On Garsia-Remmel problem of rook equivalence (Q1910568)

The authors investigate enumerative and general combinatorial properties of non-taking rook placements on Ferrers boards. A non-taking rook placement is a placement of rooks on the board such that no rook can be attacked by another according to the usual rules of playing chess. Let \(\lambda\) be an integer partition (or equivalently a Ferrers board). Denote by \(R_\lambda^k\) the number of non-taking rook placements of \(k\) rooks on the board. In the paper, the authors provide a purely combinatorial proof of a theorem by \textit{A. M. Garsia} and \textit{J. B. Remmel} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 41, 246-275 (1986; Zbl 0598.05007)]. The theorem says that for two integer partitions \(\lambda\) and \(\lambda'\) the identity \(R_\lambda^k= R_{\lambda'}^k\) holds for all \(k\) if and only if \(R_k(\lambda, q)= R_k(\lambda', q)\) for all \(k\). Here, \(R_k(\lambda, q)\) is the generating polynomial of a statistic on the non-taking rook placements of \(k\) rooks on \(\lambda\) defined by the number of cells of the Ferrers board \(\lambda\) that are not taken by a rook or lie above or to the right of a rook. Note that for some technical reason the authors regard Ferrers boards as right justified.