The monic sequence that shifts left under convolution with itself is the Catalan numbers with 130+ combinatorial interpretations. Here we establish a combinatorial interpretation for the monic sequence that shifts left under composition: it counts permutations that contain a 3241 pattern only as part of a 35241 pattern. We give two recurrences, the first allowing relatively fast computation, the second similar to one for the Catalan numbers. Among the 4 times 4! = 96 similarly restricted patterns involving 4 letters (such as 4\underline{2}31: a 431 pattern only occurs as part of a 4231), four different counting sequences arise: 64 give the Catalan numbers, 16 give the Bell numbers, 12 give sequence A051295 in OEIS, and 4 give a new sequence with an explicit formula.
Recently, Defant and Propp [2020] defined the degree of noninvertibility of a function $f\colon X\to Y$ between two finite nonempty sets by $\text{deg}(f)=\frac{1}{|X|}\sum_{x\in X}|f^{-1}(f(x))|$. We obtain an exact formula for the expected degree of noninvertibility of the composition of $t$ functions for every $t\in \mathbb{N}$. An equivalent formulation for the definition of the degree of noninvertibility is then the starting point for a generalization yielding a seemingly new combinatorial identity involving the Stirling transform of the signed Stirling numbers of the first kind.
In recent work, G. E. Andrews and G. Simay prove a surprising relation involving parity palindromic compositions, and ask whether a combinatorial proof can be found. We extend their results to a more general class of compositions that are palindromic modulo $m$, that includes the parity palindromic case when $m=2$. We then provide combinatorial proofs for the cases $m=2$ and $m=3$.
In this work, we give combinatorial proofs for generating functions of two problems, i.e., flushed partitions and concave compositions of even length. We also give combinatorial interpretation of one problem posed by Sylvester involving flushed partitions and then prove it. For these purposes, we first describe an involution and use it to prove core identities. Using this involution with modifications, we prove several problems of different nature, including Andrews' partition identities involving initial repetitions and partition theoretical interpretations of three mock theta functions of th…
We study compositions whose parts are colored by subsequences of the Fibonacci numbers. We give explicit bijections between Fibonacci colored compositions and several combinatorial objects, including certain restricted ternary and quaternary words, spanning trees in the ladder graph, unimodal sequences covering an initial interval, and ordered-consecutive partition sequences. Our approach relies on the basic idea of representing the colored compositions as tilings of an $n$-board whose tiles are connected, and sometimes decorated, according to a suitable combinatorial interpretation of the giv…
We consider a general concept of composition and decomposition of objects, and discuss a few natural properties one may expect from a reasonable choice thereof. It will be demonstrated how this leads to multiplication and co- multiplication laws, thereby providing a generic scheme furnishing combinatorial classes with an algebraic structure. The paper is meant as a gentle introduction to the concepts of composition and decomposition with the emphasis on combinatorial origin of the ensuing algebraic constructions.
Agarwal introduced $n$-color compositions in 2000 and most subsequent research has focused on restricting which parts are allowed. Here we focus instead on restricting allowed colors. After three general results, giving recurrence formulas for the cases of given allowed colors, given prohibited colors, and colors satisfying modular conditions, we consider several more specific conditions, establishing direct formulas and connections to other combinatorial objects. Proofs are combinatorial, mostly using the notion of spotted tilings introduced by the first named author in 2012.
In this paper we determine a number of meaningful compositions of higher order of a set of functions, which is considered in Malesevic (1998), in implicit and explicit form. Results which are obtained are applied to the vector analysis in order to determine the number of meaningful differential operations of higher order.
We provide a combinatorial interpretation of the reduced composition polynomials of Ardila and Doker [Adv. Appl. Math. 50 (2013), 607], and relate them to the $(1-q)$-transform of noncommutative symmetric functions.
A superdiagonal composition is one in which the $i$-th part or summand is of size greater than or equal to $i$. In this paper, we study the number of palindromic superdiagonal compositions and colored superdiagonal compositions. In particular, we give generating functions and explicit combinatorial formulas involving binomial coefficients and Stirling numbers of the first kind.
Euler showed that the number of partitions of $n$ into distinct parts equals the number of partitions of $n$ into odd parts. This theorem was generalized by Glaisher and further by Franklin. Recently, Beck made three conjectures on partitions with restricted parts, which were confirmed analytically by Andrews and Chern and combinatorially by Yang. Analogous to Euler's partition theorem, it is known that the number of compositions of $n$ with odd parts equals the number of compositions of $n+1$ with parts greater than one, as both numbers equal the Fibonacci number $F_n$. Recently, Sills provid…
If $S$ is a cofinite set of positive integers, an "$S$-restricted composition of $n$" is a sequence of elements of $S$, denoted $\vecλ=(λ_1,λ_2,...)$, whose sum is $n$. For uniform random $S$-restricted compositions, the random variable ${\bf B}(\vecλ)=\prod_i λ_i$ is asymptotically lognormal. The proof is based upon a combinatorial technique for decomposing a composition into a sequence of smaller compositions.
