Lattice paths and submonoids of Z^2

DOI10.1007/S00026-021-00546-3zbMATH Open1479.05013arXiv1811.05735OpenAlexW3195609207MaRDI QIDQ825955FDOQ825955

Authors: James East, Nicholas Ham 

Publication date: 18 December 2021

Published in: Annals of Combinatorics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We study a number of combinatorial and algebraic structures arising from walks on the two-dimensional integer lattice. To a given step set $Xsubseteqmathbb{Z}^2$, there are two naturally associated monoids: $mathscr{F}_X$, the monoid of all $X$-walks/paths; and $mathscr{A}_X$, the monoid of all endpoints of $X$-walks starting from the origin $O$. For each $Ainmathscr{A}_X$, write $p{i}_X(A)$ for the number of $X$-walks from $O$ to $A$. Calculating the numbers $p{i}_X(A)$ is a classical problem, leading to Fibonacci, Catalan, Motzkin, Delannoy and Schroder numbers, among many other well-studied sequences and arrays. Our main results give relationships between finiteness properties of the numbers $p{i}_X(A)$, geometrical properties of the step set $X$, algebraic properties of the monoid $mathscr{A}_X$, and combinatorial properties of a certain bi-labelled digraph naturally associated to $X$. There is an intriguing divergence between the cases of finite and infinite step sets, and some constructions rely on highly non-trivial properties of real numbers. We also consider the case of walks constrained to stay within a given region of the plane. Several examples are considered throughout to highlight the sometimes-subtle nature of the theoretical results.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.05735

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zbMATH Keywords

enumerationlattice pathscommutative monoids

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Directed graphs (digraphs), tournaments (05C20) Exact enumeration problems, generating functions (05A15) Factorials, binomial coefficients, combinatorial functions (05A10) Distance in graphs (05C12) Enumeration in graph theory (05C30) Paths and cycles (05C38) Commutative semigroups (20M14) Arithmetic theory of semigroups (20M13)

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Cited In (3)

• Lattice paths and submonoids of \(\mathbb{Z}^2\)
• On discrete idempotent paths
• Enumerating minimal length lattice paths

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