We introduce the antipodal pairs property for probability measures on finite Boolean algebras and prove that conditional versions imply strong forms of log-concavity. We give several applications of this fact, including improvements of some results of Wagner; a new proof of a theorem of Liggett stating that ultra-log-concavity of sequences is preserved by convolutions; and some progress on a well-known log-concavity conjecture of J. Mason.
It is well-known that measures whose density is the form $e^{-V}$ where $V$ is a uniformly convex potential on $\RR^n$ attain strong concentration properties. In search of a notion of log-concavity on the discrete hypercube, we consider measures on $\{-1,1\}^n$ whose multi-linear extension $f$ satisfies $\log \nabla^2 f(x) \preceq β\Id$, for $β\geq 0$, which we refer to as $β$-semi-log-concave. We prove that these measures satisfy a nontrivial concentration bound, namely, any Hamming Lipchitz test function $φ$ satisfies $\Var_ν[φ] \leq n^{2-C_β}$ for $C_β>0$. As a corollary, we prove a concent…
We show that the sequence of moments of order less than 1 of averages of i.i.d. positive random variables is log-concave. For moments of order at least 1, we conjecture that the sequence is log-convex and show that this holds eventually for integer moments (after neglecting the first $p^2$ terms of the sequence).
We give counterexamples and a few positive results related to several conjectures of R. Pemantle and D. Wagner concerning negative correlation and log-concavity properties for probability measures and relations between them. Most of the negative results have also been obtained, independently but somewhat earlier, by Borcea et al. We also give short proofs of a pair of results due to Pemantle and Borcea et al.; prove that "almost exchangeable" measures satisfy the "Feder-Mihail" property, thus providing a "non-obvious" example of a class of measures for which this important property can be show…
Menon's proof of the preservation of log-concavity of sequences under convolution becomes simpler when adapted to 2-sided infinite sequences. Under assumption of log-concavity of two 2-sided infinite sequences, the existence of the convolution is characterised by a convergence criterion. Preservation of log-concavity under convolution yields a method of establishing the log-concavity of rows of a large class of Pascal type triangles, including a weighted generalization of the Delannoy triangle. This method is also compared with known techniques of proving log-concavity.
We prove the log-concavity of the Fennessey-Larcombe-French sequence based on its three-term recurrence relation, which was recently conjectured by Zhao. The key ingredient of our approach is a sufficient condition for log-concavity of a sequence subject to certain three-term recurrence.
In this paper we develop a new geometric method to answer the log-concavity questions related to a nice class of combinatorial sequences arising from the Pascal triangle.
Ordinary polytopes are known as a non-simplicial generalization of the cyclic polytopes. The face vectors of ordinary polytopes are shown to be log-concave.
We combinatorially prove that the number $R(n,k)$ of permutations of length $n$ having $k$ runs is a log-concave sequence in $k$, for all $n$. We also give a new combinatorial proof for the log-concavity of the Eulerian numbers.
Let $P_{n,k}$ be the number of permutations $π$ on [n]={1, 2,..., n} such that the length of the longest increasing subsequences of $π$ equals k, and let $M_{2n, k}$ be the number of matchings on [2n] with crossing number k. Define $P_n(x)= \sum_k P_{n,k}x^k$ and $M_{2n}(x)=\sum_{k} M_{2n,k}x^k$. We propose some conjectures on the log-concavity and q-log-convexity of the polynomials $P_n(x)$ and $M_{2n}(x)$. We also introduce the notions of $\infty$-q-log-convexity and $\infty$-q-log-concavity, and the notion of higher order log-concavity with respect to $\infty$-q-log-convex or $\infty$-q-log…
The purpose of this note is to explain that the combinatorial local log-concavity conjecture introduced by Gross, Mansour, Tucker and Wang (Eur. J. Comb. 52, 207-222, 2016) in fact follows from a result of Stanley (Eur. J. Comb. 32 (6), 937-943, 2011).
We give a self-contained proof of the strongest version of Mason's conjecture, namely that for any matroid the sequence of the number of independent sets of given sizes is ultra log-concave. To do this, we introduce a class of polynomials, called completely log-concave polynomials, whose bivariate restrictions have ultra log-concave coefficients. At the heart of our proof we show that for any matroid, the homogenization of the generating polynomial of its independent sets is completely log-concave.
We prove that in a large collection of naturally defined sets of permutations of fixed length, the numbers of permutations at Ulam distance k from the identity form a log-concave sequence in k.
