This paper deals with the distribution of descent number in standard Young tableaux of certain shapes. A simple explicit formula is presented for the number of tableaux of any shape with two rows, with any specified number of descents. For shapes of three rows with one cell in the third row recursive formulas are given, and are solved in certain cases.
In this paper, explicit formulae for the expectation and the variance of descent functions on random standard Young tableaux are presented. Using these, it is shown that the normalized variance, $V/E^2$, is bounded if and only if a certain inequality relating tableau shape to the descent function holds.
Lusztig's fake degree is the generating polynomial for the major index of standard Young tableaux of a given shape. Results of Springer and James & Kerber imply that, mysteriously, its evaluation at a $k$-th primitive root of unity yields the number of border strip tableaux with all strips of size $k$, up to sign. This is essentially the special case of the Murnaghan-Nakayama rule for evaluating an irreducible character of the symmetric group at a rectangular partition. We refine this result to standard Young tableaux and border strip tableaux with a given number of descents. To do so, we intr…
The notion of descent set, for permutations as well as for standard Young tableaux (SYT), is classical. Cellini introduced a natural notion of {\em cyclic descent set} for permutations, and Rhoades introduced such a notion for SYT --- but only for rectangular shapes. In this work we define {\em cyclic extensions} of descent sets in a general context, and prove existence and essential uniqueness for SYT of almost all shapes. The proof applies nonnegativity properties of Postnikov's toric Schur polynomials, providing a new interpretation of certain Gromov-Witten invariants.
We present a randomized algorithm for generating standard set-valued tableaux by extending the Green-Nijenhuis-Wilf hook walk algorithm. In the case of asymptotically rank two partitions, we use this algorithm to give a fully polynomial almost uniform sampler (FPAUS) for standard set-valued tableaux. This FPAUS is then used to construct a fully polynomial randomized approximation scheme (FPRAS) for counting the number of standard set-valued tableaux for such shapes. We also construct a FPAUS and FPRAS for standard set-valued tableaux when either the size of the partition or the difference betw…
A cyclic descent function on standard Young tableaux of size $n$ is a function that restricts to the usual descent function when $n$ is omitted, such that the number of standard Young tableaux of given shape with cyclic descent set $D\subset[n]$ is invariant under any modulo $n$ shift of $D$. The notion of cyclic descent was first studied for rectangles by Rhoades, and then generalized to certain families of skew shapes by Adin, Elizalde, and Roichman. Adin, Reiner, and Roichman proved that a skew shape has a cyclic descent map if and only if it is not a connected ribbon. Unfortunately, their …
The number of Young Tableaux whose shape is a k by n rectangle is famously (nk)! 0! ... (k-1)!/((n+k-1)!(n+k-2)!... n!) implying that for each specific k, that sequence satisfies a linear recurrence equation with polynomial coefficients of the first order. But what about counting Young tableaux where certain "run lengths" are forbidden? Then things seem to get much more complicated. We conclude with four conjectures and pledge donations to the OEIS in honor of the first provers.
In how many ways can you place n chocolate pieces all of different sizes in an n by n chocolate box, in such a way that when you go from left to right and from top to bottom, there are no gaps AND the sizes increase along each row and each column? The answer is the well-known OEIS Sequence Number 85. To our amazement, the analogous sequence for a three-dimensional chocolate box was not there. Here we fill this gap, and more importantly, offer some computational and theoretical challenges about enumerating families of Solid Standard Young Tableaux.
Quasi-Yamanouchi tableaux are a subset of semistandard Young tableaux and refine standard Young tableaux. They are closely tied to the descent set of standard Young tableaux and were introduced by Assaf and Searles to tighten Gessel's fundamental quasisymmetric expansion of Schur functions. The descent set and descent statistic of standard Young tableaux repeatedly prove themselves useful to consider, and as a result, quasi-Yamanouchi tableaux make appearances in many ways outside of their original purpose. Some examples, which we present in this paper, include the Schur expansion of Jack poly…
The expectation of the descent number of a random Young tableau of a fixed shape is given, and concentration around the mean is shown. This result is generalized to the major index and to other descent functions. The proof combines probabilistic arguments together with combinatorial character theory. Connections with Hecke algebras are mentioned.
Using lattice path counting arguments, we reproduce a well known formula for the number of standard Young tableaux. We also produce an interesting new formula for tableaux of height $\leq 3$ using the Fourier methods of Ault and Kicey.