MacMahon's definition of self-inverse composition is extended to $n$-colour self-inverse composition. This introduces four new sequences which satisfy the same recurrence relation with different initial conditions like the famous Fibonacci and Lucas sequences. For these new sequences explicit formulas, recurrence relations, generating functions and a summation formula are obtained. Two new binomial identities with combinatorial meaning are also given.
We first give a combinatorial interpretation of coefficients of Chebyshev polynomials, which allows us to connect them with compositions of natural numbers. Then we describe a relationship between the number of compositions of a natural number in which a certain number of parts are p-1, and other parts are not less than p with compositions in which all parts are not less than p. Then we find a relationship between principal minors of a type of Hessenberg matrices and compositions of natural numbers.
By studying non-commutative series in an infinite alphabet we introduce shift-plethystic trees and a class of integer compositions as new combinatorial models for the Rogers-Ramanujan identities. We prove that the language associated to shift-plethystic trees can be expressed as a non-commutative generalization of the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction. By specializing the noncommutative series to $q$-series we obtain new combinatorial interpretations to the Rogers-Ramanujan identities in terms of signed integer compositions. We introduce the operation of shift-plethysm on non-commutative ser…
We show that combinatorial objects called row-strict composition tableaux, introduced by Mason and Remmel in 2014 and closely related to the quasi-symmetric Schur functions of Haglund-Luoto-Mason-van Willigenburg, form a basis for Schur functors of finite free modules over arbitrary commutative rings. When the ring is the complex numbers, this produces a new basis for the irreducible polynomial representations of $\operatorname{GL}_n(\mathbb{C})$. Moreover, in this case it also produces new basis for the Plücker algebra, a subalgebra of the polynomial ring over $\mathbb{C}$ in $n^2$ variables…
This paper shows how the study of colored compositions of integers reveals some unexpected and original connection with the Invert operator. The Invert operator becomes an important tool to solve the problem of directly counting the number of colored compositions for any coloration. The interesting consequences arising from this relationship also give an immediate and simple criterion to determine whether a sequence of integers counts the number of some colored compositions. Applications to Catalan and Fibonacci numbers naturally emerge, allowing to clearly answer to some open questions. Moreo…
Let c^{k,l}(n) be the number of compositions (ordered partitions) of the integer n whose Ferrers diagram fits inside a k-by-l rectangle. The purpose of this note is to give a simple, algebraic proof of a conjecture of Vatter that the sequence c^{k,l}(0), c^{k,l}(1), ..., c^{k,l}(kl) is unimodal. The problem of giving a combinatorial proof of this fact is discussed, but is still open.
We realize several combinatorial Hopf algebras based on set compositions, plane trees and segmented compositions in terms of noncommutative polynomials in infinitely many variables. For each of them, we describe a trialgebra structure, an internal product, and several bases.
For $a,b\in\mathbb{N}_0$, we consider $(an+b)$-color compositions of a positive integer $ν$ for which each part of size $n$ admits $an+b$ colors. We study these compositions from the enumerative point of view and give a formula for the number of $(an+b)$-color compositions of $ν$ with $k$ parts. Our formula is obtained in two different ways: 1) by means of algebraic properties of partial Bell polynomials, and 2) through a bijection to a certain family of weak compositions that we call domino compositions. We also discuss two cases when $b$ is negative and give corresponding combinatorial inter…
We introduce a functorial construction which, from a monoid, produces a set-operad. We obtain new (symmetric or not) operads as suboperads or quotients of the operads obtained from usual monoids such as the additive and multiplicative monoids of integers and cyclic monoids. They involve various familiar combinatorial objects: endofunctions, parking functions, packed words, permutations, planar rooted trees, trees with a fixed arity, Schröder trees, Motzkin words, integer compositions, directed animals, and segmented integer compositions. We also recover some already known (symmetric or not) op…
A \emph{composition} is a sequence of positive integers, called \emph{parts}, having a fixed sum. By an \emph{$m$-congruence succession}, we will mean a pair of adjacent parts $x$ and $y$ within a composition such that $x\equiv y(\text{mod} m)$. Here, we consider the problem of counting the compositions of size $n$ according to the number of $m$-congruence successions, extending recent results concerning successions on subsets and permutations. A general formula is obtained, which reduces in the limiting case to the known generating function formula for the number of Carlitz compositions. Spec…
A composition of a nonnegative integer (n) is a sequence of positive integers whose sum is (n). A composition is palindromic if it is unchanged when its terms are read in reverse order. We provide a generating function for the number of occurrences of arbitrary segmented partially ordered patterns among compositions of (n) with a prescribed number of parts. These patterns generalize the notions of rises, drops, and levels studied in the literature. We also obtain results enumerating parts with given sizes and locations among compositions and palindromic compositions with a given number of part…
We explore the notion of degree of asymmetry for integer sequences and related combinatorial objects. The degree of asymmetry is a new combinatorial statistic that measures how far an object is from being symmetric. We define this notion for compositions, words, matchings, binary trees and permutations, we find generating functions enumerating these objects with respect to their degree of asymmetry, and we describe the limiting distribution of this statistic in each case.