This is a survey on recent developments on unimodality, log-concavity and real-rootedness in combinatorics. Stanley and Brenti have written extensive surveys of various techniques that can be used to prove real-rootedness, log-concavity or unimodality. After a brief introduction, we will complement these surveys with a survey over some new techniques that have been developed, as well as problems and conjectures that have been solved. This is a draft of a chapter to appear in Handbook of Enumerative Combinatorics, published by CRC Press.
We prove the reverse ultra log-concavity of the Boros-Moll polynomials. We further establish an inequality which implies the log-concavity of the sequence $\{i!d_i(m)\}$ for any $m\geq 2$, where $d_i(m)$ are the coefficients of the Boros-Moll polynomials $P_m(a)$. This inequality also leads to the fact that in the asymptotic sense, the Boros-Moll sequences are just on the borderline between ultra log-concavity and reverse ultra log-concavity. We propose two conjectures on the log-concavity and reverse ultra log-concavity of the sequence $\{d_{i-1}(m) d_{i+1}(m)/d_i(m)^2\}$ for $m\geq 2$.
We prove Okounkov's conjecture, a conjecture of Fomin-Fulton-Li-Poon, and a special case of Lascoux-Leclerc-Thibon's conjecture on Schur positivity and give several more general statements using a recent result of Rhoades and Skandera. An alternative proof of this result is provided. We also give an intriguing log-concavity property of Schur functions.
Chen proposed a conjecture on the log-concavity of the generating function for the symmetric group with respect to the length of longest increasing subsequences of permutations. Motivated by Chen's log-concavity conjecture, Bóna, Lackner and Sagan further studied similar problems by restricting the whole symmetric group to certain of its subsets. They obtained the log-concavity of the corresponding generating functions for these subsets by using the hook-length formula. In this paper, we generalize and prove their results by establishing the Schur positivity of certain symmetric functions. Thi…
This paper presents the log-concavity of the $m$-gonal figurate number sequences. The author gives and proves the recurrence formula for $m$-gonal figurate number sequences and its corresponding quotient sequences which are found to be bounded. Finally, the author also show that for $m\geq 3$, the sequence $\big \{S_n(m)\big\}_{n\geq 1}$ of $m$-gonal figurate numbers is a log-concave.
We introduce the notion of interlacing log-concavity of a polynomial sequence $\{P_m(x)\}_{m\geq 0}$, where $P_m(x)$ is a polynomial of degree m with positive coefficients $a_{i}(m)$. This sequence of polynomials is said to be interlacing log-concave if the ratios of consecutive coefficients of $P_m(x)$ interlace the ratios of consecutive coefficients of $P_{m+1}(x)$ for any $m\geq 0$. Interlacing log-concavity is stronger than the log-concavity. We show that the Boros-Moll polynomials are interlacing log-concave. Furthermore we give a sufficient condition for interlacing log-concavity which i…
Let $\{P_n\}_{n\geq 0}$ denote the Catalan-Larcombe-French sequence, which naturally came up from the series expansion of the complete elliptic integral of the first kind. In this paper, we prove the strict log-concavity of the sequence $\{\sqrt[n]{P_n}\}_{n\geq 1}$, which was originally conjectured by Sun. We also obtain the strict log-concavity of the sequence $\{\sqrt[n]{V_n}\}_{n\geq 1}$, where $\{V_n\}_{n\geq 0}$ is the Fennessey-Larcombe-French sequence arising in the series expansion of the complete elliptic integral of the second kind.
We prove that the partition function $p(n)$ is log-concave for all $n>25$. We then extend the results to resolve two related conjectures by Chen. The proofs are based on Lehmer's estimates on the remainders of the Hardy--Ramanujan and the Rademacher series for $p(n)$.
We study the $S_n$-equivariant log-concavity of the cohomology of flag varieties, also known as the coinvariant ring of $S_n$. Using the theory of representation stability, we give computer-assisted proofs of the equivariant log-concavity in low degrees and high degrees and conjecture that it holds for all degrees. Furthermore, we make a stronger unimodal conjecture which implies the equivariant log-concavity.
We expand upon the notion of equivariant log concavity, and make equivariant log concavity conjectures for Orlik--Solomon algebras of matroids, Cordovil algebras of oriented matroids, and Orlik--Terao algebras of hyperplane arrangements. In the case of the Coxeter arrangement for the Lie algebra $\mathfrak{sl}_n$, we exploit the theory of representation stability to give computer assisted proofs of these conjectures in low degree.