Based on the direct-sum-decomposition of the rth tensor power of the defining representation of the special orthogonal group SO(2k+1) one is interested in a bijective approach for determining the Frobenius characters of the isotypic components. In particular this leads us to a bijection between vacillating tableaux and pairs of standard Young tableaux and orthogonal Littlewood-Richardson tableaux, which we present for SO(3). Moreover we introduce the descent set of a vacillating tableau. As our bijection preserves this descent set, we also obtain the quasi-symmetric expansion of the Frobenius …
We give a counting formula for the set of rectangular increasing tableaux in terms of generalized Narayana numbers. We define small $m$-Schröder paths and give a bijection between the set of increasing rectangular tableaux and small $m$-Schröder paths, generalizing a result of Pechenik [3]. Using $K$-jeu de taquin promotion, which was defined by Thomas and Yong [10], we give a cyclic sieving phenomenon for the set of increasing hook tableaux.
A notion of cyclic descents on standard Young tableaux (SYT) of rectangular shape was introduced by Rhoades, and extended to certain skew shapes by the last two authors. The cyclic descent set restricts to the usual descent set when the largest value is ignored, and has the property that the number of SYT of a given shape with a given cyclic descent set $D$ is invariant under cyclic shifts of the entries of $D$. Following these results, the existence of cyclic descent sets for standard Young tableaux of any skew shape other than a ribbon was conjectured by the authors, and recently proved by A…
In the study of Kostka numbers and Catalan numbers, Kirillov posed a unimodality conjecture for the rectangular Narayana polynomials. We prove that the rectangular Narayana polynomials have only real zeros, and thereby confirm Kirillov's unimodality conjecture with the help of Newton's inequality. By using an equidistribution property between descent numbers and ascent numbers on ballot paths due to Sulanke and a bijection between lattice words and standard Young tableaux, we show that the rectangular Narayana polynomial is equal to the descent generating function on standard Young tableaux of…
We evaluate the Geiss-Leclerc-Schroer $ϕ$-map for shape modules over the preprojective algebra $Λ$ of type $\hat{A_1}$ in terms of matrix minors arising from the block-Toeplitz representation of the loop group $\SL_2(\mathcal{L})$. Conjecturally these minors are among the cluster variables for coordinate rings of unipotent cells within $\SL_2(\mathcal{L})$. In so doing we compute the Euler characteristic of any generalized flag variety attached to a shape module by counting standard tableaux of requisite shape and parity; alternatively by counting chess tableaux of requisite shape and content.
Permutation tableaux are combinatorial objects related with permutations and various statistics on them. They appeared in connection with total positivity in Grassmannians, and stationary probabilities in a PASEP model. In particular they gave rise to an interesting q-analog of Eulerian numbers. The purpose of this article is to study some combinatorial properties of type B permutation tableaux, defined by Lam and Williams, and links with signed permutation statistics. We show that many of the tools used for permutation tableaux generalize in this case, including: the Matrix Ansatz (a method o…
We investigate pattern avoidance in alternating permutations and generalizations thereof. First, we study pattern avoidance in an alternating analogue of Young diagrams. In particular, we extend Babson-West's notion of shape-Wilf equivalence to apply to alternating permutations and so generalize results of Backelin-West-Xin and Ouchterlony to alternating permutations. Second, we study pattern avoidance in the more general context of permutations with restricted ascents and descents. We consider a question of Lewis regarding permutations that are the reading words of thickened staircase Young t…
In this thesis we enumerate standard young tableaux (SYT) of certain truncated skew shapes, which we call battery shapes. This is motivated by a chess problem. In an enumerative chess problem, the set of moves in the solution is (usually) unique, but the order is not. The task of counting the feasible permutations may be accomplished by solving an equivalent problem in enumerative combinatorics. Almost all such problems have been of a special type known as series movers. In this thesis we use generalized hypergeometric functions to enumerate SYT of battery shapes, and thus solve a chess proble…
Let SYT_n be the set of all standard Young tableaux with n cells. After recalling the definitions of four partial orders, the weak, KL, geometric and chain orders on SYT_n and some of their crucial properties, we prove three main results: (i)Intervals in any of these four orders essentially describe the product in a Hopf algebra of tableaux defined by Poirier and Reutenauer. (ii) The map sending a tableau to its descent set induces a homotopy equivalence of the proper parts of all of these orders on tableaux with that of the Boolean algebra 2^{[n-1]}. In particular, the Möbius function of thes…
A new descent set statistic on involutions, defined geometrically via their interpretation as matchings, is introduced in this paper, and shown to be equi-distributed with the standard one. This concept is then applied to construct explicit cyclic descent extensions on involutions, standard Young tableaux and Motzkin paths. Schur-positivity of the associated quasisymmetric functions follows.
