Rectangular Scott-type permanents (Q1972218)

The permanent of a rectangular \(n\times m\)-matrix \(A\) is the sum of all possible products of \(n\) entries of \(A\) for which no two entries are from the same row or same column. Let \(P(x)\) and \(Q(y)\) be polynomials of degrees \(n\) and \(m\), respectively, and let \(X:=\{x_{1},\dots{},x_{n}\}\) and \(Y:=\{y_{1} ,\dots{},y_{m}\}\) be their sets of roots. The present paper considers the permanent \(per(A)\) where \(A\) is the \(n\times m\)-matrix whose \((i,j)\)th entry is \(1/(x_{i}-y_{j}).\) By symmetry the values of this permanent is a rational function of the coefficients of \(P(x)\) and \(Q(y)\). The authors call such permanents ``Scott-type'' after R. F. Scott (1881) who found a simple expression for \(per(A)\) when \(P(x)=x^{n}-1\) and \(Q(y)=y^{m}+1.\) The object of the present paper is find simple closed expressions for \(per(A)\) for other choices of \(P(x)\) and \(Q(x).\) The starting point is Theorem 1 which shows that \(per(A)=\det(H(X)E(Y))/R(X,Y)\) where: (i) \(H(X)\) is the \(n\times(m+n-1)\)-matrix whose \((i,j)\)th entry is \(h_{j-i}(X)\) where \(h_{s}(X)\) is the complete homogeneous symmetric function of degree \(s\) in the variables in \(X\); (ii) \(E(Y)\) is the \((m+n-1)\times n\)-matrix whose \((i,j)\)th entry is \((i-2j+2)(-1)^{m-i+j-1}e_{m-i+j-1}(X)\) where \(e_{s}(Y)\) is the elementary symmetric function of degree \(s\) in the variables in \(Y;\) and (iii) \(R(X,Y)=\prod_{i,j}(x_{i}-y_{j}).\) This theorem is then applied to computing \(per(A)\) for a large number of special cases. For example, Corollary 31 states that if \(P(x)=x^{n}-1\) and \(Q(y)=y^{n}+ny-1\) then \(per(A)=1\). As might be expected, the proofs are highly computational.