Foulkes characters, Eulerian idempotents, and an amazing matrix

John Holte (Am. Math. Mon. 104:138?C149, 1997) introduced a family of ??amazing matrices?? which give the transition probabilities of ??carries?? when adding a list of numbers. It was subsequently shown that these same matrices arise in the combinatorics of the Veronese embedding of commutative algebra (Brenti and Welker, Adv. Appl. Math. 42:545?C556, 2009; Diaconis and Fulman, Am. Math. Mon. 116:788?C803, 2009; Adv. Appl. Math. 43:176?C196, 2009) and in the analysis of riffle shuffling (Diaconis and Fulman, Am. Math. Mon. 116:788?C803, 2009; Adv. Appl. Math. 43:176?C196, 2009). We find that the left eigenvectors of these matrices form the Foulkes character table of the symmetric group and the right eigenvectors are the Eulerian idempotents introduced by Loday (Cyclic Homology, 1992) in work on Hochschild homology. The connections give new closed formulae for Foulkes characters and allow explicit computation of natural correlation functions in the original carries problem.     

On fixed points of permutations

The number of fixed points of a random permutation of {1,2,…,n} has a limiting Poisson distribution. We seek a generalization, looking at other actions of the symmetric group. Restricting attention to primitive actions, a complete classification of the limiting distributions is given. For most examples, they are trivial – almost every permutation has no fixed points. For the usual action of the symmetric group on k-sets of {1,2,…,n}, the limit is a polynomial in independent Poisson variables. This exhausts all cases. We obtain asymptotic estimates in some examples, and give a survey of related results. This paper is dedicated to the life and work of our colleague Manfred Schocker. We thank Peter Cameron for his help. Diaconis was supported by NSF grant DMS-0505673. Fulman received funding from NSA grant H98230-05-1-0031 and NSF grant DMS-0503901. Guralnick was supported by NSF grant DMS-0653873. This research was facilitated by a Chaire d’Excellence grant to the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis.     

Sudakov's typical marginals, random linear functionals and a conditional central limit theorem

Summary. V.N. Sudakov [Sud78] proved that the one-dimensional marginals of a high-dimensional second order measure are close to each other in most directions. Extending this and a related result in the context of projection pursuit of P. Diaconis and D. Freedman [Dia84], we give for a probability measure and a random (a.s.) linear functional on a Hilbert space simple sufficient conditions under which most of the one-dimensional images of under are close to their canonical mixture which turns out to be almost a mixed normal distribution. Using the concept of approximate conditioning we deduce a conditional central limit theorem (theorem 3) for random averages of triangular arrays of random variables which satisfy only fairly weak asymptotic orthogonality conditions. Received: 25 July 1995 / In revised form: 20 June 1996     

A probabilistic proof of the Andrews-Gordon identities

Recently, Fulman proved the “extreme” cases of the Andrews-Gordon identities using a Markov chain on the non-negative integers. Here we extend Fulman's methods to prove the Andrews-Gordon identities in full generality.     

Super-Brauer characters and super-regular classes

Persi Diaconis and I. M. Isaacs generalized the character theory to super-character theories for an arbitrary finite group (Diaconis and Isaacs, in Trans Am Math Soc 360(5):2359–2392, 2008). In these theories, the irreducible characters are replaced by certain so-called supercharacters, and the conjugacy classes of the group are replaced by superclasses. Also, Diaconis and Isaacs discussed supercharacter theories and gave some properties of them. We consider in this note certain sums of irreducible Brauer characters and compatible unions of regular conjugacy classes in an arbitrary finite group and we give a generalization of the Brauer character theory to super-Brauer character theories. We also discuss super-Brauer character theories and obtain some results which are similar to those of Diaconis and Isaacs.     

Super-Brauer characters and super-regular classes

Persi Diaconis and I. M. Isaacs generalized the character theory to super-character theories for an arbitrary finite group (Diaconis and Isaacs, in Trans Am Math Soc 360(5):2359–2392, 2008). In these theories, the irreducible characters are replaced by certain so-called supercharacters, and the conjugacy classes of the group are replaced by superclasses. Also, Diaconis and Isaacs discussed supercharacter theories and gave some properties of them. We consider in this note certain sums of irreducible Brauer characters and compatible unions of regular conjugacy classes in an arbitrary finite group and we give a generalization of the Brauer character theory to super-Brauer character theories. We also discuss super-Brauer character theories and obtain some results which are similar to those of Diaconis and Isaacs.     

Eigenvectors for a random walk on a hyperplane arrangement

We find explicit eigenvectors for the transition matrix of the Bidigare–Hanlon–Rockmore random walk, from Bidigare et al. (1999) [1]. This is accomplished by using Brown and Diaconis? (1998) analysis in [3] of the stationary distribution, together with some combinatorics of functions on the face lattice of a hyperplane arrangement, due to Gel?fand and Varchenko (1987) [10].     

Semiregular trees with minimal Laplacian spectral radius

A semiregular tree is a tree where all non-pendant vertices have the same degree. Among all semiregular trees with fixed order and degree, a graph with minimal (adjacency/Laplacian) spectral radius is a caterpillar. Counter examples show that the result cannot be generalized to the class of trees with a given (non-constant) degree sequence.     

