Colored Posets and Colored Quasisymmetric Functions

The colored quasisymmetric functions, like the classic quasisymmetric functions, are known to form a Hopf algebra with a natural peak subalgebra. We show how these algebras arise as the image of the algebra of colored posets. To effect this approach, we introduce colored analogs of P-partitions and enriched P-partitions. We also frame our results in terms of Aguiar, Bergeron, and Sottile’s theory of combinatorial Hopf algebras and its colored analog.     

The Peak Algebra of the Symmetric Group

The peak set of a permutation is the set {i : (i – 1) < (i) > (i + 1)}. The group algebra of the symmetric group S _n admits a subalgebra in which elements are sums of permutations with a common descent set. In this paper we show the existence of a subalgebra of this descent algebra in which elements are sums of permutations sharing a common peak set. To prove the existence of this peak algebra we use the theory of enriched (P, )-partitions and the algebra of quasisymmetric peak functions studied by Stembridge (Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 349 (1997) 763–788).     

Cyclic Descents and <Emphasis Type="Italic">P</Emphasis>-Partitions

Louis Solomon showed that the group algebra of the symmetric group _n has a subalgebra called the descent algebra, generated by sums of permutations with a given descent set. In fact, he showed that every Coxeter group has something that can be called a descent algebra. There is also a commutative, semisimple subalgebra of Solomon's descent algebra generated by sums of permutations with the same number of descents: an “Eulerian” descent algebra. For any Coxeter group that is also a Weyl group, Paola Cellini proved the existence of a different Eulerian subalgebra based on a modified definition of descent. We derive the existence of Cellini's subalgebra for the case of the symmetric group and of the hyperoctahedral group using a variation on Richard Stanley's theory of P-partitions.     

Random walks on quasisymmetric functions

Conditions are provided under which an endomorphism on quasisymmetric functions gives rise to a left random walk on the descent algebra which is also a lumping of a left random walk on permutations. Spectral results are also obtained. Several important random walks are now realized this way: Stanley's QS-distribution results from endomorphisms given by evaluation maps, a-shuffles result from the ath convolution power of the universal character, and the Tchebyshev operator of the second kind introduced recently by Ehrenborg and Readdy yields traditional riffle shuffles. A conjecture of Ehrenborg regarding the spectra for a family of random walks on ab-words is proven. A theorem of Stembridge from the theory of enriched P-partitions is also recovered as a special case.     

Peak quasisymmetric functions and Eulerian enumeration

Via duality of Hopf algebras, there is a direct association between peak quasisymmetric functions and enumeration of chains in Eulerian posets. We study this association explicitly, showing that the notion of cd-index, long studied in the context of convex polytopes and Eulerian posets, arises as the dual basis to a natural basis of peak quasisymmetric functions introduced by Stembridge. Thus Eulerian posets having a nonnegative cd-index (for example, face lattices of convex polytopes) correspond to peak quasisymmetric functions having a nonnegative representation in terms of this basis. We diagonalize the operator that associates the basis of descent sets for all quasisymmetric functions to that of peak sets for the algebra of peak functions, and study the g-polynomial for Eulerian posets as an algebra homomorphism.     

Eulerian quasisymmetric functions

We introduce a family of quasisymmetric functions called Eulerian quasisymmetric functions, which specialize to enumerators for the joint distribution of the permutation statistics, major index and excedance number on permutations of fixed cycle type. This family is analogous to a family of quasisymmetric functions that Gessel and Reutenauer used to study the joint distribution of major index and descent number on permutations of fixed cycle type. Our central result is a formula for the generating function for the Eulerian quasisymmetric functions, which specializes to a new and surprising q-analog of a classical formula of Euler for the exponential generating function of the Eulerian polynomials. This q-analog computes the joint distribution of excedance number and major index, the only of the four important Euler-Mahonian distributions that had not yet been computed. Our study of the Eulerian quasisymmetric functions also yields results that include the descent statistic and refine results of Gessel and Reutenauer. We also obtain q-analogs, (q,p)-analogs and quasisymmetric function analogs of classical results on the symmetry and unimodality of the Eulerian polynomials. Our Eulerian quasisymmetric functions refine symmetric functions that have occurred in various representation theoretic and enumerative contexts including MacMahon's study of multiset derangements, work of Procesi and Stanley on toric varieties of Coxeter complexes, Stanley's work on chromatic symmetric functions, and the work of the authors on the homology of a certain poset introduced by Björner and Welker.     

