Unimodality of independence polynomials of the incidence product of graphs

Given two graphs $G$ and $H$, assume that $V\left(G\right)=\{v_1,v_2,\dots ,v_n\}$ and $U$ is a subset of $V\left(H\right)$. We introduce a new graph operation called the incidence product, denoted by $G\odot H^U$, as follows: insert a new vertex into each edge of $G$, then join with edges those pairs of new vertices on adjacent edges of $G$. Finally, for every vertex $v_i\in V\left(G\right)$, replace it by a copy of the graph $H$ and join every new vertex being adjacent to $v_i$ to every vertex of $U$. It generalizes the line graph operation. We prove that the independence polynomial

$I\left(G\odot H^U;x\right)=I^n(H;x)M\left(G;\frac{x{I}^2(H?U;x)}{I^2(H;x)}\right),$

where $M(G;x)$ is its matching polynomial. Based on this formula, we show that the incidence product of some graphs preserves symmetry, unimodality, reality of zeros of independence polynomials. As applications, we obtain some graphs so-formed having symmetric and unimodal independence polynomials. In particular, the graph $Q\left(G\right)$ introduced by Cvetkovi?, Doob and Sachs has a symmetric and unimodal independence polynomial.     

Rank polynomials of fence posets are unimodal

We prove a conjecture of Morier-Genoud and Ovsienko that says that rank polynomials of the distributive lattices of lower ideals of fence posets are unimodal. We do this by proving a stronger version of the conjecture due to McConville, Sagan, and Smyth. Our proof involves introducing a related class of posets, which we call circular fence posets and showing that their rank polynomials are symmetric. We also apply the recent work of Elizalde, Plante, Roby, and Sagan on rowmotion on fences and show many of their homomesy results hold for the circular case as well.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">f</Emphasis>-Vectors of barycentric subdivisions

For a simplicial complex or more generally Boolean cell complex Δ we study the behavior of the f- and h-vector under barycentric subdivision. We show that if Δ has a non-negative h-vector then the h-polynomial of its barycentric subdivision has only simple and real zeros. As a consequence this implies a strong version of the Charney–Davis conjecture for spheres that are the subdivision of a Boolean cell complex or the subdivision of the boundary complex of a simple polytope. For a general (d − 1)-dimensional simplicial complex Δ the h-polynomial of its n-th iterated subdivision shows convergent behavior. More precisely, we show that among the zeros of this h-polynomial there is one converging to infinity and the other d − 1 converge to a set of d − 1 real numbers which only depends on d. F. Brenti and V. Welker are partially supported by EU Research Training Network “Algebraic Combinatorics in Europe”, grant HPRN-CT-2001-00272 and the program on “Algebraic Combinatorics” at the Mittag-Leffler Institut in Spring 2005.     

On the maximum of r-Stirling numbers

Determining the location of the maximum of Stirling numbers is a well-developed area. In this paper we give the same results for the so-called r-Stirling numbers which are natural generalizations of Stirling numbers.     

On poset similarity

Let P be a poset, and let A be an element of its strict incidence algebra. Saks (SIAM J. Algebraic Discrete Methods 1 (1980) 211–215; Discrete Math. 59 (1986) 135–166) and Gansner (SIAM J. Algebraic Discrete Methods 2 (1981) 429–440) proved that the kth Dilworth number of P is less than or equal to the dimension of the nullspace of A^k, and that there is some member of the strict incidence algebra of P for which equality is attained (for all k simultaneously). In this paper we focus attention on the question of when equality is attained with the strict zeta matrix, and proceed under a particular random poset model. We provide an invariant depending only on two measures of nonunimodality of the level structure for the poset that, with probability tending to 1 as the smallest level tends to infinity, takes on the same value as the inequality gap between the width of P and the dimension of the nullspace of its strict zeta matrix. In particular, we characterize the level structures for which the width of P is, with probability tending to 1, equal to the dimension of the nullspace of its strict zeta matrix. As a consequence, by the Kleitman–Rothschild Theorem 5, almost all posets in the Uniform random poset model have width equal to the dimension of the nullspace of their zeta matrices. We hope this is a first step toward a complete characterization of when equality holds in Saks’ and Gansner's inequality for the strict zeta matrix and for all k. New to this paper are also the canonical representatives of the poset similarity classes (where two posets are said to be similar if their strict zeta matrices are similar in the matrix-theoretic sense), and these form the setting for our work on Saks’ and Gansner's inequalities. (Also new are two functions that measure the nonunimodality of a sequence of real numbers.)     

Some results related to Hurwitz stability of combinatorial polynomials

Many important problems are closely related to the zeros of certain polynomials derived from combinatorial objects. The aim of this paper is to observe some results and applications for the Hurwitz stability of polynomials in combinatorics and study other related problems.We first present a criterion for the Hurwitz stability of the Turán expressions of recursive polynomials. In particular, it implies the q-log-convexity or q-log-concavity of the original polynomials. We also give a criterion for the Hurwitz stability of recursive polynomials and prove that the Hurwitz stability of any palindromic polynomial implies its semi-γ-positivity, which illustrates that the original polynomial with odd degree is unimodal. In particular, we get that the semi-γ-positivity of polynomials implies their parity-unimodality and the Hurwitz stability of polynomials implies their parity-log-concavity. Those results generalize the connections between real-rootedness, γ-positivity, log-concavity and unimodality to Hurwitz stability, semi-γ-positivity, parity-log-concavity and parity-unimodality (unimodality). As applications of these criteria, we derive some Hurwitz stability results occurred in the literature in a unified manner. In addition, we obtain the Hurwitz stability of Turán expressions for alternating run polynomials of types A and B and the Hurwitz stability for alternating run polynomials defined on a dual set of Stirling permutations.Finally, we study a class of recursive palindromic polynomials and derive many nice properties including Hurwitz stability, semi-γ-positivity, non-γ-positivity, unimodality, strong q-log-convexity, the Jacobi continued fraction expansion and the relation with derivative polynomials. In particular, these properties of the alternating descents polynomials of types A and B can be implied in a unified approach.