Hall and Paige conjectured in 1955 that a finite group $G$ has a complete mapping if and only if its Sylow $2$-subgroups are trivial or noncyclic. This conjecture was proved in 2009 by Wilcox, Evans, and Bray using the classification of finite simple groups and extensive computer algebra. Using a completely different approach motivated by the circle method from analytic number theory, we prove that the number of complete mappings of any group $G$ of order $n$ satisfying the Hall--Paige condition is $(e^{-1/2} + o(1)) \, |G^\text{ab}| \, n!^2/n^n$.
For a finite loop $Q$, let $P (Q)$ be the set of elements that can be represented as a product containing each element of $Q$ precisely once. Motivated by the recent proof of the Hall-Paige conjecture, we prove several universal implications between the following conditions: (A) $Q$ has a complete mapping, i.e. the multiplication table of $Q$ has a transversal, (B) there is no $N \normal Q$ such that $|N|$ is odd and $Q/N \cong \ZZ_{2^m}$ for $m \geq 1$, and (C) $P(Q)$ intersects the associator subloop of $Q$. We prove $(A) \implies (C)$ and $(B) \iff (C)$ and show that when $Q$ is a group, th…
An orthomorphism of a finite group $G$ is a bijection $ϕ\colon G\to G$ such that $g\mapsto g^{-1}ϕ(g)$ is also a bijection. In 1981, Friedlander, Gordon, and Tannenbaum conjectured that when $G$ is abelian, for any $k\geq 2$ dividing $|G|-1$, there exists an orthomorphism of $G$ fixing the identity and permuting the remaining elements as products of disjoint $k$-cycles. We prove this conjecture for all sufficiently large groups.
The Hall--Paige conjecture asserts that a finite group has a complete mapping if and only if its Sylow subgroups are not cyclic. The conjecture is now proved, and one aim of this paper is to document the final step in the proof (for the sporadic simple group $\mathrm{J}_4$). We apply this result to prove that primitive permutation groups of simple diagonal type with three or more simple factors in the socle are non-synchronizing. We also give the simpler proof that, for groups of affine type, or simple diagonal type with two socle factors, synchronization and separation are equivalent. Synchro…
The Hall ratio of a graph $G$ is the maximum value of $v(H) / α(H)$ taken over all non-null subgraphs $H$ of $G$. For any graph, the Hall ratio is a lower-bound on its fractional chromatic number. In this note, we present various constructions of graphs whose fractional chromatic number grows much faster than their Hall ratio. This refutes a conjecture of Harris.
The Lecture Hall cone is a simplicial cone whose lattice points naturally correspond to Lecture Hall partitions. The celebrated Lecture Hall Theorem of Bousquet-Mélou and Eriksson states that a particular specialization of its multivariate Ehrhart series factors in a very nice and unexpected way. Over the years, several proofs of this result have been found, but it is still not considered to be well-understood from a geometric perspective. In this note we propose two conjectures which aim at clarifying this result. Our main conjecture is that the Ehrhart ring of the Lecture Hall cone is actual…
The shuffle conjecture expresses a relationship between parking functions, diagonal harmonics, and the Bergeron-Garsia $\nabla$ operator. Recent conjectures about a family of modified Hall-Littlewood operators made by Haglund, Morse, and Zabrocki sharpen the shuffle conjecture and suggest a variety of combinatorial properties of parking functions. In particular, their conjectures combined with previously established commutativity laws of the Hall-Littlewood operators, suggest the existence of certain bijections relating parking functions with different diagonal compositions. In this paper we f…
The $Δ$-Springer varieties are a generalization of Springer fibers introduced by Levinson, Woo, and the author that have connections to the Delta Conjecture from algebraic combinatorics. We prove a positive Hall-Littlewood expansion formula for the graded Frobenius characteristic of the cohomology ring of a $Δ$-Springer variety. We do this by interpreting the Frobenius characteristic in terms of counting points over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ and partitioning the $Δ$-Springer variety into copies of Springer fibers crossed with affine spaces. As a special case, our proof method gives a geome…
We introduce a $q,t$-enumeration of Dyck paths which are forced to touch the main diagonal at specific points and forbidden to touch elsewhere and conjecture that it describes the action of the Macdonald theory $\nabla$ operator applied to a Hall-Littlewood polynomial. Our conjecture refines several earlier conjectures concerning the space of diagonal harmonics including the "shuffle conjecture" (Duke J. Math. $\mathbf {126}$ (2005), pp. 195-232) for $\nabla e_n[X]$. We bring to light that certain generalized Hall-Littlewood polynomials indexed by compositions are the building blocks for the a…
We resolve affirmatively some conjectures of Reiner, Stanton, and White \cite{ReinerComm} regarding enumeration of transportation matrices which are invariant under certain cyclic row and column rotations. Our results are phrased in terms of the bicyclic sieving phenomenon introduced by Barcelo, Reiner, and Stanton \cite{BRSBiD}. The proofs of our results use various tools from symmetric function theory such as the Stanton-White rim hook correspondence \cite{SW} and results concerning the specialization of Hall-Littlewood polynomials due to Lascoux, Leclerc, and Thibon \cite{LLTUnity} \cite{LL…
We make a broad conjecture about the $k$-Schur positivity of Catalan functions, symmetric functions which generalize the (parabolic) Hall-Littlewood polynomials. We resolve the conjecture with positive combinatorial formulas in cases which address the $k$-Schur expansion of (1) Hall-Littlewood polynomials, proving the $q=0$ case of the strengthened Macdonald positivity conjecture of Lapointe, Lascoux, and Morse; (2) the product of a Schur function and a $k$-Schur function when the indexing partitions concatenate to a partition, describing a class of Gromov-Witten invariants for the quantum coh…
We prove a measurable version of the Hall marriage theorem for actions of finitely generated abelian groups. In particular, it implies that for free measure-preserving actions of such groups, if two equidistributed measurable sets are equidecomposable, then they are equidecomposable using measurable pieces. The latter generalizes a recent result of Grabowski, Máthé and Pikhurko on the measurable circle squaring and confirms a special case of a conjecture of Gardner.
We introduce a conjectural construction for an extension to superspace of the Macdonald polynomials. The construction, which depends on certain orthogonality and triangularity relations, is tested for high degrees. We conjecture a simple form for the norm of the Macdonald polynomials in superspace, and a rather non-trivial expression for their evaluation. We study the limiting cases q=0 and q=\infty, which lead to two families of Hall-Littlewood polynomials in superspace. We also find that the Macdonald polynomials in superspace evaluated at q=t=0 or q=t=\infty seem to generalize naturally the…
Constructing a Pseudo Random Function (PRF) is a fundamental problem in cryptology. Such a construction, implemented by truncating the last $m$ bits of permutations of $\{0, 1\}^{n}$ was suggested by Hall et al. (1998). They conjectured that the distinguishing advantage of an adversary with $q$ queries, ${\bf Adv}_{n, m} (q)$, is small if $q = o (2^{(n+m)/2})$, established an upper bound on ${\bf Adv}_{n, m} (q)$ that confirms the conjecture for $m < n/7$, and also declared a general lower bound ${\bf Adv}_{n,m}(q)=Ω(q^2/2^{n+m})$. The conjecture was essentially confirmed by Bellare and Impagl…
