Chop vectors and the lattice of integer partitions (Q409460)

The authors identify a set of \(k\) sticks with an infinite non-increasing sequence \(S=(s_1, s_2,\ldots,s_k,1,1,\ldots)\) of positive integers, where the first \(k\) components are the lengths of the \(k\) sticks and the remaining components are all \(1\). A partial order \(\leq\) (called \textit{dominance}) is defined on the set \(\mathcal{S}\) of all such sequences as follows: for all \(S= (s_1,s_2,\ldots) \in \mathcal{S}\) and \(T=(t_1,t_2,\ldots) \in \mathcal{S}\), \(S \leq T\) if and only if \(\sum_{i=1}^{j} s_i \leq \sum_{i=1}^{j} t_i\) for all \(j\geq i\). Then \((\mathcal{S},\leq)\) becomes a lattice. Further the authors associate to each \(S\in \mathcal{S}\) an infinite vector \(\mathbf{v}_S = (v_1,v_2,\ldots)\) of positive integers where \(v_{\omega}\) is the minimum number of cuts needed to chop \(S\) into unit pieces given a knife which can cut up to \(\omega\) pieces at a time. The vector \(\mathbf{v}_{S}\) is called the \textit{chop} vector. Chop vectors can be ordered componentwise: \(\mathbf{v}_{S} \leq \mathbf{v}_{T}\) if and only if \((\mathbf{v}_{S})_i \leq (\mathbf{v}_{T})_i\) for all \(i\). The authors' main result states that the function \(\phi: \mathcal{S} \to \mathbb{N}^{\omega}\) given by \(\phi(S) = \mathbf{v}_S\) is order-preserving; that is, if \(S \leq T\), then \(\mathbf{v}_S \leq \mathbf{v}_T\).