A partially ordered set is r-thick if every nonempty open interval contains at least r elements. This paper studies the flag vectors of graded, r-thick posets and shows the smallest convex cone containing them is isomorphic to the cone of flag vectors of all graded posets. It also defines a k-analogue of the Mobius function and k-Eulerian posets, which are 2k-thick. Several characterizations of k-Eulerian posets are given. The generalized Dehn-Sommerville equations are proved for flag vectors of k-Eulerian posets. A new inequality is proved to be valid and sharp for rank 8 Eulerian posets.
A certain inequality is shown to hold for the values of the Mobius function of the poset obtained by attaching a maximum element to a lower Eulerian Cohen-Macaulay poset. In two important special cases, this inequality provides partial results supporting Stanley's nonnegativity conjecture for the toric h-vector of a lower Eulerian Cohen-Macaulay meet-semilattice and Adin's nonnegativity conjecture for the cubical h-vector of a Cohen-Macaulay cubical complex.
The closed cone of flag vectors of Eulerian partially ordered sets is studied. It is completely determined up through rank seven. Half-Eulerian posets are defined. Certain limit posets of Billera and Hetyei are half-Eulerian; they give rise to extreme rays of the cone for Eulerian posets. A new family of linear inequalities valid for flag vectors of Eulerian posets is given.
We prove that the group algebra of the hyperoctahedral group contains a subalgebra corresponding to the flag descent number of Adin, Brenti, and Roichman. This algebra is in fact the span of the basis elements of the type A and type B Eulerian descent algebras. We describe a set of orthogonal idempotents which spans the flag descent algebra and prove that it contains the type A Eulerian descent algebra as a two-sided ideal. Using a new colored analogue of Stanley's $P$-partitions, we prove the existence of a colored Eulerian descent algebra which is a subalgebra of the Mantaci-Reutenauer algeb…
We investigate the $α$-colored Eulerian polynomials and a notion of descents introduced in a recent paper of Hedmark and show that such polynomials can be computed as a polynomial encoding descents computed over a quotient of the wreath product $\mathbb{Z}_α\wr\mathfrak{S}_n$. Moreover, we consider the flag descent statistic computed over this same quotient and find that the flag Eulerian polynomial remains palindromic. We prove that the flag descent polynomial is palindromic over this same quotient by giving a combinatorial proof that the flag descent statistic is symmetrically distributed ov…
In this paper, we characterize a duality relation between Eulerian recurrences and Eulerian recurrence systems, which generalizes and unifies Hermite-Biehler decompositions of several enumerative polynomials, including flag descent polynomials for hyperoctahedral group, flag ascent-plateau polynomials for Stirling permutations, up-down run polynomials for symmetric group and alternating run polynomials for hyperoctahedral group. As applications, we derive some properties of associated enumerative polynomials. In particular, we find that both the ascent-plateau polynomials and left ascent-plate…
Recently, Hyatt introduced some colored Eulerian quasisymmetric function to study the joint distribution of excedance number and major index on colored permutation groups. We show how Hyatt's generating function formula for the fixed point colored Eulerian quasisymmetric functions can be deduced from the Decrease value theorem of Foata and Han. Using this generating function formula, we prove two symmetric function generalizations of the Chung-Graham-Knuth symmetrical Eulerian identity for some flag Eulerian quasisymmetric functions, which are specialized to the flag excedance numbers. Combina…
It is known that the normalized volume of standard hypersimplices (defined as some slices of the unit hypercube) are the Eulerian numbers. More generally, a recent conjecture of Stanley relates the Ehrhart series of hypersimplices with descents and excedences in permutations. This conjecture was proved by Nan Li, who also gave a generalization to colored permutations. In this article, we give another generalization to colored permutations, using the flag statistics introduced by Foata and Han. We obtain in particular a new proof of Stanley's conjecture, and some combinatorial identities relati…
We prove that among all flag homology $5$-manifolds with $n$ vertices, the join of $3$ circles of as equal length as possible is the unique maximizer of all the face numbers. The same upper bounds on the face numbers hold for $5$-dimensional flag Eulerian normal pseudomanifolds.