We introduce a new family of noncommutative analogues of the Hall-Littlewood symmetric functions. Our construction relies upon Tevlin's bases and simple q-deformations of the classical combinatorial Hopf algebras. We connect our new Hall-Littlewood functions to permutation tableaux, and also give an exact formula for the q-enumeration of permutation tableaux of a fixed shape. This gives an explicit formula for: the steady state probability of each state in the partially asymmetric exclusion process (PASEP); the polynomial enumerating permutations with a fixed set of weak excedances according t…
We construct a basis of the Garsia-Procesi ring using the catabolizability type of standard Young tableaux and the charge statistic. This basis turns out to be equal to the descent basis defined in Carlsson-Chou (2024+). Our new construction connects the combinatorics of the basis with the well-known combinatorial formula for the modified Hall-Littlewood polynomials $\tilde{H}_μ[X;q]$, due to Lascoux, which expresses the polynomials as a sum over standard tableaux that satisfy a catabolizability condition. In addition, we prove that identifying a basis for the antisymmetric part of $R_μ$ with …
Young tableaux are ubiquitous in various branches of mathematics. There are two counting formulas for standard Young tableaux. The first involves a determinant and goes back to Frobenius and Young, and the second is the hook formula by Frame, Robinson and Thrall. We present a generalization of the determinant formula for semistandard Young tableaux of given shape and of given content. Our counting formula -- though not a determinant -- is a generalization of the determinant formula by Frobenius and Young.
We discuss counting problems linked to finite versions of Cantor's diagonal of infinite tableaux. We extend previous results of [2] by refining an equivalence relation that reduces significantly the exhaustive generation. New enumerative results follow and allow to look at the sub-class of the so- called bi-Cantorian tableaux. We conclude with a correspondence between Cantorian-type tableaux and coloring of hypergraphs having a square number of vertices.
We establish a combinatorial connection between the sequence $(i_{n,k})$ counting the involutions on $n$ letters with $k$ descents and the sequence $(a_{n,k})$ enumerating the semistandard Young tableaux on $n$ cells with $k$ symbols. This allows us to show that the sequences $(i_{n,k})$ are not log-concave for some values of $n$, hence answering a conjecture due to F. Brenti.
We present a generating function and a closed counting formula in two variables that enumerate a family of classes of permutations that avoid or contain an increasing pattern of length three and have a prescribed number of occurrences of another pattern of length three. This gives a refinement of some previously studied statistics, most notably one by Noonan. The formula is also shown to enumerate a family of classes of Dyck paths and Standard Young Tableaux, and a bijection is given between the corresponding classes of these two families of objects. Finally, the results obtained are used to s…
A descent of a labeled digraph is a directed edge (s, t) with s > t. We count strong tournaments, strong digraphs, and acyclic digraphs by descents and edges. To count strong tournaments we use Eulerian generating functions and to count strong and acyclic digraphs we use a new type of generating function that we call a graphic Eulerian generating function.
Given sets X and Y of positive integers and a permutation sigma = sigma_1, sigma_2, ..., sigma_n in S_n, an X,Y-descent of sigma is a descent pair sigma_i > sigma_{i+1} whose "top" sigma_i is in X and whose "bottom" sigma_{i+1} is in Y. We give two formulas for the number P_{n,s}^{X,Y} of sigma in S_n with s X,Y-descents. P_{n,s}^{X,Y} is also shown to be a hit number of a certain Ferrers board. This work generalizes results of Kitaev and Remmel on counting descent pairs whose top (or bottom) is equal to 0 mod k.
