On log concavity for order-preserving maps of partial orders (Q795043)

\textit{R. P. Stanley} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 31, 56-65 (1981; Zbl 0484.05012)] used the Aleksandrov-Fenchel inequalities from the theory of mixed volumes to prove the following result. Let P be a partially ordered set with n elements, and let \(x\in P\). If \(N^*_ i\) is the number of linear extensions \(\lambda:P\to \{1,2,...,n\}\) satisfying \(\lambda(x)=i\), then the sequence \(N^*_ 1,...,N^*_ n\) is log concave (and therefore unimodal). Here the analogous results for both strict order- preserving and order-preserving maps are proved using an explicit injection. Further, if \(v_ c\) is the number of strict order-preserving maps of P into a chain of length c, then \(v_ c\) is shown to be log concave, and the corresponding result is established for order-preserving maps.