In recent joint work (2021), we introduced a novel multivariate polynomial attached to every metric space - in particular, to every finite simple connected graph $G$ - and showed it has several attractive properties. First, it is multi-affine and real-stable (leading to a hitherto unstudied delta-matroid for each graph $G$). Second, the polynomial specializes to (a transform of) the characteristic polynomial $χ_{D_G}$ of the distance matrix $D_G$; as well as recovers the entire graph, where $χ_{D_G}$ cannot do so. Third, the polynomial encodes the determinants of a family of graphs formed from $G$, called the blowups of $G$.
In this short note, we exhibit the applicability of these tools and techniques to other graph-matrices and their characteristic polynomials. As a particular case, we will see that the adjacency characteristic polynomial $χ_{A_G}$ is in fact the shadow of a richer multivariate blowup-polynomial, which is similarly multi-affine and real-stable. Moreover, this polynomial encodes not only the aforementioned three properties, but also yields additional information for specific families of graphs.
For every finite simple connected graph $G = (V,E)$, we introduce an invariant, its blowup-polynomial $p_G(\{ n_v : v \in V \})$. This is obtained by dividing the determinant of the distance matrix of its blowup graph $G[{\bf n}]$ (containing $n_v$ copies of $v$) by an exponential factor. We show that $p_G({\bf n})$ is indeed a polynomial function in the sizes $n_v$, which is moreover multi-affine and real-stable. This associates a hitherto unexplored delta-matroid to each graph $G$; and we provide a second unexplored one for each tree. As another consequence, we obtain a new characterization …
The orthogonality relations of multivariate Krawtchouk polynomials are discussed. In case of two variables, the necessary and sufficient conditions of orthogonality is given by Grünbaum and Rahman in [SIGMA 6 (2010), 090, 12 pages, arXiv:1007.4327]. In this study, a simple proof of the necessary and sufficient condition of orthogonality is given for a general case.
Classical Gončarov polynomials are polynomials which interpolate derivatives. Delta Gončarov polynomials are polynomials which interpolate delta operators, e.g., forward and backward difference operators. We extend fundamental aspects of the theory of classical bivariate Gončarov polynomials and univariate delta Gončarov polynomials to the multivariate setting using umbral calculus. After introducing systems of delta operators, we define multivariate delta Gončarov polynomials, show that the associated interpolation problem is always solvable, and derive a generating function (an Appell relati…
By a symbolic method, we introduce multivariate Bernoulli and Euler polynomials as powers of polynomials whose coefficients involve multivariate Lévy processes. Many properties of these polynomials are stated straightforwardly thanks to this representation, which could be easily implemented in any symbolic manipulation system. A very simple relation between these two families of multivariate polynomials is provided.
In this paper, we consider multivariate hyperedge elimination polynomials and multivariate chromatic polynomials for hypergraphs. The first set of polynomials is defined in terms of a deletion-contraction-extraction recurrence, previously investigated for graphs by Averbouch, Godlin, and Makowsky. The multivariate chromatic polynomial is an equivalent polynomial defined in terms of colorings, and generalizes the coboundary polynomial of Crapo, and the bivariate chromatic polynomial of Dohmen, Pönitz and Tittman. We show that specializations of these new polynomials recover polynomials which en…
We generalize two main theorems of matching polynomials of undirected simple graphs, namely, real-rootedness and the Heilmann-Lieb root bound. Viewing the matching polynomial of a graph $G$ as the independence polynomial of the line graph of $G$, we determine conditions for the extension of these theorems to the independence polynomial of any graph. In particular, we show that a stability-like property of the multivariate independence polynomial characterizes claw-freeness. Finally, we give and extend multivariate versions of Godsil's theorems on the divisibility of matching polynomials of tre…
Recently, Nunge studied Eulerian polynomials on segmented permutations, namely \emph{generalized Eulerian polynomials}, and further asked whether their coefficients form unimodal sequences. In this paper, we prove the stability of the generalized Eulerian polynomials and hence confirm Nunge's conjecture. Our proof is based on Brändén's stable multivariate Eulerian polynomials. By acting on Brändén's polynomials with a stability-preserving linear operator, we get a multivariate refinement of the generalized Eulerian polynomials. To prove Nunge's conjecture, we also develop a general approach to…
Univariate delta Gončarov polynomials arise when the classical Gončarov interpolation problem in numerical analysis is modified by replacing derivatives with delta operators. When the delta operator under consideration is the backward difference operator, we acquire the univariate difference Gončarov polynomials, which have a combinatorial relation to lattice paths in the plane with a given right boundary. In this paper, we extend several algebraic and analytic properties of univariate difference Gončarov polynomials to the multivariate case. We then establish a combinatorial interpretation of…
We prove two "master" convolution theorems for multivariate determinantal polynomials. The methods used include basic properties of what we call a "minor-orthogonal" ensemble as well as properties of the mixed discriminant of matrices. We also give applications, including a rederivation of a result of Barvinok on computing the permanent of a low rank matrix and a polynomial convolution corresponding to the unitarily invariant addition of generalized singular values.