Recently, Kitaev and Remmel [Classifying descents according to parity, Annals of Combinatorics, to appear 2007] refined the well-known permutation statistic ``descent'' by fixing parity of one of the descent's numbers. Results in that paper were extended and generalized in several ways. In this paper, we shall fix a set partition of the natural numbers $N$, $(N_1, ..., N_t)$, and we study the distribution of descents, levels, and rises according to whether the first letter of the descent, rise, or level lies in $N_i$ over the set of words over the alphabet $[k]$. In particular, we refine and g…
In certain finite posets, the expected down-degree of their elements is the same whether computed with respect to either the uniform distribution or the distribution weighting an element by the number of maximal chains passing through it. We show that this coincidence of expectations holds for Cartesian products of chains, connected minuscule posets, weak Bruhat orders on finite Coxeter groups, certain lower intervals in Young's lattice, and certain lower intervals in the weak Bruhat order below dominant permutations. Our tools involve formulas for counting nearly reduced factorizations in 0-H…
We present a bijection between vacillating tableaux and pairs consisting of a standard Young tableau and an orthogonal Littlewood-Richardson tableau for the special orthogonal group $\mathrm{SO}(2k+1)$. This bijection is motivated by the direct-sum-decomposition of the $r$th tensor power of the defining representation of $\mathrm{SO}(2k+1)$. To formulate it, we use Kwon's orthogonal Littlewood-Richardson tableaux and introduce new alternative tableaux they are in bijection with. Moreover we use a suitably defined descent set for vacillating tableaux to determine the quasi-symmetric expansion o…
Bouvel and Pergola introduced the notion of minimal permutations in the study of the whole genome duplication-random loss model for genome rearrangements. Let $\mathcal{F}_d(n)$ denote the set of minimal permutations of length $n$ with $d$ descents, and let $f_d(n)= |\mathcal{F}_d(n)|$. They derived that $f_{n-2}(n)=2^{n}-(n-1)n-2$ and $f_n(2n)=C_n$, where $C_n$ is the $n$-th Catalan number. Mansour and Yan proved that $f_{n+1}(2n+1)=2^{n-2}nC_{n+1}$. In this paper, we consider the problem of counting minimal permutations in $\mathcal{F}_d(n)$ with a prescribed set of ascents. We show that suc…
We present refined enumeration formulas for lattice paths in $\mathbb{Z}^2$ with two kinds of steps, by keeping track of the number of descents (i.e., turns in a given direction), the major index (i.e., the sum of the positions of the descents), and the number of crossings. One formula considers crossings between a path and a fixed line; the other considers crossings between two paths. Building on the first paper of the series, which used lattice path bijections to give the enumeration with respect to major index and crossings, we obtain a refinement that keeps track of the number of descents.…
An inverted semistandard Young tableau is a row-standard tableau along with a collection of inversion pairs that quantify how far the tableau is from being column semistandard. Such a tableau with precisely $k$ inversion pairs is said to be a $k$-inverted semistandard Young tableau. Building upon earlier work by Fresse and the author, this paper develops generating functions for the numbers of $k$-inverted semistandard Young tableau of various shapes $λ$ and contents $μ$. An easily-calculable generating function is given for the number of $k$-inverted semistandard Young tableau that "standardi…
We investigate Mahonian and Eulerian probability distributions given by inversions and descents in general finite Coxeter groups. We provide uniform formulas for the means and variances in terms of Coxeter group data in both cases. We also provide uniform formulas for the double-Eulerian probability distribution of the sum of descents and inverse descents. We finally establish necessary and sufficient conditions for general sequences of Coxeter groups of increasing rank under which Mahonian and Eulerian probability distributions satisfy central and local limit theorems.
The circular descent of a permutation $σ$ is a set $\{σ(i)\mid σ(i)>σ(i+1)\}$. In this paper, we focus on the enumerations of permutations by the circular descent set. Let $cdes_n(S)$ be the number of permutations of length $n$ which have the circular descent set $S$. We derive the explicit formula for $cdes_n(S)$. We describe a class of generating binary trees $T_k $ with weights. We find that the number of permutations in the set $CDES_n(S)$ corresponds to the weights of $T_k$. As a application of the main results in this paper, we also give the enumeration of permutation tableaux according …
A standard barely set-valued tableau of shape $λ$ is a filling of the Young diagram $λ$ with integers $1,2,\dots,|λ|+1$ such that the integers are increasing in each row and column, and every cell contains one integer except one cell that contains two integers. Counting standard barely set-valued tableaux is closely related to the coincidental down-degree expectations (CDE) of lower intervals in Young's lattice. Using $q$-integral techniques we give a formula for the number of standard barely set-valued tableaux of arbitrary shifted shape. We show how it can be used to recover two formulas, or…
We find the exponential generating function for permutations with all valleys even and all peaks odd, and use it to determine the asymptotics for its coefficients, answering a question posed by Liviu Nicolaescu. The generating function can be expressed as the reciprocal of a sum involving Euler numbers. We give two proofs of the formula. The first uses a system of differential equations. The second proof derives the generating function directly from general permutation enumeration techniques, using noncommutative symmetric functions. The generating function is an "alternating" analogue of Davi…
We present a survey of points of view on the problem of the asymptotic shape of a path between two large Young diagrams, and introduce a modification of the TASEP process related to it. This representation allows to write explicitly the functional, counting the asymptotics of the number of Young tableau close to a given one, as well as to see the sine-process on the boundary shape of a large random Young diagram.
We define new statistics, (c, d)-descents, on the colored permutation groups Z_r \wr S_n and compute the distribution of these statistics on the elements in these groups. We use some combinatorial approaches, recurrences, and generating functions manipulations to obtain our results.
