In this paper we show that the largest possible size of a subset of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ avoiding right angles, that is, distinct vectors $x,y,z$ such that $x-z$ and $y-z$ are perpendicular to each other is at most $O(n^{q-2})$. This improves on the previously best known bound due to Naslund \cite{Naslund} and refutes a conjecture of Ge and Shangguan \cite{Ge}. A lower bound of $n^{q/3}$ is also presented.
It is also shown that a subset of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ avoiding triangles with all right angles can have size at most $O(n^{2q-2})$. Furthermore, asymptotically tight bounds are given for the largest possible size of a subset $A\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^n$ for which $x-y$ is not self-orthogonal for any distinct $x,y\in A$. The exact answer is determined for $q=3$ and $n\equiv 2\pmod {3}$.
Our methods can also be used to bound the maximum possible size of a binary code where no two codewords have Hamming distance divisible by a fixed prime $q$. Our lower- and upper bounds are asymptotically tight and both are sharp in infinitely many cases.
In this paper we investigate the existence of singular endomorphisms of the cuboidal Hamming graph $H(n_1,...,n_d,S)$ over the set $\left[ n_1\right]\times \left[ n_2\right]\times \cdots \times \left[ n_d\right]$, where $\left[ n\right]=\{1,...,n\}$, which is a generalisation of the well-known (cubic) Hamming graph over $\left[ n\right]^{d}$. Two vertices in $H$ are adjacent, if their Hamming distance lies in the set $S$. In this paper $S=\{1,...,r\}$, for some integer $1\leq r\leq d-1$, and we first show that the singular endomorphisms of minimal rank ( which is the size of their image) of $H…
Recently, Chen et al. derived the generating function for partitions avoiding right nestings and posed the problem of finding the generating function for partitions avoiding right crossings. In this paper, we derive the generating function for partitions avoiding right crossings via an intermediate structure of partial matchings avoiding 2-right crossings and right nestings. We show that there is a bijection between partial matchings avoiding 2-right crossing and right nestings and partitions avoiding right crossings.
Ochem, Rampersad, and Shallit gave various examples of infinite words avoiding what they called approximate repetitions. An approximate repetition is a factor of the form xx', where x and x' are close to being identical. In their work, they measured the similarity of x and x' using either the Hamming distance or the edit distance. In this paper, we show the existence of words avoiding approximate repetitions, where the measure of similarity between adjacent factors is based on the length of the longest common subsequence. Our principal technique is the so-called "entropy compression" method, w…
A celebrated theorem of Kleitman in extremal combinatorics states that a collection of binary vectors in $\{0, 1\}^n$ with diameter $d$ has cardinality at most that of a Hamming ball of radius $d/2$. In this paper, we give an algebraic proof of Kleitman's Theorem, by carefully choosing a pseudo-adjacency matrix for certain Hamming graphs, and applying the Cvetković bound on independence numbers. This method also allows us to prove several extensions and generalizations of Kleitman's Theorem to other allowed distance sets, in particular blocks of consecutive integers that do not necessarily gro…
The logarithmic Sobolev inequality for the Hamming cube {0,1}^n states that for any real-valued function f on the cube holds E(f,f) \ge 2 Ent(f^2), where E(f,f) is the appropriate Dirichlet form (also known as "sum of influences"). We show that the constant C = 2 at the right hand side of this inequality can be replaced by a function C(rho) depending on rho = Ent(f^2) / (n Ef^2). The function C is an increasing convex function taking [0,log 2] to [2, 2/log 2]. We present some applications of this modified inequality. In particular, it is used to obtain a discrete version of the Faber-Krahn ine…
Let $p \ge 2$. We improve the bound $\frac{\|f\|_p}{\|f\|_2} \le (p-1)^{s/2}$ for a polynomial $f$ of degree $s$ on the boolean cube $\{0,1\}^n$, which comes from hypercontractivity, replacing the right hand side of this inequality by an explicit bivariate function of $p$ and $s$, which is smaller than $(p-1)^{s/2}$ for any $p > 2$ and $s > 0$. We show the new bound to be tight, within a smaller order factor, for the Krawchouk polynomial of degree $s$. This implies several nearly-extremal properties of Krawchouk polynomials and Hamming spheres (equivalently, Hamming balls). In particular, Kraw…
We obtain the generating functions for partial matchings avoiding neighbor alignments and for partial matchings avoiding neighbor alignments and left nestings. We show that there is a bijection between partial matchings avoiding three neighbor patterns (neighbor alignments, left nestings and right nestings) and set partitions avoiding right nestings via an intermediate structure of integer compositions. Such integer compositions are known to be in one-to-one correspondence with self-modified ascent sequences or $3\bar{1}52\bar{4}$-avoiding permutations, as shown by Bousquet-Mélou, Claesson, Du…
A self-avoiding polygon is a lattice polygon consisting of a closed self-avoiding walk on a square lattice. Surprisingly little is known rigorously about the enumeration of self-avoiding polygons, although there are numerous conjectures that are believed to be true and strongly supported by numerical simulations. As an analogous problem of this study, we consider multiple self-avoiding polygons in a confined region, as a model for multiple ring polymers in physics. We find rigorous lower and upper bounds of the number $p_{m \times n}$ of distinct multiple self-avoiding polygons in the $m \time…
