P-partition products and fundamental quasi-symmetric function positivity

DOI10.1016/J.AAM.2007.01.003MaRDI QIDQ2482912zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Thomas Lam, Pavlo Pylyavskyy

Publication date 28 April 2008

Published in Advances in Applied Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0609249

zbMATH Keywords

\(P\)-partition generating functions positivity quasi-symmetric functions

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Symmetric functions and generalizations (05E05) Combinatorics of partially ordered sets (06A07)

Abstract: We show that certain differences of products of

P

-partition generating functions are positive in the basis of fundamental quasi-symmetric functions L_alpha. This result interpolates between recent Schur positivity and monomial positivity results of the same flavor. We study the case of chains in detail, introducing certain ``cell transfer operations on compositions and an interesting related ``L-positivity poset. We introduce and study quasi-symmetric functions called ``wave Schur functions and use them to establish, in the case of chains, that the difference of products we study is itself equal to a single generating function K_{P, heta} for a labeled poset (P, heta). In the course of our investigations we establish some factorization properties of the ring of quasisymmetric functions.

Review text

The Schur functions \(s_\lambda\) satisfy (A) Littlewood-Richardson rule I: The product \(s_\lambda s_\mu\) of two Schur functions is Schur-positive, (B) Littlewood-Richardson rule II: A skew Schur functions \(s_{\lambda/\mu}\) is Schur-positive, and (C) Lam-Postinkov-Pylyavskyy [\textit{T. Lam, A. Postinkov}, and \textit{P. Pylyavskyy}, Am. J. Math. 129, No. 6, 1611-1622 (2007; Zbl 1131.05096)]: The difference of products \(s_{\max(\lambda/\mu,\nu/\rho)}s_{\min(\lambda/\mu,\nu/\rho)}-s_{\lambda/\mu}s_{\nu/\rho}\) is Schur-positive. In this paper the authors replaced symmetric functions with quasi-symmetric functions and study the analogous positivity properties for the fundamental quasi-symmetric functions \(L_\alpha\), where we say that a quasi-symmetric function \(f\) is \(L\)-positive if it is a non-negative linear combination of fundamental quasi-symmetric functions. The Shuffle product gives that the product \(L_\alpha L_\beta\) of two quasi-symmetric functions is \(L\)-positive, and Stanley's \(P\)-partition theory [\textit{R.P. Stanley}, Enumerative combinatorics, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1999; Zbl 0928.05001)] shows that for any poset \(P\) and labeling \(\theta:P\rightarrow\mathbb{P}\) the generating function \(K_{P,\theta}\) of \(P\)-partition is \(L\)-positive. These give the analogues of (A) and (B). The main result of this paper, which is the analogue of (C), says that the difference \(K_{Q\wedge R,\theta}K_{Q\vee R,\theta}-K_{Q,\theta}K_{R,\theta}\) is \(L\)-positive, where \(Q,R\) are two convex subsets of a labeled poset \((P,\theta)\) and \(\wedge,\vee\) are the cell transfer operations introduced in [\textit{T. Lam} and \textit{P. Pylyavskyy}, J. Algebr. Comb. 26, No. 2, 209--224 (2007; Zbl 1124.05093)]. Moreover, the authors introduced and studied quasi-symmetric functions called wave Schur functions and use them to establish that \(K_{Q\wedge R,\theta}K_{Q\vee R,\theta}-K_{Q,\theta}K_{R,\theta}\) is itself equal to a single generating function \(K_{P,\theta}\). Also established some factorization properties of the quasi-symmetric functions ring.

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