We define the notion of a separable element in a finite Weyl group, generalizing the well-studied class of separable permutations. We prove that the upper and lower order ideals in weak Bruhat order generated by a separable element are rank-symmetric and rank-unimodal, and that the product of their rank generating functions gives that of the whole group, answering an open problem of Fan Wei. We also prove that separable elements are characterized by pattern avoidance in the sense of Billey and Postnikov.
We continue the study of separable elements in finite Weyl groups. These elements generalize the well-studied class of separable permutations. We show that the multiplication map $W/U \times U \to W$ is a length-additive bijection, or splitting, of the Weyl group $W$ when $U$ is an order ideal in right weak order generated by a separable element; this generalizes a result for the symmetric group, answering an open problem of Wei. For a generalized quotient of the symmetric group, we show that this multiplication map is a bijection if and only if $U$ is an order ideal in right weak order genera…
To any saturated chain in the affine Weyl group whose translation parts are sufficiently regular, we associate a near path and a far path in the quantum Bruhat graph. Using this, working in the Bruhat order on the minimal-length representatives of the cosets in the affine Weyl group with respect to the finite Weyl group, we characterize the pairs of elements for which the Möbius function is nonzero. This is applied to obtain explicit expansions in the $K$-theory of affine Grassmannians, of the basis of ideal sheaves into the basis of structure sheaves of Schubert varieties.
The classical Eulerian polynomials $A_n(t)$ are known to be gamma positive. Define the positive Eulerian polynomial $A_n^+(t)$ as the polynomial obtained when we sum descents over the alternating group. We show that $A_n^+(t)$ is gamma positive iff $n \equiv 0,1$ (mod 4). When $n \equiv 2$ (mod 4) we show that $A_n^+(t)$ can be written as a sum of two gamma positive polynomials while if $n \equiv 3$ (mod 4), we show that $A_n^+(t)$ can be written as a sum of three gamma positive polynomials. Similar results are shown when we consider the positive type-D and type-D Eulerian polynomials.
Fix a Dynkin diagram and let p be a coweight. When does there exist an element w of the corresponding Weyl group such that w is p-minuscule and w(p) is dominant? We answer this question for general Coxeter groups. We express and prove these results using a variant of Mozes's game of numbers.
Central Limit Theorems are known for the Eulerian statistic "descent" (or "excedance") in the symmetric group $\SSS_n$. Recently, Fulman, Kim, Lee and Petersen gave a Central Limit Theorem for "descent" over the alternating group $\AAA_n$ and also gave a Carlitz identity in $\AAA_n$ using descents. In this paper, we give a Central Limit Theorem in $\AAA_n$ involving excedances. We extend these to the positive elements in type B and type D Coxeter groups. Boroweic and Młotkowski enumerated type B descents over $\DD_n$, the type D Coxeter group and gave similar results. We refine their results f…
The `Weyl symmetric functions' studied here naturally generalize classical symmetric (polynomial) functions, and `Weyl bialternants,' sometimes also called Weyl characters, analogize the Schur functions. For this generalization, the underlying symmetry group is a finite Weyl group. A `splitting poset' for a Weyl bialternant is an edge-colored ranked poset possessing a certain structural property and a natural weighting of its elements so that the weighted sum of poset elements is the given Weyl bialternant. Connected such posets are of combinatorial interest in part because they are rank symme…
Chapuy and Stump have given a nice generating series for the number of factorisations of a Coxeter element as a product of reflections. Their method is to evaluate case by case a character-theoretic expression. The goal of this note is to give a uniform evaluation of their character-theoretic expression in the case of Weyl groups, by using combinatorial properties of Deligne-Lusztig representations.
The classical Eulerian polynomials $A_n(t)$ are known to be gamma positive. Define the positive Eulerian polynomial $\mathsf{AExc^{+}}_n(t)$ as the polynomial obtained when we sum excedances over the alternating group. We show that $\mathsf{AExc^{+}}_n(t)$ is gamma positive iff $n \geq 5$ and $n \equiv 1$ (mod 2). When $n \geq 4$, and $n \equiv 0$ (mod 2) we show that $\mathsf{AExc^{+}}_n(t)$ can be written as a sum of two gamma positive polynomials. Similar results are shown when we consider the positive type-D and type-D Eulerian polynomials. Finally, we show gamma positivity results when we…
We consider ad-nilpotent ideals of a Borel subalgebra of a simple Lie algebra. The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, we study the ad-nilpotent ideals lying inside the Heisenberg ideal. The Heisenberg ideal is the nilpotent radical of the centralizer of the highest root vector. Second, we study the ideals having the property that the corresponding domain of the Shi arrangement consists of a single alcove. Such ideals (and the corresponding elements of the affine Weyl group) are called minimax.
Affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties can be thought of as affine analogs of classical Deligne-Lusztig varieties, or Frobenius-twisted analogs of Schubert varieties. We provide a method for proving a non-emptiness statement for affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties inside the affine flag variety associated to affine Weyl group elements satisfying a certain length additivity hypothesis. In particular, we prove that non-emptiness holds whenever it is conjectured to do so for alcoves in the shrunken dominant Weyl chamber, providing a partial converse to the emptiness results of Goertz, Haines, Kottwitz, an…
We introduce the notion of a strong minuscule element, and prove that the dominant integral weight associated to a strong minuscule element is the fundamental weight corresponding to a short simple root. In addition, we enumerate the strong minuscule elements explicitly, and then as an application of this enumeration, determine the dimension of certain Demazure modules in the finite-dimensional irreducible modules whose highest weights are minuscule weights.
