Weighted locally gentle quivers and Cartan matrices. (Q2456396)

Let \(\mathcal Q=(Q,R)\) be a pair consisting of a finite quiver and a set \(R\) of paths of length \(2\). We call \(\mathcal Q\) a locally gentle quiver if the following conditions are satisfied: (i) for each vertex \(x\) of \(Q\) there are at most two arrows starting (terminating) at \(x\), (ii) for each arrow \(\alpha\colon x\to y\) in \(Q\) there is at most one arrow \(\beta\colon y\to z\) (\(\gamma\colon z\to x\)) such that \(\beta\alpha\not\in R\) (\(\alpha\gamma\not\in R\), respectively), (iii) for each arrow \(\alpha\colon x\to y\) in \(Q\) there is at most one arrow \(\beta\colon y\to z\) (\(\gamma\colon z\to x\)) such that \(\beta\alpha\in R\) (\(\alpha\gamma\in R\), respectively). If \(p=\alpha_1\cdots\alpha_n\) is an oriented cycle in a locally gentle quiver \(\mathcal Q\), then we say that \(p\) is a cycle with full relations (a cycle with no relations) if \(\alpha_i\alpha_{i+1}\in R\) (\(\alpha_i\alpha_{i+1}\not\in R\), respectively) for each \(i=1,\dots,n\), where \(\alpha_{n+1}=\alpha_1\). By \(\mathcal Z(\mathcal Q)\) (\(\mathcal I(\mathcal Q)\)) we denote the set of cycles with full relations (cycles with no relations, respectively). Given a locally gentle quiver \(\mathcal Q\) we define the generic weight function \(w\colon Q_1\to\mathbb{Z}[X_\alpha\mid\alpha\in Q_1]\) by \(w(\alpha):=X_\alpha\) for \(\alpha\in Q_1\). This function extends to all non-zero paths in \(\mathcal Q\) in an obvious way. We define the weighted Cartan matrix \(C_{\mathcal Q}^w\) of \(\mathcal Q\) by \(C_{\mathcal Q}^w:=(c_{x,y})_{x,y\in Q_0}\), where \(c_{x,y}:=\sum w(p)\), where \(p\) runs through all the non-zero paths \(p\) in \(\mathcal Q\) from \(x\) to \(y\). Observe that \(c_{x,y}\in\mathbb{Z}[\![X_\alpha\mid\alpha\in Q_1]\!]\) for all \(x,y\in Q_0\). In the article the authors show that \[ \det C_{\mathcal Q}^w=\frac{\prod_{p\in\mathcal Z(\mathcal Q)}(1-(-1)^{l(p)}w(p))}{\prod_{p\in\mathcal I(\mathcal Q)}(1-w(p))}. \] The main tool used in the proof is the following reduction step. Let \(\mathcal Q\) be a locally gentle quiver. A vertex \(x\) of \(Q\) is called exceptional if there are exactly four arrows incident to \(x\) and they all belong to the same cycle with full relations. Fix an arrow \(\alpha\colon x\to y\) in \(Q\) such that \(x\) is not exceptional. Let \(\mathcal Q'\) be the locally gentle quiver obtained from \(\mathcal Q\) by removing \(\alpha\). Moreover, if there exists an arrow \(\beta\colon z\to x\) such that \(\alpha\beta\not\in R\), then we change the terminating vertex of \(\beta\) to \(y\). Finally, we define \(w':Q_1' \to\mathbb{Z}[X_\alpha\mid\alpha\in Q_1]\) by \(w'(\gamma):=w(\gamma)\) for \(\gamma\neq\beta\) and \(w'(\beta):=w(\alpha\beta)\). If \(\mathcal C\) is the set of oriented cycles with full relations passing through \(x\), then \[ \det C_{\mathcal Q}^w=\prod_{p\in\mathcal C}(1-(-1)^{l(p)}w (p))\cdot\det C_{\mathcal Q'}^{w'}. \] The second technical tool is a duality result. For a locally gentle quiver \(\mathcal Q\) we define the dual quiver \(\mathcal Q^\#:=(Q,R^\#)\), where \(R^\#\) is the complement of \(R\) in the set of paths of length \(2\) in \(Q\). Then \(\det C_{\mathcal Q}^w\cdot\det C_{\mathcal Q^\#}^w=1\). The above two tools are sufficient to prove the main result in most of the cases. They are not sufficient to prove it for the critical locally gentle quivers, where a locally gentle quiver \(\mathcal Q\) is called critical if each vertex \(x\) is exceptional both in \(\mathcal Q\) and \(\mathcal Q^\#\). In this case the authors prove the main result directly. Moreover, the authors discuss a connection of the critical locally gentle quivers with the Harer-Zagier formula.