In this paper we continue the study of permutations avoiding the vincular pattern $1-32-4$ by constructing a generating tree with a single label for these permutations. This construction finally provides a clearer explanation of why a certain recursive formula found by Callan actually counts these permutations, insofar as this formula was originally obtained only as a consequence of a very intricated bijection with a certain class of ordered rooted trees. This responds to a theoretical issue already raised by Duchi, Guerrini and Rinaldi. As a byproduct, we also obtain an algorithm to generate …
Let $n$ be a positive integer, $q$ a power of a prime, and $\mathcal{L}_n(q)$ the poset of subspaces of an $n$-dimensional vector space over a field with $q$ elements. This poset is a normalized matching poset and the set of subspaces of dimension $\left\lfloor n/2 \right\rfloor$ or those of dimension $\left\lceil n/2 \right\rceil$ are the only maximum-sized anti-chains in this poset. Strengthening this well-known and celebrated result, we show that, except in the case of $\mathcal{L}_3(2)$, these same collections of subspaces are the only maximum-sized families in $\mathcal{L}_n(q)$ that avoi…
For a set $A\subseteq Q_{n}=\left\{ 0,1\right\} ^{n}$ the $t$-neighbourhood of $A$ is $N^{t}\left(A\right)=\left\{ x\,:\,d\left(x,A\right)\leq t\right\}$, where $d$ denotes the usual graph distance on $Q_{n}$. Harper's vertex-isoperimetric theorem states that among the subsets $A\subseteq Q_{n}$ of given size, the size of the $t$-neighbourhood is minimised when $A$ is taken to be an initial segment of the simplicial order. Aubrun and Szarek asked the following question: if $A\subseteq Q_{n}$ is a subset of given size for which the sizes of both $N^{t}\left(A\right)$ and $N^{t}\left(A^{c}\right…
In their paper \cite{DokosDwyer:Permutat12}, Dokos et al. conjecture that the major index statistic is equidistributed among 1423-avoiding, 2413-avoiding, and 2314-avoiding permutations. In this paper we confirm this conjecture by constructing two major index preserving bijections, $Θ:S_n(1423)\to S_n(2413)$ and $Ω:S_n(2314)\to S_n(2413)$. In fact, we show that $Θ$ (respectively, $Ω$) preserves numerous other statistics including the descent set, right-to-left maximum (respectively, left-to-right minimum), and a new statistic we call top-steps (respectively, bottom-steps).
The Hammersley-Welsh bound (1962) states that the number $c_n$ of length $n$ self-avoiding walks on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ satisfies \[ c_n \leq \exp \left[ O(n^{1/2}) \right] μ_c^n, \] where $μ_c=μ_c(d)$ is the connective constant of $\mathbb{Z}^d$. While stronger estimates have subsequently been proven for $d\geq 3$, for $d=2$ this has remained the best rigorous, unconditional bound available. In this note, we give a new, simplified proof of this bound, which does not rely on the combinatorial analysis of unfolding. We also prove a small, non-quantitative improvement to the bound, namely \[ c_n \leq…
Let $La(n,P)$ be the maximum size of a family of subsets of $[n]= \{1,2, ..., n \}$ not containing $P$ as a (weak) subposet, and let $h(P)$ be the length of a longest chain in $P$. The best known upper bound for $La(n,P)$ in terms of $|P|$ and $h(P)$ is due to Chen and Li, who showed that $La(n,P) \le \frac{1}{m+1} \left(|P| + \frac{1}{2}(m^2 +3m-2)(h(P)-1) -1 \right) {\binom {n} {\lfloor n/2 \rfloor}}$ for any fixed $m \ge 1$. In this paper we show that $La(n,P) \le \frac{1}{2^{k-1}} (|P| + (3k-5)2^{k-2}(h(P)-1) - 1 ) {n \choose {\lfloor n/2\rfloor} }$ for any fixed $k \ge 2$, improving the b…
We study the distribution and the popularity of left children on sets of treeshelves avoiding a pattern of size three. (Treeshelves are ordered binary increasing trees where every child is connected to its parent by a left or a right link.) The considered patterns are sub-treeshelves, and for each such a pattern we provide exponential generating function for the corresponding distribution and popularity. Finally, we present constructive bijections between treeshelves avoiding a pattern of size three and some classes of simpler combinatorial objects.
We investigate a certain linear combination $K(\vec{x})=K(a;b,c,d;e,f,g)$ of two Saalschutzian hypergeometric series of type ${_4}F_3(1)$. We first show that $K(a;b,c,d;e,f,g)$ is invariant under the action of a certain matrix group $G_K$, isomorphic to the symmetric group $S_6$, acting on the affine hyperplane $V=\{(a,b,c,d,e,f,g)\in\Bbb C^7\colon e+f+g-a-b-c-d=1\}$. We further develop an algebra of three-term relations for $K(a;b,c,d;e,f,g)$. We show that, for any three elements $μ_1,μ_2,μ_3$ of a certain matrix group $M_K$, isomorphic to the Coxeter group $W(D_6)$ (of order 23040), and cont…
Ahlswede and Katona (1977) posed the following isodiametric problem in Hamming spaces: For every $n$ and $1\le M\le2^{n}$, determine the minimum average Hamming distance of binary codes with length $n$ and size $M$. Fu, Wei, and Yeung (2001) used linear programming duality to derive a lower bound on the minimum average distance. However, their linear programming approach was not completely exploited. In this paper, we improve Fu-Wei-Yeung's bound by finding a better feasible solution to their dual program. For fixed $0<a\le1/2$ and for $M=\left\lceil a2^{n}\right\rceil $, our feasible solution…