We generalise the signed Bollobas-Riordan polynomial of S. Chmutov and I. Pak [Moscow Math. J. 7 (2007), no. 3, 409-418] to a multivariate signed polynomial Z and study its properties. We prove the invariance of Z under the recently defined partial duality of S. Chmutov [J. Combinatorial Theory, Ser. B, 99 (3): 617-638, 2009] and show that the duality transformation of the multivariate Tutte polynomial is a direct consequence of it.
The first part of this note concerns stable averages of multivariate matching polynomials. In proving the existence of infinite families of bipartite Ramanujan $d$-coverings, Hall, Puder and Sawin introduced the $d$-matching polynomial of a graph $G$, defined as the uniform average of matching polynomials over the set of $d$-sheeted covering graphs of $G$. We prove that a natural multivariate version of the $d$-matching polynomial is stable, consequently giving a short direct proof of the real-rootedness of the $d$-matching polynomial. Our theorem also includes graphs with loops, thus answerin…
Let $H_n(t)$ denote the classical Rogers-Szegö polynomial, and let $\tH_n(t_1, \ldots, t_l)$ denote the homogeneous Rogers-Szegö polynomial in $l$ variables, with indeterminate $q$. There is a classical product formula for $H_k(t)H_n(t)$ as a sum of Rogers-Szegö polynomials with coefficients being polynomials in $q$. We generalize this to a product formula for the multivariate homogeneous polynomials $\tH_n(t_1, \ldots, t_l)$. The coefficients given in the product formula are polynomials in $q$ which are defined recursively, and we find closed formulas for several interesting cases. We then re…
Recently, Haglund and Visontai established the stability of the multivariate Eulerian polynomials as the generating polynomials of the Stirling permutations, which serves as a unification of some results of Bóna, Brenti, Janson, Kuba, and Panholzer concerning Stirling permutations. Let $B_n(x)$ be the generating polynomials of the descent statistic over Legendre-Stirling permutations, and let $T_n(x)=2^nC_n(x/2)$, where $C_n(x)$ are the second-order Eulerian polynomials. Haglund and Visontai proposed the problems of finding multivariate stable refinements of the polynomials $B_n(x)$ and $T_n(x…
Let I=(x^{v_1},...,x^{v_q} be a square-free monomial ideal of a polynomial ring K[x_1,...,x_n] over an arbitrary field K and let A be the incidence matrix with column vectors {v_1},...,{v_q}. We will establish some connections between algebraic properties of certain graded algebras associated to I and combinatorial optimization properties of certain polyhedrons and clutters associated to A and I respectively. Some applications to Rees algebras and combinatorial optimization are presented. We study a conjecture of Conforti and Cornuéjols using an algebraic approach.
The generalized Lax conjecture asserts that each hyperbolicity cone is a linear slice of the cone of positive semidefinite matrices. We prove the conjecture for a multivariate generalization of the matching polynomial. This is further extended (albeit in a weaker sense) to a multivariate version of the independence polynomial for simplicial graphs. As an application we give a new proof of the conjecture for elementary symmetric polynomials (originally due to Brändén). Finally we consider a hyperbolic convolution of determinant polynomials generalizing an identity of Godsil and Gutman.
