order asymptotics). This gives more evidence of the connection with Gaussian $β$-ensemble, already suggested by some work of Matsumoto. Our main tool is a polynomiality result for the structure constant of some quantities that we call Jack characters, recently introduced by Lassalle. We believe that this result is also interested in itself and we give several other applications of it.

math.PR↗

Jack polynomials and orientability generating series of maps

We study Jack characters, which are the coefficients of the power-sum expansion of Jack symmetric functions with a suitable normalization. These quantities have been introduced by Lassalle who formulated some challenging conjectures about them. We conjecture existence of a weight on non-oriented maps (i.e., graphs drawn on non-oriented surfaces) which allows to express any given Jack character as a weighted sum of some simple functions indexed by maps. We provide a candidate for this weight which gives a positive answer to our conjecture in some, but unfortunately not all, cases. In particular, it gives a positive answer for Jack characters specialized on Young diagrams of rectangular shape. This candidate weight attempts to measure, in a sense, the non-orientability of a given map.

math.CO↗

Cyclic inclusion-exclusion

Following the lead of Stanley and Gessel, we consider a morphism which associates to an acyclic directed graph (or a poset) a quasi-symmetric function. The latter is naturally defined as multivariate generating series of non-decreasing functions on the graph. We describe the kernel of this morphism, using a simple combinatorial operation that we call cyclic inclusion-exclusion. Our result also holds for the natural noncommutative analog and for the commutative and noncommutative restrictions to bipartite graphs. An application to the theory of Kerov character polynomials is given.

math.CO↗

On Kerov polynomials for Jack characters

We consider a deformation of Kerov character polynomials, linked to Jack symmetric functions. It has been introduced recently by M. Lassalle, who formulated several conjectures on these objects, suggesting some underlying combinatorics. We give a partial result in this direction, showing that some quantities are polynomials in the Jack parameter $α$ with prescribed degree. Our result has several interesting consequences in various directions. Firstly, we give a new proof of the fact that the coefficients of Jack polynomials expanded in the monomial or power-sum basis depend polynomially in $α$. Secondly, we describe asymptotically the shape of random Young diagrams under some deformation of Plancherel measure.

math.CO↗

An edge-weighted hook formula for labelled trees

A number of hook formulas and hook summation formulas have previously appeared, involving various classes of trees. One of these classes of trees is rooted trees with labelled vertices, in which the labels increase along every chain from the root vertex to a leaf. In this paper we give a new hook summation formula for these (unordered increasing) trees, by introducing a new set of indeterminates indexed by pairs of vertices, that we call edge weights. This new result generalizes a previous result by Féray and Goulden, that arose in the context of representations of the symmetric group via the study of Kerov's character polynomials. Our proof is by means of a combinatorial bijection that is a generalization of the Prüfer code for labelled trees.

math.CO↗

Quasi-symmetric functions as polynomial functions on Young diagrams

We determine the most general form of a smooth function on Young diagrams, that is, a polynomial in the interlacing or multirectangular coordinates whose value depends only on the shape of the diagram. We prove that the algebra of such functions is isomorphic to quasi-symmetric functions, and give a noncommutative analog of this result.

math.CO↗

Super quasi-symmetric functions via Young diagrams

We consider the multivariate generating series $F_P$ of $P$-partitions in infinitely many variables $x_1, x_2 , \dots$. For some family of ranked posets $P$, it is natural to consider an analog $N_P$ with two infinite alphabets. When we collapse these two alphabets, we trivially recover $F_P$. Our main result is the converse, that is, the explicit construction of a map sending back $F_P$ onto $N_P$. We also give a noncommutative analog of the latter. An application is the construction of a basis of WQSym with a non-negative multiplication table, which lifts a basis of QSym introduced by K. Luoto.

math.CO↗

Asymptotic behavior of some statistics in Ewens random permutations

The purpose of this article is to present a general method to find limiting laws for some renormalized statistics on random permutations. The model considered here is Ewens sampling model, which generalizes uniform random permutations. We describe the asymptotic behavior of a large family of statistics, including the number of occurrences of any given dashed pattern. Our approach is based on the method of moments and relies on the following intuition: two events involving the images of different integers are almost independent.

math.PR↗

A simple model of trees for unicellular maps

We consider unicellular maps, or polygon gluings, of fixed genus. A few years ago the first author gave a recursive bijection transforming unicellular maps into trees, explaining the presence of Catalan numbers in counting formulas for these objects. In this paper, we give another bijection that explicitly describes the "recursive part" of the first bijection. As a result we obtain a very simple description of unicellular maps as pairs made by a plane tree and a permutation-like structure. All the previously known formulas follow as an immediate corollary or easy exercise, thus giving a bijective proof for each of them, in a unified way. For some of these formulas, this is the first bijective proof, e.g. the Harer-Zagier recurrence formula, the Lehman-Walsh formula and the Goupil-Schaeffer formula. We also discuss several applications of our construction: we obtain a new proof of an identity related to covered maps due to Bernardi and the first author, and thanks to previous work of the second author, we give a new expression for Stanley character polynomials, which evaluate irreducible characters of the symmetric group. Finally, we show that our techniques apply partially to unicellular 3-constellations and to related objects that we call quasi-constellations.

