For a graph G, we construct two algebras, whose dimensions are both equal to the number of spanning trees of G. One of these algebras is the quotient of the polynomial ring modulo certain monomial ideal, while the other is the quotient of the polynomial ring modulo certain powers of linear forms. We describe the set of monomials that forms a linear basis in each of these two algebras. The basis elements correspond to G-parking functions that naturally came up in the abelian sandpile model. These ideals are instances of the general class of monotone monomial ideals and their deformations. We show that the Hilbert series of a monotone monomial ideal is always bounded by the Hilbert series of its deformation. Then we define an even more general class of monomial ideals associated with posets and construct free resolutions for these ideals. In some cases these resolutions coincide with Scarf resolutions. We prove several formulas for Hilbert series of monotone monomial ideals and investigate when they are equal to Hilbert series of deformations. In the appendix we discuss the sandpile model.
When do syzygies depend on the characteristic of the field? Even for well-studied families of examples, very little is known. For a family of random monomial ideals, namely the Stanley--Reisner ideals of random flag complexes, we prove that the Betti numbers asymptotically almost always depend on the characteristic. Using this result, we also develop a heuristic for characteristic dependence of asymptotic syzygies of algebraic varieties.
Parking functions are a widely studied class of combinatorial objects, with connections to several branches of mathematics. On the algebraic side, parking functions can be identified with the standard monomials of $M_n$, a certain monomial ideal in the polynomial ring $S = {\mathbb K}[x_1, \dots, x_n]$ where a set of generators are indexed by the nonempty subsets of $[n] = \{1,2,\dots,n\}$. Motivated by constructions from the theory of chip-firing on graphs we study generalizations of parking functions determined by $M^{(k)}_n$, a subideal of $M_n$ obtained by allowing only generators correspo…
Let $G$ be an (oriented) graph on the vertex set $V = \{ 0, 1,\ldots,n\}$ with root $0$. Postnikov and Shapiro associated a monomial ideal $\mathcal{M}_G$ in the polynomial ring $ R = {\mathbb{K}}[x_1,\ldots,x_n]$ over a field $\mathbb{K}$. A subideal $\mathcal{M}_G^{(k)}$ of $\mathcal{M}_G$ generated by subsets of $\widetilde{V}=V\setminus \{0\}$ of size at most $k+1$ is called a $k$-skeleton ideal of the graph $G$. Many interesting homological and combinatorial properties of $1$-skeleton ideal $\mathcal{M}_G^{(1)}$ are obtained by Dochtermann for certain classes of simple graph $G$. A finite…
Given a graph $G$, the $G$-parking function ideal $M_G$ is an artinian monomial ideal in the polynomial ring $S$ with the property that a linear basis for $S/M_G$ is provided by the set of $G$-parking functions. It follows that the dimension of $S/M_G$ is given by the number of spanning trees of $G$, which by the Matrix Tree Theorem is equal to the determinant of the reduced Laplacian of $G$. The ideals $M_G$ and related algebras were introduced by Postnikov and Shapiro where they studied their Hilbert functions and homological properties. The author and Sanyal showed that a minimal resolution…
Consider an ideal $I\subset K[x_1,..., x_n]$, with $K$ an arbitrary field, generated by monomials of degree two. Assuming that $I$ does not have a linear resolution, we determine the step $s$ of the minimal graded free resolution of $I$ where nonlinear syzygies first appear, we show that at this step of the resolution nonlinear syzygies are concentrated in degree $s+3$, and we compute the corresponding graded Betti number $β_{s,s+3}$. The multidegrees of these nonlinear syzygies are also determined and the corresponding multigraded Betti numbers are shown to be all equal to 1.
Consider the vector space $\mathbb{K}\mathcal{P}$ spanned by parking functions. By representing parking functions as labeled digraphs, Hivert, Novelli and Thibon constructed a cocommutative Hopf algebra PQSym$^{*}$ on $\mathbb{K}\mathcal{P}$. The product and coproduct of PQSym$^{*}$ are analogous to the product and coproduct of the Hopf algebra NCSym of symmetric functions in noncommuting variables defined in terms of the power sum basis. In this paper, we view a parking function as a word. We shall construct a Hopf algebra PFSym on $\mathbb{K}\mathcal{P}$ with a formal basis $\{M_a\}$ analogo…
Among other results, we prove that if $I$ is a monomial ideal of $S=K[x_1,\ldots,x_n]$, where $K$ is a field, and $a\geq b-1\geq0$ are integers such that $a+b\leq\mathrm{proj~dim}(S/I)$, then $$t_{a+b}\leq t_a+t_1+t_2+\cdots+t_b-\frac{b(b-1)}{2},$$ where $t_1,t_2,\dots$ are the maximal shifts in the minimal graded free $S$-resolution of $S/I$.