The limit weak order on an affine Weyl group was introduced by Lam and Pylyavskyy in their study of total positivity for loop groups. They showed that in the case of the affine symmetric group the minimal elements of this poset coincide with the infinite fully commutative reduced words and with infinite powers of Coxeter elements. We answer several open problems raised there by classifying minimal elements in all affine types and relating these elements to the classes of fully commutative and Coxeter elements. Interestingly, the infinite fully commutative elements correspond to the minuscule a…
In this extended abstract, we show how a bijection between parking functions and regions of the Shi arrangement from [Athanasiadis, Linusson '99] (in type $A_n$) and [Armstrong, Reiner, Rhoades '15] (in type $B_n, C_n, D_n$) allows for the computation of the minimal elements of the Shi regions. This gives a combinatorial interpretation of these minimal elements: they can be seen as counting non-crossing arcs in non-nesting arc diagrams.
For an element $w$ in the Weyl algebra generated by $D$ and $U$ with relation $DU=UD+1$, the normally ordered form is $w=\sum c_{i,j}U^iD^j$. We demonstrate that the normal order coefficients $c_{i,j}$ of a word $w$ are rook numbers on a Ferrers board. We use this interpretation to give a new proof of the rook factorization theorem, which we use to provide an explicit formula for the coefficients $c_{i,j}$. We calculate the Weyl binomial coefficients: normal order coefficients of the element $(D+U)^n$ in the Weyl algebra. We extend all these results to the $q$-analogue of the Weyl algebra. We …
Let $W$ be a finite Weyl group and ${\hat{W}}$ be the corresponding affine Weyl group. We show that a large element in ${\hat{W}}$, randomly generated by (reduced) multiplication by simple generators, almost surely has one of $|W|$-specific shapes. Equivalently, a reduced random walk in the regions of the affine Coxeter arrangement asymptotically approaches one of $|W|$-many directions. The coordinates of this direction, together with the probabilities of each direction can be calculated via a Markov chain on $W$. Our results, applied to type $\tilde{A}_{n-1}$, show that a large random $n$-cor…
We use the author's combinatorial theory of full heaps (defined in math.QA/0605768) to categorify the action of a large class of Weyl groups on their root systems, and thus to give an elementary and uniform construction of a family of faithful permutation representations of Weyl groups. Examples include the standard representations of affine Weyl groups as permutations of ${\Bbb Z}$ and geometrical examples such as the realization of the Weyl group of type $E_6$ as permutations of 27 lines on a cubic surface; in the latter case, we also show how to recover the incidence relations between the l…
We introduce the notion of 321-avoiding permutations in the affine Weyl group $W$ of type $A_{n-1}$ by considering the group as a George group (in the sense of Eriksson and Eriksson). This enables us to generalize a result of Billey, Jockusch and Stanley to show that the 321-avoiding permutations in $W$ coincide with the set of fully commutative elements; in other words, any two reduced expressions for a 321-avoiding element of $W$ (considered as a Coxeter group) may be obtained from each other by repeated applications of short braid relations. Using Shi's characterization of the Kazhdan--Lusz…
The Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials for finite Weyl groups arise in the geometry of Schubert varieties and representation theory. It was proved very soon after their introduction that they have nonnegative integer coefficients, but no completely combinatorial interpretation for them is known in general. Deodhar (1990) has given a framework for computing the Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials, which generally involves recursion. We define embedded factor pattern avoidance for general Coxeter groups and use it to characterize when Deodhar's algorithm yields a simple combinatorial formula for the Kazhdan-Lu…
In this work, we study the concept of the length function and some of its combinatorial properties for the class of extended affine root systems of type $A_1$. We introduce a notion of root basis for these root systems, and using a unique expression of the elements of the Weyl group with respect to a set of generators for the Weyl group, we calculate the length function with respect to a very specific root basis.
By using an elementary matrix approach, based on the technique of discrete Toda equation, we construct subtraction-free rational and piecewise linear transformations associated with various combinatorial algorithms, including the RSK correspondence. We also investigate birational Weyl group actions related to those algorithms.
Starting from an ancient observation of Tits concerning the interpretation of symmetric groups as Chevalley groups over a (non-existing) field having only one element, we describe combinatorial geometry over this field, as well as Linear Algebra. We arrive at an "absolute mantra" which is one of the basic principles of the present book.
For a semisimple Lie algebra admitting a good enumeration, we prove a parametrization for the elements in its Weyl group. As an application, we give a coordinate-free comparison between the crystal graph description (when it is known) and the Lie-theoretic description of the Weyl group multiple Dirichlet series in the stable range.
We introduce and study a family of operators which act in the span of a Weyl group $W$ and provide a multi-parameter solution to the quantum Yang-Baxter equations of the corresponding type. Our operators generalize the "quantum Bruhat operators" that appear in the explicit description of the multiplicative structure of the (small) quantum cohomology ring of $G/B$. The main combinatorial applications concern the "tilted Bruhat order," a graded poset whose unique minimal element is an arbitrarily chosen element $w\in W$. (The ordinary Bruhat order corresponds to the case $w=1$.) Using the mixed …
