Signed alternating descent enumeration in classical Weyl groups (Q6172290)

Let \(\pi :=[\pi _{1},\pi _{2},\dots,\pi _{n}]\) be a permutation on the first \(n \) integers and let \(\operatorname{des}(\pi)\) denote the number of descents \(\{ i~|~\pi _{i}>\pi _{i+1}\} \). The classical Eulerian polynomial is defined by \(A_{n}(t):=\sum_{\pi }t^{\operatorname{des}(\pi)}\) where the sum is taken over all permutations of degree \(n\). Similarly the signed descents are enumerated by \(\operatorname{SgnDes}_{n}(t):=\sum_{\pi }\operatorname{sgn}(\pi)t^{\operatorname{des}(\pi)}\) where \(\operatorname{sgn}(\pi)\) is the signum function and it is known that that this sum equals \( (1-t)^{k}A_{k}(t)\) if \(n=2k\) and \((1-t)^{k}A_{k+1}(t)\) if \(n=2k+1\) [\textit{J. Désarménien} and \textit{D. Foata}, Discrete Math. 99, No. 1--3, 49--58 (1992; Zbl 0769.05094)]. The object of the paper is to evaluate a series of similar sums. For example, define \(\operatorname{altdes}(\pi)\) to be the number of \(i\) for which \(\pi _{i}>\pi _{i+1}\) when \(i\) is odd and \(\pi _{i}<\pi _{i+1}\) when \(i\) is even. The value of the corresponding \(\operatorname{SgnAltDes}_{4m+r}(t)\) equals \( (1-t)^{2m}A_{2m}(t),\frac{2t}{1+t}(1-t)^{2m}A_{2m}(t),(1-t)^{2m+1}A_{2m+1}(t) \) or \(0\) depending on whether \(r=0,1,2\) or \(3\). Various other sums, including \(q\)-analogues, are considered and the second half of the paper considers sums over Coxeter groups of types \(B\) and \(D\) in place of the symmetric group.