The univariate Ehrhart and $h^*$-polynomials of lattice polytopes have been widely studied. We describe methods from toric geometry for computing multivariate versions of volume, Ehrhart and $h^*$-polynomials of lattice polytropes, which are both tropically and classically convex. These algorithms are applied to all polytropes of dimensions 2,3 and 4, yielding a large class of integer polynomials. We give a complete combinatorial description of the coefficients of volume polynomials of 3-dimensional polytropes in terms of regular central subdivisions of the fundamental polytope. Finally, we pr…
We introduce an arithmetic version of the multivariate Tutte polynomial, and (for representable arithmetic matroids) a quasi-polynomial that interpolates between the two. A generalized Fortuin-Kasteleyn representation with applications to arithmetic colorings and flows is obtained. We give a new and more general proof of the positivity of the coefficients of the arithmetic Tutte polynomial, and (in the representable case) a geometrical interpretation of them.
A D-permutation is a permutation of $[2n]$ satisfying $2k-1 \le σ(2k-1)$ and $2k \ge σ(2k)$ for all $k$; they provide a combinatorial model for the Genocchi and median Genocchi numbers. We find Stieltjes-type and Thron-type continued fractions for some multivariate polynomials that enumerate D-permutations with respect to a very large (sometimes infinite) number of simultaneous statistics that measure cycle status, record status, crossings and nestings.
The P-Eulerian polynomial counts the linear extensions of a labeled partially ordered set, P, by their number of descents. It is known that the P-Eulerian polynomials are real-rooted for various classes of posets P. The purpose of this paper is to extend these results to polynomials in several variables. To this end we study multivariate extensions of P-Eulerian polynomials and prove that for certain posets these polynomials are stable, i.e., non-vanishing whenever all variables are in the upper half-plane of the complex plane. A natural setting for our proofs is the Malvenuto-Reutenauer algeb…
We give a recursion for the multivariate Rogers-Szegö polynomials, along with another recursive functional equation, and apply them to compute special values. We also consider the sum of all $q$-multinomial coefficients of some fixed degree and length, and give a recursion for this sum which follows from the recursion of the multivariate Rogers-Szegö polynomials, and generalizes the recursion for the Galois numbers. The sum of all $q$-multinomial coefficients of degree $n$ and length $m$ is the number of flags of length $m-1$ of subspaces of an $n$-dimensional vector space over a field with $q…
We prove a multivariate strengthening of Brenti's result that every root of the Eulerian polynomial of type $B$ is real. Our proof combines a refinement of the descent statistic for signed permutations with the notion of real stability-a generalization of real-rootedness to polynomials in multiple variables. The key is that our refined multivariate Eulerian polynomials satisfy a recurrence given by a stability-preserving linear operator. Our results extend naturally to colored permutations, and we also give stable generalizations of recent real-rootedness results due to Dilks, Petersen, and St…
Using the notion of Mahonian statistic on acyclic posets, we introduce a $q$-analogue of the $h$-polynomial of a simple generalized permutohedron. We focus primarily on the case of nestohedra and on explicit computations for many interesting examples, such as $S_n$-invariant nestohedra, graph associahedra, and Stanley--Pitman polytopes. For the usual (Stasheff) associahedron, our generalization yields an alternative $q$-analogue to the well-studied Narayana numbers.
We consider the symmetric group $S_n$-module of the polynomial ring with $m$ sets of $n$ commuting variables and $m'$ sets of $n$ anti-commuting variables and show that the multiplicity of an irreducible indexed by the partition $λ$ (a partition of $n$) is the number of multiset tableaux of shape $λ$ satisfying certain column and row strict conditions. We also present a finite generating set for the ring of $S_n$ invariant polynomials of this ring.
A polynomial f (multivariate over a field) is decomposable if f = g(h) with g univariate of degree at least 2. We determine the dimension (over an algebraically closed field) of the set of decomposables, and an approximation to their number over a finite field. The relative error in our approximations is exponentially decaying in the input size.
It has been shown recently that the limit moments of $W(n)=B(n)B^{*}(n)$, where B(n) is a product of $p$ independent rectangular random matrices, are certain homogenous polynomials in the asymptotic dimensions of these matrices. Using the combinatorics of noncrossing partitions, we explicitly determine these polynomials and show that they are closely related to polynomials which can be viewed as multivariate Fuss-Narayana polynomials. Using this result, we compute the moments of the n-fold free multiplicative convolution of Marchenko-Pastur distributions with arbitrary shape parameters.
We find Stieltjes-type and Jacobi-type continued fractions for some "master polynomials" that enumerate permutations, set partitions or perfect matchings with a large (sometimes infinite) number of simultaneous statistics. Our results contain many previously obtained identities as special cases, providing a common refinement of all of them.