We suggest an approach for the enumeration of minimal permutations having d descents which uses skew Young tableaux. We succeed in finding a general expression for the number of such permutations in terms of (several) sums of determinants. We then generalize the class of skew Young tableaux under consideration; this allows in particular to discover some presumably new results concerning Eulerian numbers.
A notion of cyclic descents on standard Young tableaux (SYT) of rectangular shape was introduced by Rhoades, and extended to certain skew shapes by Adin, Elizalde and Roichman. The cyclic descent set restricts to the usual descent set when the largest value is ignored, and has the property that the number of SYT of a given shape with a given cyclic descent set D is invariant under cyclic shifts of the entries of D. Adin, Reiner and Roichman proved that a skew shape has a cyclic descent map if and only if it is not a connected ribbon. Unfortunately, their proof is nonconstructive. Recently Huan…
In this paper, we consider the number of occurrences of descents, ascents, 123-subwords, 321-subwords, peaks and valleys in flattened permutations, which were recently introduced by Callan in his study of finite set partitions. For descents and ascents, we make use of the kernel method and obtain an explicit formula (in terms of Eulerian polynomials) for the distribution on $\mathcal{S}_n$ in the flattened sense. For the other four patterns in question, we develop a unified approach to obtain explicit formulas for the comparable distributions. We find that the formulas so obtained for 123- and…
Using equivariant cohomology theory, Naruse obtained a hook length formula for the number of standard Young tableaux of skew shape $λ/μ$. Morales, Pak and Panova found two $q$-analogues of Naruse's formula respectively by counting semistandard Young tableaux of shape $λ/μ$ and reverse plane partitions of shape $λ/μ$. When $λ$ and $μ$ are both staircase shape partitions, Morales, Pak and Panova conjectured that the generating function of reverse plane partitions of shape $λ/ μ$ can be expressed as a determinant whose entries are related to $q$-analogues of the Euler numbers. The objective of th…
A "truncation" of Pascal's triangle is a triangular array of numbers that satisfies the usual Pascal recurrence but with a boundary condition that declares some terminal set of numbers along each row of the array to be zero. Presented here is a family of natural truncations of Pascal's triangle that generalize a kind of Catalan triangle. The numbers in each array are realized as differences of binomial coefficients, as counts of certain lattice paths and tableaux, and as entries of representing matrices for certain linear transformations of polynomial spaces. Lucas's theorem is applied to dete…
In this article, we shall start with a closed walk on a regular tree of degree $d$. These walks are described by the Kesten-McKay law which arises as the asymptotic distribution of a random $d$-regular graph on $n$ vertices. We will show that the moments of the Kesten-McKay law are given by counting standard Young tableaux with at most 2 rows, and how some properties of the walk make sense even when $d$ is not an integer. We will use free probability to instruct us how to build an explicit model in random matrix theory.
We use crystals of tableaux and descent compositions to understand the decomposition of Schur functions $s_λ$ into Gessel's fundamental quasisymmetric functions $F_α$. The connected crystal of tableaux $B(λ)$, associated to $s_λ$, is shown to be partitionned into a disjoint union of connected induced subgraphs $B(T_α)$ corresponding to the $F_α$'s. We show that these subgraphs, which we call quasicrystals, are isomorphic (as graphs) to specific crystals of tableaux. This allows us to give a formula for the number of tableaux of shape $λ$ and maximal entry $n$. We also use this setting to give …
The $k$-Young lattice $Y^k$ is a partial order on partitions with no part larger than $k$. This weak subposet of the Young lattice originated from the study of the $k$-Schur functions(atoms) $s_λ^{(k)}$, symmetric functions that form a natural basis of the space spanned by homogeneous functions indexed by $k$-bounded partitions. The chains in the $k$-Young lattice are induced by a Pieri-type rule experimentally satisfied by the $k$-Schur functions. Here, using a natural bijection between $k$-bounded partitions and $k+1$-cores, we establish an algorithm for identifying chains in the $k$-Young l…
Closed forms for $f_{λ,i} (q) := \sum_{τ\in SYT(λ) : des(τ) = i} q^{maj(τ)}$, the distribution of the major index over standard Young tableaux of given shapes and specified number of descents, are established for a large collection of $λ$ and $i$. Of particular interest is the family that gives a positive answer to a question of Sagan and collaborators. All formulas established in the paper are unimodal, most by a result of Kirillov and Reshetikhin. Many can be identified as specializations of Schur functions via the Jacobi-Trudi identities. If the number of arguments is sufficiently large, it…