Longest increasing subsequences and log concavity (Q1682614)

This paper introduces an interesting unpublished conjecture by Chen which states that the sequence \(l_{n,1}, l_{n,2}, \ldots, l_{n,n}\) is log concave for every fixed positive integer \(n\), where \(l_{n,k}\) denotes the number of permutations of \([n]\) whose longest increasing subsequence has length \(k\). It is well known that the limiting distribution of the sequence is given by Tracy-Widom distribution, and Percy Deift has proved that its density function is log-concave. For \(n\leq50\), the conjecture is verified by the authors via computer. The authors discussed the relation between this conjecture with a few other ones. One closely related conjecture made by the authors is that \(i_{n,1}, i_{n,2}, \ldots, i_{n,n}\) is log concave for every fixed positive integer \(n\), where \(i_{n,k}\) denotes the number of involutions of \([n]\) whose longest increasing subsequence has length \(k\). Moreover, it is proved that ``various analogues of these conjectures hold which concern permutations whose output tableaux under the Robinson-Schensted algorithm have certain shapes''. However, it seems that none of these conjectures are sufficient to prove the original conjecture. As a conclusion, it is an interesting conjecture. The paper is well written, but the results shown in this paper do not seem strong enough to attack the problem. Also, the application of the problem is not obvious according to the paper, and thus I've no ability to evaluate its importance.