Free quasi-symmetric functions and descent algebras for wreath products, and noncommutative multi-symmetric functions

We introduce analogs of the Hopf algebra of Free quasi-symmetric functions with bases labeled by colored permutations. When the color set is a semigroup, an internal product can be introduced. This leads to the construction of generalized descent algebras associated with wreath products Γ?S_n and to the corresponding generalizations of quasi-symmetric functions. The associated Hopf algebras appear as natural analogs of McMahon’s multisymmetric functions. As a consequence, we obtain an internal product on ordinary multi-symmetric functions. We extend these constructions to Hopf algebras of colored parking functions, colored non-crossing partitions and parking functions of type B.     

Skew quasisymmetric Schur functions and noncommutative Schur functions

Recently a new basis for the Hopf algebra of quasisymmetric functions QSym, called quasisymmetric Schur functions, has been introduced by Haglund, Luoto, Mason, van Willigenburg. In this paper we extend the definition of quasisymmetric Schur functions to introduce skew quasisymmetric Schur functions. These functions include both classical skew Schur functions and quasisymmetric Schur functions as examples, and give rise to a new poset LC that is analogous to Young's lattice. We also introduce a new basis for the Hopf algebra of noncommutative symmetric functions NSym. This basis of NSym is dual to the basis of quasisymmetric Schur functions and its elements are the pre-image of the Schur functions under the forgetful map χ:NSym→Sym. We prove that the multiplicative structure constants of the noncommutative Schur functions, equivalently the coefficients of the skew quasisymmetric Schur functions when expanded in the quasisymmetric Schur basis, are nonnegative integers, satisfying a Littlewood–Richardson rule analogue that reduces to the classical Littlewood–Richardson rule under χ.As an application we show that the morphism of algebras from the algebra of Poirier–Reutenauer to Sym factors through NSym. We also extend the definition of Schur functions in noncommuting variables of Rosas–Sagan in the algebra NCSym to define quasisymmetric Schur functions in the algebra NCQSym. We prove these latter functions refine the former and their properties, and project onto quasisymmetric Schur functions under the forgetful map. Lastly, we show that by suitably labeling LC, skew quasisymmetric Schur functions arise in the theory of Pieri operators on posets.     

Cyclotomic Solomon algebras

This paper introduces an analogue of the Solomon descent algebra for the complex reflection groups of type G(r,1,n). As with the Solomon descent algebra, our algebra has a basis given by sums of ‘distinguished’ coset representatives for certain ‘reflection subgroups.’ We explicitly describe the structure constants with respect to this basis and show that they are polynomials in r. This allows us to define a deformation, or q-analogue, of these algebras which depends on a parameter q. We determine the irreducible representations of all of these algebras and give a basis for their radicals. Finally, we show that the direct sum of cyclotomic Solomon algebras is canonically isomorphic to a concatenation Hopf algebra.     

Rota–Baxter algebras and left weak composition quasi-symmetric functions

Motivated by a question of Rota, this paper studies the relationship between Rota–Baxter algebras and symmetric-related functions. The starting point is the fact that the space of quasi-symmetric functions is spanned by monomial quasi-symmetric functions which are indexed by compositions. When composition is replaced by left weak composition (LWC), we obtain the concept of LWC monomial quasi-symmetric functions and the resulting space of LWC quasi-symmetric functions. In line with the question of Rota, the latter is shown to be isomorphic to the free commutative nonunitary Rota–Baxter algebra on one generator. The combinatorial interpretation of quasi-symmetric functions by P-partitions from compositions is extended to the context of left weak compositions, leading to the concept of LWC fundamental quasi-symmetric functions. The transformation formulas for LWC monomial and LWC fundamental quasi-symmetric functions are obtained, generalizing the corresponding results for quasi-symmetric functions. Extending the close relationship between quasi-symmetric functions and multiple zeta values, weighted multiple zeta values, and a q-analog of multiple zeta values are investigated, and a decomposition formula is established.     