It is well-known that the binomial transformation preserves the log-concavity property and log-convexity property. Let $\binom{a+n}{b+k}$ be the binomial coefficients and $\binom{n,k}{j}$ be defined by $(b_0+b_1x+\cdots+b_kx^{k})^n:=\sum_{j=0}^{kn}\binom{n,k}{j}x^j,$ where the sequence $(b_i)_{0\leq i\leq k}$ is log-concave. In this paper, we prove that the linear transformation $$y_n(q)=\sum_{k=0}^n\binom{a+n}{b+k}x_k(q)$$ preserves the strong $q$-log-concavity property for any fixed nonnegative integers $a$ and $b$, which strengthens and gives a simple proof of results of Ehrenborg and Stein…
Sufficient conditions are developed, under which the compound Poisson distribution has maximal entropy within a natural class of probability measures on the nonnegative integers. Recently, one of the authors [O. Johnson, {\em Stoch. Proc. Appl.}, 2007] used a semigroup approach to show that the Poisson has maximal entropy among all ultra-log-concave distributions with fixed mean. We show via a non-trivial extension of this semigroup approach that the natural analog of the Poisson maximum entropy property remains valid if the compound Poisson distributions under consideration are log-concave, b…
We show that normalized Schur polynomials are strongly log-concave. As a consequence, we obtain Okounkov's log-concavity conjecture for Littlewood-Richardson coefficients in the special case of Kostka numbers.
Let $\{h_1,h_2,...\}$ be a set of algebraically independent variables. We ask which vectors are extreme in the cone generated by $h_ih_j-h_{i+1}h_{j-1}$ ($i\geq j>0$) and $h_i$ ($i>0$). We call this cone the cone of log concavity. More generally, we ask which vectors are extreme in the cone generated by Schur functions of partitions with $k$ or fewer parts. We give a conjecture for which vectors are extreme in the cone of log concavity. We prove the characterization in one direction and give partial results in the other direction.
Let $\bar{p}(n)$ denote the overpartition function. In this paper, we study the asymptotic higher order $\log$-concavity property of the overpatition function in a similar framework done by Hou and Zhang for the partition function. This will enable us to move on further in order to prove $\log$-concavity of overpartitions, explicitly by studying the asymptotic expansion of the quotient $\bar{p}(n-1)\bar{p}(n+1)/\bar{p}(n)^2$ upto a certain order so that one can finally ends up with the phenomena of $2$-$\log$-concavity and higher order Turán property of $\bar{p}(n)$ by following a sort of unif…
Let the Bessel number of the second kind B(n,k) be the number of set partitions of [n] into k blocks of size one or two, and let the Bessel number of the first kind b(n,k) be a certain coefficient in n-th Bessel polynomial. In this paper, we show that Bessel numbers satisfy two properties of Stirling numbers: The two kinds of Bessel numbers are related by inverse formulas, and both Bessel numbers of the first kind and the second kind form log-concave sequences. By constructing sign-reversing involutions, we prove the inverse formulas. We review Krattenthaler's injection for the log-concavity o…
Horizontal and vertical generating functions and recursion relations have been investigated by Comtet for triangular double sequences. In this paper we investigate the horizontal and vertical log-concavity of triangular sequences assigned to polynomials which show up in combinatorics, number theory and physics. This includes Laguerre polynomials, the Pochhammer polynomials, the D'Arcais and Nekrasov--Okounkov polynomials.
D. Uminsky and K. Yeats [6] studied the properties of the log- operator L on the subset of the finite symmetric sequences and prove the existence of an infinite region R, bounded by parametrically de- fined hypersurfaces such that any sequence corresponding a point of R is infinitely log concave. We study the properties of a new operator L_r and redefine the hypersurfaces which generalizes the one defined by Uminsky and Yeats [6]. We show that any sequence corresponding a point of the region R, bounded by the new generalized parametrically defined r-factor hypersurfaces, is Generalized r-facto…
We show that f-vectors of matroid complexes of realisable matroids are log-concave. This was conjectured by Mason in 1972. Our proof uses the recent result by Huh and Katz who showed that the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of a realisable matroid form a log-concave sequence. We also discuss the relationship between log-concavity of f-vectors and h-vectors of matroids. In the last section we explain the connection between zonotopal algebra and f-vectors and characteristic polynomials of matroids.
