A unifying poset perspective on alternating sign matrices, plane partitions, Catalan objects, tournaments, and tableaux (Q534212): Difference between revisions

This paper enumerates the order ideals in certain posets and relates the resulting enumeration problems to those of several well-known previously studied classes of objects, including those listed in the title. The \textit{tetrahedral poset} \(T_n\) is introduced as a certain partial ordering of the set of lattice points inside \(n{\mathcal T}\), where \({\mathcal T}\) is a tetrahedron having vertices \(a_0 = 0\), \(a_1\), \(a_2\), and \(a_3\), and with the lattice \(L\) generated by \(\{a_1, a_2, a_3\}\). A directed graph \({\mathcal G}\) having vertex set \(n{\mathcal T}\cap L\) is obtained, with \((u,v)\) a directed edge if \(v-u\) equals one of the differences \(a_j-a_i\), \(0\leq i<j\leq 3\). In the paper, some symmetries are emphasized by using a regular tetrahedron for \({\mathcal T}\). The full tetrahedral poset \(T_n\) is the set \(n{\mathcal T} \cap L\) with the partial ordering given by the transitive closure of the directed graph \({\mathcal G}\). The number of order ideals of \(T_n\) is shown to be equal to the number of totally symmetric plane partitions inside an \((n-1)\times (n-1) \times (n-1)\) box. The edges of the graph \({\mathcal G}\) are considered to be in six color classes corresponding to the six differences \(a_j - a_i\), and other partial orderings of the same set are obtained similarly from directed subgraphs of \({\mathcal G}\) whose edges have colors restricted to various subsets of the full set of colors. In all cases the expressions giving the solutions factor quite nicely.