We give a combinatorial description of the composition factors of the induction product of two evaluation modules of the affine Iwahori-Hecke algebra of type GL(m). Using quantum affine Schur-Weyl duality, this yields a combinatorial description of the composition factors of the tensor product of two evaluation modules of the quantum affine algebra of type sl(n).
We introduce the hydra continued fractions, as a generalization of the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fractions, and give a combinatorial interpretation in terms of shift-plethystic trees. We then show it is possible to express them as a quotient of m-distinct partition generating functions, and in its dual form as a quotient of the generating functions of compositions with contiguous rises upper bounded by m-1. We obtain new generating functions for compositions according to their local minima, for partitions with a prescribed set of rises, and for compositions with prescribed sets of contiguous …
Multitildes are regular operators that were introduced by Caron et al. in order to increase the number of Glushkov automata. In this paper, we study the family of the multitilde operators from an algebraic point of view using the notion of operad. This leads to a combinatorial description of already known results as well as new results on compositions, actions and enumerations.
This paper examines the one-to-one-to-one correspondence between threshold graphs, Betti numbers of quotients of polynomial rings by $2$-linear ideals, and anti-lecture hall compositions. In particular, we establish new explicit combinatorial mappings between each of these classes of objects and calculate the expected values of the Betti numbers and anti-lecture hall composition corresponding to a random threshold graph.
Integer compositions with certain colored parts were introduced by Andrews in 2007 to address a number-theoretic problem. Integer compositions allowing zero as some parts were introduced by Ouvry and Polychronakos in 2019. We give a bijection between these two varieties of compositions and determine various combinatorial properties of these multicompositions. In particular, we determine the count of multicompositions by number of all parts, number of positive parts, and number of zeros. Then, working from three types of compositions with restricted parts that are counted by the Fibonacci seque…
Utilizing spectral residues of parameterized, recursively defined sequences, we develop a general method for generating identities of composition sums. Specific results are obtained by focusing on coefficient sequences of solutions of first and second order, ordinary, linear differential equations. Regarding the first class, the corresponding identities amount to a proof of the exponential formula of labelled counting. The identities in the second class can be used to establish certain geometric properties of the simplex of bounded, ordered, integer tuples. We present three theorems that suppo…
We study pattern avoidance by combinatorial objects other than permutations, namely by ordered partitions of an integer and by permutations of a multiset. In the former case we determine the generating function explicitly, for integer compositions of n that avoid a given pattern of length 3 and we show that the answer is the same for all such patterns. We also show that the number of multiset permutations that avoid a given three-letter pattern is the same for all such patterns, thereby extending and refining earlier results of Albert, Aldred et al., and by Atkinson, Walker and Linton. Further…
Faà di Bruno's formula gives an expression for the derivatives of the composition of two real-valued functions. In this paper we prove a multivariate and synthesized version of Faà di Bruno's formula in higher dimensions, providing a combinatorial expression for the derivatives of chain compositions $F^{(1)} \circ \ldots \circ F^{(m)}$ of functions $F^{(l)} : \mathbb{R}^N \to \mathbb{R}^N$ in terms of sums over labelled trees. We give several applications of this formula, including a new involution formula for the inversion of multivariate power series. We use this framework to outline a combi…
We study pairs and m--tuples of compositions of a positive integer n with parts restricted to a subset P of positive integers. We obtain some exact enumeration results for the number of tuples of such compositions having the same number of parts. Under the uniform probability model, we obtain the asymptotics for the probability that two or, more generally, m randomly and independently chosen compositions of n have the same number of parts. For a large class of compositions, we show how a nice interplay between complex analysis and probability theory allows to get full asymptotics for this prob…
Motivated by a question of Rota, this paper studies the relationship between Rota--Baxter algebras and symmetric related functions. The starting point is the fact that the space of quasi-symmetric functions is spanned by monomial quasi-symmetric functions which are indexed by compositions. When composition is replaced by left weak composition (LWC), we obtain the concept of LWC monomial quasi-symmetric functions and the resulting space of LWC quasi-symmetric functions. In line with the question of Rota, the latter is shown to be isomorphic to the free commutative nonunitary Rota--Baxter algebr…