In a recent paper, the first author proved the log-concavity of the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of a matroid realizable over a field of characteristic 0, answering a long-standing conjecture of Read in graph theory. We extend the proof to all realizable matroids, making progress towards a more general conjecture of Rota-Heron-Welsh. Our proof follows from an identification of the coefficients of the reduced characteristic polynomial as answers to particular intersection problems on a toric variety. The log-concavity then follows from an inequality of Hodge type.
We establish discrete and continuous log-concavity results for a biparametric extension of the $q$-numbers and of the $q$-binomial coefficients. By using classical results for the Jacobi theta function we are able to lift some of our log-concavity results to the elliptic setting. One of our main ingredients is a putatively new lemma involving a multiplicative analogue of Turán's inequality.
For any matroid $M$, we compute the Tutte polynomial $T_M(x,y)$ using the mixed intersection numbers of certain classes in the combinatorial Chow ring $A^\bullet(M)$ arising from hypersimplices. Using the mixed Hodge-Riemann relations, we deduce a strengthening of the log-concavity of the $h$-vector of a matroid complex, improving on an old conjecture of Dawson.
Let $e_{n}^k$ be the entries in the classical Euler's difference table. We consider the array $d_{n}^{k}=e_n^k/k!$ for $0\leq k \leq n$, where $d_n^k$ can be interpreted as the number of k-fixed-points-permutations of [n]. We show that the sequence $\{d_n^k\}_{0\leq k\leq n}$ is 2-log-concave and reverse ultra log-concave for any given n.
Given a sequence (a_k) = a_0, a_1, a_2,... of real numbers, define a new sequence L(a_k) = (b_k) where b_k = a_k^2 - a_{k-1} a_{k+1}. So (a_k) is log-concave if and only if (b_k) is a nonnegative sequence. Call (a_k) "infinitely log-concave" if L^i(a_k) is nonnegative for all i >= 1. Boros and Moll conjectured that the rows of Pascal's triangle are infinitely log-concave. Using a computer and a stronger version of log-concavity, we prove their conjecture for the nth row for all n <= 1450. We also use our methods to give a simple proof of a recent result of Uminsky and Yeats about regions of in…
In recent years, the log-concavity of $\{\sqrt[n]{S_n}\}_{n\geq 1}$ have been received a lot of attention. Very recently, Sun posed the following conjecture in his new book: the sequences $\{\sqrt[n]{a_n}\}_{n\geq 2}$ and $\{ \sqrt[n]{b_n}\}_{n\geq 1}$ are log-concave, where \[ a_n:= \frac{1}{n}\sum_{k=0}^{n-1} \frac{{n-1\choose k}^2{n+k\choose k}^2 }{4k^2-1} \] and \[ b_n:= \frac{1}{n^3}\sum_{k=0}^{n-1} (3k^2+3k+1){n-1\choose k}^2 {n+k\choose k}^2. \] In this paper, two methods, semi-automatic and analytic methods, are used to confirm Sun's conjecture. The semi-automatic method relies on a cr…
The chromatic polynomial is a well studied object in graph theory. There are many results and conjectures about the log-concavity of the chromatic polynomial and other polynomials related to it. The location of the roots of these polynomials has also been well studied. One famous result due to A. Sokal and C. Borgs provides a bound on the absolute value of the roots of the chromatic polynomial in terms of the highest degree of the graph. We use this result to prove a modification of a log-concavity conjecture due to F. Brenti. The original conjecture of Brenti was that the chromatic polynomial…
$q$-Kaplansky numbers were considered by Chen and Rota. We find that $q$-Kaplansky numbers are connected to the symmetric differences of Gaussian polynomials introduced by Reiner and Stanton. Based on the work of Reiner and Stanton, we establish the unimodality of $q$-Kaplansky numbers. We also show that $q$-Kaplansky numbers are the generating functions for the inversion number and the major index of two special kinds of $(0,1)$-sequences. Furthermore, we show that $q$-Kaplansky numbers are strongly $q$-log-concave.
We formulate conditions on a set of log-concave sequences, under which any linear combination of those sequences is log-concave, and further, of conditions under which linear combinations of log-concave sequences that have been transformed by convolution are log-concave. These conditions involve relations on sequences called \textit{synchronicity} and \textit{ratio-dominance}, and a characterization of some bivariate sequences as \textit{lexicographic}. We are motivated by the 25-year old conjecture that the genus distribution of every graph is log-concave. Although calculating genus distribut…