Extremal energies of trees with a given domination number

The energy of a graph is defined as the sum of the absolute values of the eigenvalues of its adjacency matrix. Let T(n,γ) be the set of trees of order n and with domination number γ. In this paper, we characterize the tree from T(n,γ) with the minimal energy, and determine the tree from T(n,γ) where n=kγ with maximal energy for .     

Extremal problems on detectable colorings of trees

Let G be a connected graph of order 3 or more and let be a coloring of the edges of G (where adjacent edges may be colored the same). For each vertex v of G, the color code of v is the k-tuple c(v)=(a₁,a₂,…,a_k), where a_i is the number of edges incident with v that are colored i (1?i?k). The coloring c is called detectable if distinct vertices have distinct color codes; while the detection number det(G) of G is the minimum positive integer k for which G has a detectable k-coloring. For each integer n?3, let D_T(n) be the maximum detection number among all trees of order n and d_T(n) the minimum detection number among all trees of order n. The numbers D_T(n) and d_T(n) are determined for all integers n?3. Furthermore, it is shown that for integers k?2 and n?3, there exists a tree T of order n having det(T)=k if and only if d_T(n)?k?D_T(n).     

Forests and score vectors

Thescore vector of a labeled digraph is the vector of out-degrees of its vertices. LetG be a finite labeled undirected graph without loops, and let σ(G) be the set of distinct score vectors arising from all possible orientations ofG. Let ϕ(G) be the set of subgraphs ofG which are forests of labeled trees. We display a bijection between σ(G) and ϕ(G). Supported in part by ONR Contract N00014-76-C-0366.     

Nonexistence of universal graphs without some trees

IfG is a finite tree with a unique vertex of largest, and 4 degree which is adjacent to a leaf then there is no universal countableG-free graph.Research partially supported by the Hungarian Science Research Grant OTKA No. 2117 and by the European Communities (Cooperation in Science and Technology with Central and Eastern European Countries) contract number ERBCIPACT930113.     

Heterochromatic tree partition numbers for complete bipartite graphs

An r-edge-coloring of a graph G is a surjective assignment of r colors to the edges of G. A heterochromatic tree is an edge-colored tree in which any two edges have different colors. The heterochromatic tree partition number of an r-edge-colored graph G, denoted by t_r(G), is the minimum positive integer p such that whenever the edges of the graph G are colored with r colors, the vertices of G can be covered by at most p vertex-disjoint heterochromatic trees. In this paper we give an explicit formula for the heterochromatic tree partition number of an r-edge-colored complete bipartite graph K_m,n.     

On the Laplacian spectral radii of bipartite graphs

The Laplacian spectral radius of a graph is the largest eigenvalue of the associated Laplacian matrix. In this paper, we provide structural and behavioral details of graphs with maximum Laplacian spectral radius among all bipartite connected graphs of given order and size. Using these results, we provide a unified approach to determine the graphs with maximum Laplacian spectral radii among all trees, and all bipartite unicyclic, bicyclic, tricyclic and quasi-tree graphs, respectively.     

On the spectra of hypertrees

In this paper, we study the spectral properties of a family of trees characterized by two main features: they are spanning subgraphs of the hypercube, and their vertices bear a high degree of (connectedness) hierarchy. Such structures are here called binary hypertrees and they can be recursively defined as the so-called hierarchical product of several complete graphs on two vertices.     

The cover pebbling number of graphs

A pebbling move on a graph consists of taking two pebbles off of one vertex and placing one pebble on an adjacent vertex. In the traditional pebbling problem we try to reach a specified vertex of the graph by a sequence of pebbling moves. In this paper we investigate the case when every vertex of the graph must end up with at least one pebble after a series of pebbling moves. The cover pebbling number of a graph is the minimum number of pebbles such that however the pebbles are initially placed on the vertices of the graph we can eventually put a pebble on every vertex simultaneously. We find the cover pebbling numbers of trees and some other graphs. We also consider the more general problem where (possibly different) given numbers of pebbles are required for the vertices.     

Expanding graphs contain all small trees

The assertion of the title is formulated and proved. The result is then used to construct graphs with a linear number of edges that, even after the deletion of almost all of their edges or almost all of their vertices, continue to contain all small trees.     

Graceful labellings of paths

It is easily shown that every path has a graceful labelling, however, in this paper we show that given almost any path P with n vertices then for every vertex v∈V(P) and for every integer i∈{0,…,n-1} there is a graceful labelling of P such that v has label i. We show precisely when these labellings can also be α-labellings. We then extend this result to strong edge-magic labellings. In obtaining these results we make heavy use of π-representations of α-labellings and review some relevant results of Kotzig and Rosa.     

On the sum of the Laplacian eigenvalues of a tree

Given an n-vertex graph G=(V,E), the Laplacian spectrum of G is the set of eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix L=D-A, where D and A denote the diagonal matrix of vertex-degrees and the adjacency matrix of G, respectively. In this paper, we study the Laplacian spectrum of trees. More precisely, we find a new upper bound on the sum of the k largest Laplacian eigenvalues of every n-vertex tree, where k∈{1,…,n}. This result is used to establish that the n-vertex star has the highest Laplacian energy over all n-vertex trees, which answers affirmatively to a question raised by Radenkovi? and Gutman [10].