Signs in the \(cd\)-index of Eulerian partially ordered sets (Q2718992)

As combinatorial objects Eulerian posets are rather very nice and surprisingly ubiquitous. Thus, e.g., the face-lattices of convex polytopes are Eulerian posets. \textit{R. P. Stanley's} book Enumerative combinatorics. Vol. I [Wadsworth \& Brooks, Montery/CA (1986; Zbl 0608.05001)] provides an introduction inside a general context to these objects. Many counting devices for combinatorial objects come in the form of polynomials in one or more variables that may or may not commute with one another. Thus, e.g., if \(P\) is an Eulerian poset of rank \(n+1\) and \(S\subseteq [1,n]\), then \(f_S(P)\) is the number of chains in \(P\) of the form \(\widehat 0< x_1<\cdots< x_k<\widehat 1\) where \(\{\text{rank}(x_k):1\leq i\leq k\}= S\) and \(h_S= \sum_{T\subseteq S}(-1)^{|S\setminus T|} f_T\) defines the flag \(h\)-vector, with \(f_S= \sum_{T\subseteq S}h_t\) and generating function \(\psi(a,b)= \sum h_su_s\), \(u_s= u_1\cdots u_n\), \(u_i= a\) if \(i\not\in S\), \(u_i= b\) if \(i\in S\) and \(\Phi(c,d)\) is a polynomial depending on \(P\) in non-commuting variables \(c\) and \(d\) such that \(\psi(a,b)= \Phi(a+ b,ab+ ba)\), the \(cd\)-index of \(P\), which seems a rather abstruse object, that nevertheless has interesting properties, e.g., if \(P\) is the face-lattice of a convex polytope then the \(cd\)-index has nonnegative coefficients leading one to speculate that this might be true more generally for Eulerian posets. In pursuit of the facts the author shows this to be false: (Lemma 3) The coefficient of \(ccdcc\) as a function of rank 7 Eulerian posets has no lower bound, among other similar statements (Lemma 1, Lemma 2, Lemma 4), and from the Main Theorem conditions on words of \(\Phi(c,d)\) guaranteeing nonnegatives (as in 1(a), (b); (2)). On the way constructions of example Eulerian posets are given needed to justify the claims made in the Lemmas and the Main Theorems of this interesting paper.