A unifying poset perspective on alternating sign matrices, plane partitions, Catalan objects, tournaments, and tableaux (Q534212)

This paper enumerates the order ideals in certain posets and relates the resulting enumeration problems to those of several well-known previously studied classes of objects, including those listed in the title. The \textit{tetrahedral poset} \(T_n\) is introduced as a certain partial ordering of the set of lattice points inside \(n{\mathcal T}\), where \({\mathcal T}\) is a tetrahedron having vertices \(a_0 = 0\), \(a_1\), \(a_2\), and \(a_3\), and with the lattice \(L\) generated by \(\{a_1, a_2, a_3\}\). A directed graph \({\mathcal G}\) having vertex set \(n{\mathcal T}\cap L\) is obtained, with \((u,v)\) a directed edge if \(v-u\) equals one of the differences \(a_j-a_i\), \(0\leq i<j\leq 3\). In the paper, some symmetries are emphasized by using a regular tetrahedron for \({\mathcal T}\). The full tetrahedral poset \(T_n\) is the set \(n{\mathcal T} \cap L\) with the partial ordering given by the transitive closure of the directed graph \({\mathcal G}\). The number of order ideals of \(T_n\) is shown to be equal to the number of totally symmetric plane partitions inside an \((n-1)\times (n-1) \times (n-1)\) box. The edges of the graph \({\mathcal G}\) are considered to be in six color classes corresponding to the six differences \(a_j - a_i\), and other partial orderings of the same set are obtained similarly from directed subgraphs of \({\mathcal G}\) whose edges have colors restricted to various subsets of the full set of colors. In all cases the expressions giving the solutions factor quite nicely.