We construct minimal cellular resolutions of squarefree monomial ideals arising from hyperplane arrangements, matroids and oriented matroids. These are Stanley-Reisner ideals of complexes of independent sets, and of triangulations of Lawrence matroid polytopes. Our resolution provides a cellular realization of Stanley's formula for their Betti numbers. For unimodular matroids our resolutions are related to hyperplane arrangements on tori, and we recover the resolutions constructed by Bayer, Popescu and Sturmfels. We resolve the combinatorial problems posed in their paper by computing Mobius in…
We show that the virtual cohomological dimension of a Coxeter group is essentially the regularity of the Stanley--Reisner ring of its nerve. Using this connection between geometric group theory and commutative algebra, as well as techniques from the theory of hyperbolic Coxeter groups, we study the behavior of the Castelnuovo--Mumford regularity of square-free quadratic monomial ideals. We construct examples of such ideals which exhibit arbitrarily high regularity after linear syzygies for arbitrarily many steps. We give a doubly logarithmic bound on the regularity as a function of the number …
In this paper we derive geometric consequences from the presence of a long strand of linear syzygies in the minimal free resolution of a closed scheme in projective space whose homogeneous ideal is generated by quadrics. These consequences are given in terms of intersections with arbitrary linear subspaces. We use our results to bound homological invariants of some well-known projective varieties, to give a combinatorial characterization of quadratic monomial ideals with a long strand of linear syzygies, etc
To a vector configuration one can associate a polynomial ideal generated by powers of linear forms, known as a power ideal, which exhibits many combinatorial features of the matroid underlying the configuration. In this note we observe that certain power ideals associated to transversal matroids are, somewhat unexpectedly, monomial. Moreover, the (monomial) basis elements of the quotient ring defined by such a power ideal can be naturally identified with the lattice points of a remarkable convex polytope: a polymatroid, also known as generalized permutohedron. We dub the exponent vectors of th…
The Riemann-Roch theorem on a graph G is related to Alexander duality in combinatorial commutive algebra. We study the lattice ideal given by chip firing on G and the initial ideal whose standard monomials are the G-parking functions. When G is a saturated graph, these ideals are generic and the Scarf complex is a minimal free resolution. Otherwise, syzygies are obtained by degeneration. We also develop a self-contained Riemann-Roch theory for artinian monomial ideals.
We construct three new combinatorial Hopf algebras based on the Loday-Ronco operations on planar binary trees. The first and second algebras are defined on planar trees and labeled planar trees extending the Loday-Ronco and Malvenuto-Reutenauer Hopf algebras respectively. We show that the latter is bidendriform which implies that is also free, cofree, and self-dual. The third algebra involves a new visualization of parking functions as decorated binary trees; it is also bidendriform, free, cofree, and self-dual, and therefore abstractly isomorphic to the algebra PQSym of Novelli and Thibon. We…
Well ordered covers of square-free monomial ideals are subsets of the minimal generating set ordered in a certain way that give rise to a Lyubeznik resolution for the ideal, and have guaranteed nonvanishing Betti numbers in certain degrees. This paper is about square-free monomial ideals which have a well ordered cover. We consider the question of subadditivity of syzygies of square-free monomial ideals via complements in the lcm lattice of the ideal, and examine how lattice complementation breaks well ordered covers of the ideal into (well ordered) covers of subideals. We also introduce a fam…
We introduce an object called a tree growing sequence (TGS) in an effort to generalize bijective correspondences between $G$-parking functions, spanning trees, and the set of monomials in the Tutte polynomial of a graph $G$. A tree growing sequence determines an algorithm which can be applied to a single function, or to the set $\mathcal{P}_{G,q}$ of $G$-parking functions. When the latter is chosen, the algorithm uses splitting operations - inspired by the recursive defintion of the Tutte polynomial - to iteratively break $\mathcal{P}_{G,q}$ into disjoint subsets. This results in bijective map…
We study the binomial and monomial ideals arising from linear equivalence of divisors on graphs from the point of view of Gröbner theory. We give an explicit description of a minimal Gröbner bases for each higher syzygy module. In each case the given minimal Gröbner bases is also a minimal generating set. The Betti numbers of the binomial ideal and its natural initial ideal coincide and they correspond to the number of 'connected flags' in the graph. In particular the Betti numbers are independent of the characteristic of the base field. For complete graphs the problem was previously studied b…
We prove a duality theorem for simplicial complexes arising from a combinatorial construction we define, which applies to the squarefree monomial complexes for Veronese ideals of projective spaces and weighted projective spaces. Our theorem yields a formula for the multigraded Betti numbers of these Veronese ideals in terms of the reduced homology groups of these complexes which is dual to one given by Bruns and Herzog. We apply this formula in several ways, including by giving an algorithm for finding the highest syzygy of such a Veronese ideal.