Univariate polynomials with only real roots -- while special -- do occur often enough that their properties can lead to interesting conclusions in diverse areas. Due mainly to the recent work of two young mathematicians, Julius Borcea and Petter Brändén, a very successful multivariate generalization of this method has been developed. The first part of this paper surveys some of the main results of this theory of "multivariate stable" polynomials -- the most central of these results is the characterization of linear transformations preserving stability of polynomials. The second part presents v…
We have developed a patch implementing multivariate polynomials seen as a multi-base algebra. The patch is to be released into the software Sage and can already be found within the Sage-Combinat distribution. One can use our patch to define a polynomial in a set of indexed variables and expand it into a linear basis of the multivariate polynomials. So far, we have the Schubert polynomials, the Key polynomials of types A, B, C, or D, the Grothendieck polynomials and the non-symmetric Macdonald polynomials. One can also use a double set of variables and work with specific double-linear bases lik…
We present counting methods for some special classes of multivariate polynomials over a finite field, namely the reducible ones, the s-powerful ones (divisible by the s-th power of a nonconstant polynomial), and the relatively irreducible ones (irreducible but reducible over an extension field). One approach employs generating functions, another one uses a combinatorial method. They yield exact formulas and approximations with relative errors that essentially decrease exponentially in the input size.
We give a new combinatorial interpretation of the stationary distribution of the (partially) asymmetric exclusion process on a finite number of sites in terms of decorated alternative trees and colored permutations. The corresponding expressions of the multivariate partition functions are then related to multivariate generalizations of Eulerian polynomials for colored permutations considered recently by N. Williams and the third author, and others. We also discuss stability-- and negative dependence properties satisfied by the partition functions.
We describe all linear operators on spaces of multivariate polynomials preserving the property of being non-vanishing in open circular domains. This completes the multivariate generalization of the classification program initiated by Pólya-Schur for univariate real polynomials and provides a natural framework for dealing in a uniform way with Lee-Yang type problems in statistical mechanics, combinatorics, and geometric function theory. This is an announcement with some of the main results in arXiv:0809.0401 and arXiv:0809.3087.
We prove some variants of the exponential formula and apply them to the multivariate Tutte polynomials (also known as Potts-model partition functions) of graphs. We also prove some further identities for the multivariate Tutte polynomial, which generalize an identity for counting connected graphs found by Riordan, Nijenhuis, Wilf and Kreweras and in more general form by Leroux and Gessel, and an identity for the inversion enumerator of trees found by Mallows, Riordan and Kreweras. Finally, we prove a generalization of Mobius inversion on the partition lattice.
The chromatic polynomial P_G(q) of a loopless graph G is known to be nonzero (with explicitly known sign) on the intervals (-\infty,0), (0,1) and (1,32/27]. Analogous theorems hold for the flow polynomial of bridgeless graphs and for the characteristic polynomial of loopless matroids. Here we exhibit all these results as special cases of more general theorems on real zero-free regions of the multivariate Tutte polynomial Z_G(q,v). The proofs are quite simple, and employ deletion-contraction together with parallel and series reduction. In particular, they shed light on the origin of the curious…
The multivariate Tutte polynomial $\hat Z_M$ of a matroid $M$ is a generalization of the standard two-variable version, obtained by assigning a separate variable $v_e$ to each element $e$ of the ground set $E$. It encodes the full structure of $M$. Let $\bv = \{v_e\}_{e\in E}$, let $K$ be an arbitrary field, and suppose $M$ is connected. We show that $\hat Z_M$ is irreducible over $K(\bv)$, and give three self-contained proofs that the Galois group of $\hat Z_M$ over $K(\bv)$ is the symmetric group of degree $n$, where $n$ is the rank of $M$. An immediate consequence of this result is that the…
The multivariate Tutte polynomial (known to physicists as the Potts-model partition function) can be defined on an arbitrary finite graph G, or more generally on an arbitrary matroid M, and encodes much important combinatorial information about the graph (indeed, in the matroid case it encodes the full structure of the matroid). It contains as a special case the familiar two-variable Tutte polynomial -- and therefore also its one-variable specializations such as the chromatic polynomial, the flow polynomial and the reliability polynomial -- but is considerably more flexible. I begin by giving …
