A statistic on involutions (Q5936084)

Given positive integers \(i< j\), the authors define an arc \([i, j]\) with span \(j-i-1\). An involution is a finite set of disjoint arcs. If \(i< k< j< l\), then \([i, j]\), \([k, l]\) are crossing arcs. \(I(n)\) denote the set of all involutions with arcs contained in \([n]\) (\(=\{1,2,\dots,n\}\)) and \(I(n, k)\) the set of involutions in \(I(n)\) with \(k\) arcs. For an involution \(\delta\) let \(|\delta|\) denote the number of arcs and \(c(\delta)\) the number of pairs of arcs in \(\delta\) which are crossing, e.g., the crossing number of \(\delta\). The weight \[ \text{wt}(\delta)= \Biggl(\sum_{[i, j]\not\in\delta} \text{span}[i, j]\Biggr)- c(\delta). \] If \(F(2n)\) denotes the set of all fixed point free involutions in \(I(2n)\), i.e., involutions in \(I(2n)\) having \(n\) arcs, with the weight statistic restricted to \(F(2n)\) from \(I(2n)\), and if \(\delta,\tau\in F(2n)\), where \(\delta\subseteq\tau\) if \(\tau\) can be obtained by a sequence of (zero or more) weight-increasing interchanges \([a_i, b_i]\), \([a_j, b_j]\to [a_i, a_j]\), \([b_i, b_j]\) or \([a_i, b_i]\), \([a_j, b_j]\to [a_i, b_j]\), \([a_j, b_i]\), then \((F(2n),\leq)\) is a rank-\(2{n\choose 2}\) graded EL-shellable poset whose order triangulates a ball. The rank generating function is \([1]_q[3]_q\cdots[2n- 1]_q\). If \({n\choose k}_q\) denotes the \(q\)-binomial coefficient, then it is also shown that \[ {n\choose k}_q= \sum_{\delta\in I(n)}(q- 1)^{|\delta|} q^{\text{wt}(\delta)}{n-2|\delta|\choose k-|\delta|} \] for a second interesting application of the weight statistic to a reformulation of an important combinatorial expression.