math.CO↗

A multivariate hook formula for labelled trees

Several hook summation formulae for binary trees have appeared recently in the literature. In this paper we present an analogous formula for unordered increasing trees of size r, which involves r parameters. The right-hand side can be written nicely as a product of linear factors. We study two specializations of this new formula, including Cayley's enumeration of trees with respect to vertex degree. We give three proofs of the hook formula. One of these proofs arises somewhat indirectly, from representation theory of the symmetric groups, and in particular uses Kerov's character polynomials. The other proofs are more direct, and of independent interest.

math.CO↗

Bijective enumeration of some colored permutations given by the product of two long cycles

Let $γ_n$ be the permutation on $n$ symbols defined by $γ_n = (1\ 2\...\ n)$. We are interested in an enumerative problem on colored permutations, that is permutations $β$ of $n$ in which the numbers from 1 to $n$ are colored with $p$ colors such that two elements in a same cycle have the same color. We show that the proportion of colored permutations such that $γ_n β^{-1}$ is a long cycle is given by the very simple ratio $\frac{1}{n- p+1}$. Our proof is bijective and uses combinatorial objects such as partitioned hypermaps and thorn trees. This formula is actually equivalent to the proportionality of the number of long cycles $α$ such that $γ_nα$ has $m$ cycles and Stirling numbers of size $n+1$, an unexpected connection previously found by several authors by means of algebraic methods. Moreover, our bijection allows us to refine the latter result with the cycle type of the permutations.

math.CO↗

A note on a Cayley graph of S_n

Recently in graph theory several authors have studied the spectrum of the Cayley graph of the symmetric group S_n generated by the transpositions (1, i) for 2 <= i <= n. Several conjectures were made and partial results were obtained. The purpose of this note is to point out that, as mentioned also by P. Renteln, this problem is actually already solved in another context. Indeed it is equivalent to studying the spectrum of so-called Jucys-Murphy elements in the algebra of the symmetric group, which is well understood. The aforementioned conjectures are direct consequences of the existing theory. We also present a related result from P. Biane, giving an asymptotic description of this spectrum. We insist on the fact that this note does not contain any new results, but has only been written to convey the information from the algebraic combinatorics community to graph theorists.

math.CO↗

P-partitions revisited

We compare a traditional and non-traditional view on the subject of P-partitions, leading to formulas counting linear extensions of certain posets.

math.CO↗

Characters of symmetric groups in terms of free cumulants and Frobenius coordinates

Free cumulants are nice and useful functionals of the shape of a Young diagram, in particular they give the asymptotics of normalized characters of symmetric groups S(n) in the limit n\to\infty. We give an explicit combinatorial formula for normalized characters of the symmetric groups in terms of free cumulants. We also express characters in terms of Frobenius coordinates. Our formulas involve counting certain factorizations of a given permutation. The main tool are Stanley polynomials which give values of characters on multirectangular Young diagrams. Résumé. Les cumulants libres sont des fonctions agréables et utiles sur l'ensemble des diagrammes de Young, en particulier, ils donnent le comportement asymptotiques des caractères normalisés du groupe symétrique S(n) dans la limite n\to\infty. Nous donnons une formule combinatoire explicite pour les caractères normalisés du groupe symétrique en fonction des cumulants libres. Nous exprimons également les caractères en fonction des coordonnées de Frobenius. Nos formules font intervenir le nombre de certaines factorisations d'une permutation donnée. L'outil principal est la famille de polynômes de Stanley donnant les valeurs des caractères sur les diagrammes de Young multirectangulaires.

math.CO↗

Asymptotics of characters of symmetric groups related to Stanley character formula

We prove an upper bound for characters of the symmetric groups. Namely, we show that there exists a constant a>0 with a property that for every Young diagram λwith n boxes, r(λ) rows and c(λ) columns |Tr ρ^λ(π) / Tr ρ^λ(e)| < [a max(r(λ)/n, c(λ)/n,|π|/n) ]^{|π|}, where |π| is the minimal number of factors needed to write π\in S_n as a product of transpositions. We also give uniform estimates for the error term in the Vershik-Kerov's and Biane's character formulas and give a new formula for free cumulants of the transition measure.

math.RT↗