Coefficients and Roots of Peak Polynomials

Abstract: Given a permutation

p i = p i_{1} p i_{2} c d o t s p i_{n} i n m a t h f r a k S_{n}

, we say an index

i

is a peak if

p i_{i - 1} < p i_{i} > p i_{i + 1}

. Let

P (p i)

denote the set of peaks of

p i

. Given any set

S

of positive integers, define

m a t h c a l P_{S} (n) = p i i n m a t h f r a k S_{n} : P (p i) = S

. Billey-Burdzy-Sagan showed that for all fixed subsets of positive integers

S

and sufficiently large

n

,

| m a t h c a l P_{S} (n) | = p_{S} (n) 2^{n - | S | - 1}

for some polynomial

p_{S} (x)

depending on

S

. They conjectured that the coefficients of

p_{S} (x)

expanded in a binomial coefficient basis centered at

m a x (S)

are all positive. We show that this is a consequence of a stronger conjecture that bounds the modulus of the roots of

p_{S} (x)

. Furthermore, we give an efficient explicit formula for peak polynomials in the binomial basis centered at

0

, which we use to identify many integer roots of peak polynomials along with certain inequalities and identities.

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