The classical Dehn--Sommerville relations assert that the $h$-vector of an Eulerian simplicial complex is symmetric. We establish three generalizations of the Dehn--Sommerville relations: one for the $h$-vectors of pure simplicial complexes, another one for the flag $h$-vectors of balanced simplicial complexes and graded posets, and yet another one for the toric $h$-vectors of graded posets with restricted singularities. In all of these cases, we express any failure of symmetry in terms of "errors coming from the links." For simplicial complexes, this further extends Klee's semi-Eulerian relat…
A graded partially ordered set is Eulerian if every interval has the same number of elements of even rank and of odd rank. Face lattices of convex polytopes are Eulerian. For Eulerian partially ordered sets, the flag vector can be encoded efficiently in the cd-index. The cd-index of a polytope has all positive entries. An important open problem is to give the broadest natural class of Eulerian posets having nonnegative cd-index. This paper completely determines which entries of the cd-index are nonnegative for all Eulerian posets. It also shows that there are no other lower or upper bounds on …
The $n^{th}$ partial flag incidence algebra of a poset $P$ is the set of functions from $P^n$ to some ring which are zero on non-partial flag vectors. These partial flag incidence algebras for $n>2$ are not commutative, not unitary, and not associative. However, partial flag incidence algebras contain generalized zeta, delta, and Möbius functions which are finer and more delicate invariants than their classical analogues. We also study some generalized characteristic polynomials of posets which are not evaluations of Tutte polynomials and compute them for Boolean lattices. Motivation for this …
We prove that among all flag 3-manifolds on $n$ vertices, the join of two circles with $\left\lceil{\frac{n}{2}}\right \rceil$ and $\left\lfloor{\frac{n}{2}}\right \rfloor$ vertices respectively is the unique maximizer of the face numbers. This solves the first case of a conjecture due to Lutz and Nevo. Further, we establish a sharp upper bound on the number of edges of flag 5-manifolds and characterize the cases of equality. We also show that the inequality part of the flag upper bound conjecture continues to hold for all flag 3-dimensional Eulerian complexes and find all maximizers of the fa…
We prove several identities expressing polynomials counting permutations by various descent statistics in terms of Eulerian polynomials, extending results of Stembridge, Petersen, and Brändén. Additionally, we find $q$-exponential generating functions for $q$-analogues of these descent statistic polynomials that also keep track of the inversion number or inverse major index. We also present identities relating several of these descent statistic polynomials to refinements of type B Eulerian polynomials and flag descent polynomials by the number of negative letters of a signed permutation. Our m…
Visontai conjectured in 2013 that the joint distribution of ascent and distinct nonzero value numbers on the set of subexcedant sequences is the same as that of descent and inverse descent numbers on the set of permutations. This conjecture has been proved by Aas in 2014, and the generating function of the corresponding bistatistics is the double Eulerian polynomial. Among the techniques used by Aas are the Möbius inversion formula and isomorphism of labeled rooted trees. In this paper we define a permutation code (that is, a bijection between permutations and subexcedant sequences) and show t…
The flag vector contains all the face incidence data of a polytope, and in the poset setting, the chain enumerative data. It is a classical result due to Bayer and Klapper that for face lattices of polytopes, and more generally, Eulerian graded posets, the flag vector can be written as a cd-index, a non-commutative polynomial which removes all the linear redundancies among the flag vector entries. This result holds for regular CW complexes. We relax the regularity condition to show the cd-index exists for Whitney stratified manifolds by extending the notion of a graded poset to that of a quasi…
This is a survey of the $cd$-index of Eulerian partially ordered sets. The $cd$-index is an encoding of the numbers of chains, specified by ranks, in the poset. It is the most efficient such encoding, incorporating all the affine relations on the flag numbers of Eulerian posets. Eulerian posets include the face posets of regular CW spheres (in particular, of convex polytopes), intervals in the Bruhat order on Coxeter groups, and the lattices of regions of oriented matroids. The paper discusses inequalities on the $cd$-index, connections with other combinatorial parameters, computation, and alg…
Permutation tableaux are combinatorial objects related with permutations and various statistics on them. They appeared in connection with total positivity in Grassmannians, and stationary probabilities in a PASEP model. In particular they gave rise to an interesting q-analog of Eulerian numbers. The purpose of this article is to study some combinatorial properties of type B permutation tableaux, defined by Lam and Williams, and links with signed permutation statistics. We show that many of the tools used for permutation tableaux generalize in this case, including: the Matrix Ansatz (a method o…
We generalize chain enumeration in graded partially ordered sets by relaxing the graded, poset and Eulerian requirements. The resulting balanced digraphs, which include the classical Eulerian posets having an $R$-labeling, imply the existence of the (non-homogeneous) ${\bf cd}$-index, a key invariant for studying inequalities for the flag vector of polytopes. Mirroring Alexander duality for Eulerian posets, we show an analogue of Alexander duality for balanced digraphs. For Bruhat graphs of Coxeter groups, an important family of balanced graphs, our theory gives elementary proofs of the existe…
We determine how the flag f-vector of any graded poset changes under the Rees product with the chain, and more generally, any t-ary tree. As a corollary, the Möbius function of the Rees product of any graded poset with the chain, and more generally, the t-ary tree, is exactly the same as the Rees product of its dual with the chain, respectively, t-ary chain. We then study enumerative and homological properties of the Rees product of the cubical lattice with the chain. We give a bijective proof that the Möbius function of this poset can be expressed as n times a signed derangement number. From …
We study subvarieties of the flag variety called Hessenberg varieties, defined by certain linear conditions. These subvarieties arise naturally in applications including geometric representation theory, number theory, and numerical analysis. We describe completely the homology of Hessenberg varieties over GL_n(C) and show that they have no odd-dimensional homology. We provide an explicit geometric construction which partitions each Hessenberg variety into pieces homeomorphic to affine space. We characterize these affine pieces by fillings of Young tableaux and show that the dimension of the af…
The number of flags in a complete fan, or more generally in an Eulerian poset, is encoded in the cd-index. We prove non-negativity of the cd-index for complete fans, regular CW-spheres and Gorenstein* posets.