The $G$-parking function ideal $M_G$ of a directed multigraph $G$ is a monomial ideal which encodes some of the combinatorial information of $G$. It is an initial ideal of the toppling ideal $I_G$, a lattice ideal intimately related to the chip-firing game on a graph. Both ideals were first studied by Cori, Rossin, and Salvy. A minimal free resolution for $M_G$ was given by Postnikov and Shaprio in the case when $G$ is saturated, i.\,e., whenever there is at least one edge $(u,v)$ for every ordered pair of distinct vertices $u$ and $v$. They also raised the problem of an explicit description o…
We present a new proof of the monomial case of Wilmes' conjecture, which gives a formula for the coarsely-graded Betti numbers of the G-parking function ideal in terms of maximal parking functions of contractions of G. Our proof is via poset topology and relies on a theorem of Gasharov, Peeva, and Welker that connects the Betti numbers of a monomial ideal to the topology of its lcm-lattice.
We prove a combinatorial formula for Macdonald cumulants which generalizes the celebrated formula of Haglund for Macdonald polynomials. We provide several applications of our formula. Firstly, it gives a new, constructive proof of a strong factorization property of Macdonald polynomials proven recently by the author of this paper. Moreover it proves that Macdonald cumulants are $q,t$--positive in the monomial and in the fundamental quasisymmetric bases. Furthermore, we use our formula to prove the recent higher-order Macdonald positivity conjecture for the coefficients of the Schur polynomials…
The modified Macdonald polynomials introduced by Garsia and Haiman (1996) have many remarkable combinatorial properties. One such class of properties involves applying the $\nabla$ operator of Bergeron and Garsia (1999) to basic symmetric functions. The first discovery of this type was the Shuffle Conjecture of Haglund, Haiman, Loehr, Remmel, and Ulyanov (2005), which relates the expression $\nabla e_n$ to parking functions. A refinement of this conjecture, called the Compositional Shuffle Conjecture, was introduced by Haglund, Morse, and Zabrocki (2012) and proved by Carlsson and Mellit (2015…
Suppose that $m$ drivers each choose a preferred parking space in a linear car park with $n$ spots. In order, each driver goes to their chosen spot and parks there if possible, and otherwise takes the next available spot if it exists. If all drivers park successfully, the sequence of choices is called a parking function. Classical parking functions correspond to the case $m=n$; we study here combinatorial and probabilistic aspects of this generalized case. We construct a family of bijections between parking functions $\text{PF}(m, n)$ with $m$ cars and $n$ spots and spanning forests $\mathscr{…
The machinery of zonotopal algebra is linked with two particular polytopes: the Stanley-Pitman polytope and the regular simplex $\mathfrak{Sim}_n(t_1,...,t_n)$ with parameters $t_1,...,t_n\in \mathbb{R}_+^n$, defined by the inequalities $\sum_{i=1}^n r_i\leq \sum_{i=1}^n t_i, \mbox{ } r_i\in \mathbb{R}_+^n,$ where the $(r_i)_{i\in [n]}$ are variables. Specifically, we will discuss the central Dahmen-Micchelli space of the broken wheel graph $BW_n$ and its dual, the $\mathcal{P}$-central space. We will observe that the $\mathcal{P}$-central space of $BW_n$ is monomial, with a basis given by the…
The Laplacian matrix of a graph G describes the combinatorial dynamics of the Abelian Sandpile Model and the more general Riemann-Roch theory of G. The lattice ideal associated to the lattice generated by the columns of the Laplacian provides an algebraic perspective on this recently (re)emerging field. This ideal I_G has a distinguished monomial initial ideal M_G, characterized by the property that the standard monomials are in bijection with the G-parking functions of the graph G. The ideal M_G was also introduced by Postnikov and Shapiro (2004) in the context of monotone monomial ideals. We…
There are two seemingly unrelated ideals associated with a simplicial complex Δ. One is the Stanley-Reisner ideal I_Δ, the monomial ideal generated by minimal non-faces of Δ, well-known in combinatorial commutative algebra. The other is the toric ideal I_{M(Δ)} of the facet subring of Δ, whose generators give a Markov basis for the hierarchical model defined by Δ, playing a prominent role in algebraic statistics. In this note we show that the complexity of the generators of I_{M(Δ)} is determined by the Betti numbers of I_Δ. The unexpected connection between the syzygies of the Stanley-Reisner…
