Inductive proofs of \(q\)-log concavity (Q1191957)

A sequence of non-negative integers \(\{a_ k\}_{k\in {\mathbf Z}}\) is concave if \(a_{k-1}a_{k+1} \leq a_ k^ 2\) for all \(k\in {\mathbf Z}\). A sequence of polynomials \(\{f_ k(q)\}_{k\in {\mathbf Z}} \subseteq {\mathbf N}[q]\) is strongly \(q\)-concave if \(f_{k-1}f_{l+1} \leq_ q f_ kf_ l\) for all \(k \leq l\) where \(\leq_ q\) is the partial order: \(f \leq_ q g\) if and only if \(g-f\) has non-negative coefficients. The author proves that the sequence of Gaussian polynomials \(\{[{n \atop k} ] \}_{k\in {\mathbf Z}}\) as well as the \(q\)-Stirling numbers of the first and second kind are strongly \(q\)-concave. He generalizes these results to find families of strongly \(q\)-concave polynomials expressed in terms of the elementary and complete symmetric functions. The connection with unimodality, bibasic analogs, and combinatorial approaches are also discussed.