We introduce and study a class of multivariate rational functions associated with hyperplane arrangements, called flag Hilbert-Poincaré series. These series are intimately connected with Igusa local zeta functions of products of linear polynomials, and their motivic and topological relatives. Our main results include a self-reciprocity result for central arrangements defined over fields of characteristic zero. We also prove combinatorial formulae for a specialization of the flag Hilbert-Poincaré series for irreducible Coxeter arrangements of types $\mathsf{A}$, $\mathsf{B}$, and $\mathsf{D}$ i…
We construct a poset from a simple acyclic digraph together with a valuation on its vertices, and we compute the values of its Möbius function. We show that the weak order on Coxeter groups of type A, B, affine A, and the flag weak order on the wreath product $\mathbb{Z} \_r \wr S\_n$ introduced by Adin, Brenti and Roichman, are special instances of our construction. We conclude by associating a quasi-symmetric function to each element of these posets. In the $A$ and $\widetilde{A}$ cases, this function coincides respectively with the classical Stanley symmetric function, and with Lam's affine…
We give an in-depth study of the Tchebyshev transforms of the first and second kind of a poset, recently discovered by Hetyei. The Tchebyshev transform (of the first kind) preserves desirable combinatorial properties, including Eulerianess (due to Hetyei) and EL-shellability. It is also a linear transformation on flag vectors. When restricted to Eulerian posets, it corresponds to the Billera, Ehrenborg and Readdy omega map of oriented matroids. One consequence is that nonnegativity of the cd-index is maintained. The Tchebyshev transform of the second kind is a Hopf algebra endomorphism on the …
We investigate the arithmetic-geometric structure of the lecture hall cone \[ L_n \ := \ \left\{λ\in \mathbb{R}^n: \, 0\leq \frac{λ_1}{1}\leq \frac{λ_2}{2}\leq \frac{λ_3}{3}\leq \cdots \leq \frac{λ_n}{n}\right\} . \] We show that $L_n$ is isomorphic to the cone over the lattice pyramid of a reflexive simplex whose Ehrhart $h^*$-polynomial is given by the $(n-1)$st Eulerian polynomial, and prove that lecture hall cones admit regular, flag, unimodular triangulations. After explicitly describing the Hilbert basis for $L_n$, we conclude with observations and a conjecture regarding the structure of…
In this paper, we discuss f- and flag-vectors of 4-dimensional convex polytopes and cellular 3-spheres. We put forward two crucial parameters of fatness and complexity: Fatness F(P) := (f_1+f_2-20)/(f_0+f_3-10) is large if there are many more edges and 2-faces than there are vertices and facets, while complexity C(P) := (f_{03}-20)/(f_0+f_3-10) is large if every facet has many vertices, and every vertex is in many facets. Recent results suggest that these parameters might allow one to differentiate between the cones of f- or flag-vectors of -- connected Eulerian lattices of length 5 (combinato…
We consider graded representations of the algebra NC of noncommutative symmetric functions on the Z-linear span of a graded poset P. The matrix coefficients of such a representation give a Hopf morphism from a Hopf algebra HP generated by the intervals of P to the Hopf algebra of quasi-symmetric functions. This provides a unified construction of quasi-symmetric generating functions from different branches of algebraic combinatorics, and this construction is useful for transferring techniques and ideas between these branches. In particular we show that the (Hopf) algebra of Billera and Liu rela…
