A quasisymmetric function generalization of the chromatic symmetric function (Q625399)

Summary: The chromatic symmetric function \(X_G\) of a graph \(G\) was introduced by Stanley. In this paper we introduce a quasisymmetric generalization \(X^k_G\) called the \(k\)-chromatic quasisymmetric function of \(G\) and show that it is positive in the fundamental basis for the quasisymmetric functions. Following the specialization of \(X_G\) to \(\chi_G(\lambda)\), the chromatic polynomial, we also define a generalization \(\chi^k_G(\lambda)\) and show that evaluations of this polynomial for negative values generalize a theorem of Stanley relating acyclic orientations to the chromatic polynomial.