Hopf algebras and edge-labeled posets (Q1305053)

In the case of finite posets, the subclass of graded posets (with maximal element 1 and minimal element 0) forms an important subclass even though its density becomes vanishing as the order of the posets increases sufficiently. For these posets the rather regular combinatorics can be controlled in a variety of ways as has been exhibited by Stanley, Ehrenborg, present authors and others. One such pathway is to label the covers (edges of the Hasse diagram) and then to treat the sequenced labels of maximal chains much like permutations are treated when dealing with symmetric groups, leading to a host of useful concepts in this context. The relevant incidence Hopf algebra is in the incidence coalgebra, of a class \(P\) of graded posets closed under taking subintervals and products, generated as a free abelian group by isomorphism classes in \(P\), with coproduct \(\Delta(P)= \sum[0, x]\otimes[x, 1]\), and where augmentation is the projection onto the degree \(0\) component. This Hopf algebra is commutative and it is isomorphic to a Hopf algebra of special quasi-symmetric functions defined and studied in this paper as generalizations of Stanley's symmetric functions as well as a relative of Ehrenborg's quasi-symmetric generating functions \(E_P\) of the flag \(f\)-vectors of finite graded posets as well as other such useful constructions. Hopefully, at some future instant it will prove to be the case that these ideas can be usefully expanded into the larger class of graded extensions of given finite posets as descriptive of such sets in a combinatorial sense, and then to employ known techniques of which this paper is another interesting example.