The Hecke group algebra of a Coxeter group and its representation theory

Let W be a finite Coxeter group. We define its Hecke-group algebra by gluing together appropriately its group algebra and its 0-Hecke algebra. We describe in detail this algebra (dimension, several bases, conjectural presentation, combinatorial construction of simple and indecomposable projective modules, Cartan map) and give several alternative equivalent definitions (as symmetry preserving operator algebra, as poset algebra, as commutant algebra, …).In type A, the Hecke-group algebra can be described as the algebra generated simultaneously by the elementary transpositions and the elementary sorting operators acting on permutations. It turns out to be closely related to the monoid algebras of respectively nondecreasing functions and nondecreasing parking functions, the representation theory of which we describe as well.This defines three towers of algebras, and we give explicitly the Grothendieck algebras and coalgebras given respectively by their induction products and their restriction coproducts. This yields some new interpretations of the classical bases of quasi-symmetric and noncommutative symmetric functions as well as some new bases.     

A Uniform Generalization of Some Combinatorial Hopf Algebras

We generalize the Hopf algebras of free quasisymmetric functions, quasisymmetric functions, noncommutative symmetric functions, and symmetric functions to certain representations of the category of finite Coxeter systems and its dual category. We investigate their connections with the representation theory of 0-Hecke algebras of finite Coxeter systems. Restricted to type B and D we obtain dual graded modules and comodules over the corresponding Hopf algebras in type A.     

Cocommutative Hopf Algebras of Permutations and Trees

Consider the coradical filtrations of the Hopf algebras of planar binary trees of Loday and Ronco and of permutations of Malvenuto and Reutenauer. We give explicit isomorphisms showing that the associated graded Hopf algebras are dual to the cocommutative Hopf algebras introduced in the late 1980's by Grossman and Larson. These Hopf algebras are constructed from ordered trees and heap-ordered trees, respectively. These results follow from the fact that whenever one starts from a Hopf algebra that is a cofree graded coalgebra, the associated graded Hopf algebra is a shuffle Hopf algebra. Aguiar supported in part by NSF grant DMS-0302423. Sottile supported in part by NSF CAREER grant DMS-0134860, the Clay Mathematics Institute, and MSRI.     

Introduction to partially ordered patterns

We review selected known results on partially ordered patterns (POPs) that include co-unimodal, multi- and shuffle patterns, peaks and valleys ((modified) maxima and minima) in permutations, the Horse permutations and others. We provide several new results on a class of POPs built on an arbitrary flat poset, obtaining, as corollaries, the bivariate generating function for the distribution of peaks (valleys) in permutations, links to Catalan, Narayana, and Pell numbers, as well as generalizations of a few results in the literature including the descent distribution. Moreover, we discuss a q-analogue for a result on non-overlapping segmented POPs. Finally, we suggest several open problems for further research.     

A new link between the descent algebra of type B,domino tableaux and Chow’s quasisymmetric functions

Introduced by Solomon in his 1976 paper, the descent algebra of a finite Coxeter group received significant attention over the past decades. As proved by Gessel, in the case of the symmetric group its structure constants give the comultiplication table for the fundamental basis of quasisymmetric functions. We show that this latter property actually implies several well known relations linked to the Robinson–Schensted–Knuth correspondence and some of its generalisations. This provides a new link between these results and the theory of quasisymmetric functions and allows to derive more advanced formulae involving Kronecker coefficients. Using the theory of type B quasisymmetric functions introduced by Chow, we extend this connection to the hyperoctahedral group and derive new formulae relating the structure constants of the descent algebra of type B, the numbers of domino tableaux of given descent set and the Kronecker coefficients of the hyperoctahedral group.     

Twisted descent algebras and the Solomon-Tits algebra

The notion of descent algebra of a bialgebra is lifted to the Barratt-Joyal setting of twisted bialgebras. The new twisted descent algebras share many properties with their classical counterparts. For example, there are twisted analogs of classical Lie idempotents and of the peak algebra. Moreover, the universal twisted descent algebra is equipped with two products and a coproduct, and there is a fundamental rule linking all three. This algebra is shown to be naturally related to the geometry of the Coxeter complex of type A.