A Generalization of the Ramanujan Polynomials and Plane Trees

Generalizing a sequence of Lambert, Cayley and Ramanujan, Chapoton has recently introduced a polynomial sequence Q_n:=Q_n(x,y,z,t) defined by Q_1=1, Q_{n+1}=[x+nz+(y+t)(n+y\partial_y)]Q_n. In this paper we prove Chapoton's conjecture on the duality formula: Q_n(x,y,z,t)=Q_n(x+nz+nt,y,-t,-z), and answer his question about the combinatorial interpretation of Q_n. Actually we give combinatorial interpretations of these polynomials in terms of plane trees, half-mobile trees, and forests of plane trees. Our approach also leads to a general formula that unifies several known results for enumerating trees and plane trees.Comment: 20 pages, 2 tables, 8 figures, see also http://math.univ-lyon1.fr/~gu

Positivity properties of Jacobi-Stirling numbers and generalized Ramanujan polynomials

Generalizing recent results of Egge and Mongelli, we show that each diagonal sequence of the Jacobi-Stirling numbers \js(n,k;z) and \JS(n,k;z) is a P\'olya frequency sequence if and only if $z\in [-1, 1]$ and study the $z$-total positivity properties of these numbers. Moreover, the polynomial sequences \biggl\{\sum_{k=0}^n\JS(n,k;z)y^k\biggr\}_{n\geq 0}\quad \text{and} \quad \biggl\{\sum_{k=0}^n\js(n,k;z)y^k\biggr\}_{n\geq 0} are proved to be strongly $\{z,y\}$-log-convex. In the same vein, we extend a recent result of Chen et al. about the Ramanujan polynomials to Chapoton's generalized Ramanujan polynomials. Finally, bridging the Ramanujan polynomials and a sequence arising from the Lambert $W$ function, we obtain a neat proof of the unimodality of the latter sequence, which was proved previously by Kalugin and Jeffrey.Comment: 17 pages, 2 tables, the proof of Lemma 3.3 is corrected, final version to appear in Advances in Applied Mathematic

Multiple Gamma Function and Its Application to Computation of Series

The multiple gamma function $\Gamma_n$, defined by a recurrence-functional equation as a generalization of the Euler gamma function, was originally introduced by Kinkelin, Glaisher, and Barnes around 1900. Today, due to the pioneer work of Conrey, Katz and Sarnak, interest in the multiple gamma function has been revived. This paper discusses some theoretical aspects of the $\Gamma_n$ function and their applications to summation of series and infinite products.Comment: 20 pages, Latex, uses kluwer.cls, will appear in The Ramanujan Journa

Multiplicity estimates, analytic cycles and Newton polytopes

We consider the problem of estimating the multiplicity of a polynomial when restricted to the smooth analytic trajectory of a (possibly singular) polynomial vector field at a given point or points, under an assumption known as the D-property. Nesterenko has developed an elimination theoretic approach to this problem which has been widely used in transcendental number theory. We propose an alternative approach to this problem based on more local analytic considerations. In particular we obtain simpler proofs to many of the best known estimates, and give more general formulations in terms of Newton polytopes, analogous to the Bernstein-Kushnirenko theorem. We also improve the estimate's dependence on the ambient dimension from doubly-exponential to an essentially optimal single-exponential.Comment: Some editorial modifications to improve readability; No essential mathematical change

Coverings of Graphs and Tiered Trees

This dissertation will cover two separate topics. The first of these topics will be coverings of graphs. We will discuss a recent paper by Marcus, Spielman, and Srivastava proving the existence of infinite families of bipartite Ramanujan graphs for all regularities. The proof works by showing that for any d-regular Ramanujan graph, there exists an infinite tower of bipartite Ramanujan graphs in which each graph is a twofold covering of the previous one. Since twofold coverings of a graph correspond to ways of labeling the edges of the graph with elements of a group of order 2, we will generalize the content of the recent paper by discussing what happens when we label the edges of a graph by larger groups. We will give a version of their proof using threefold coverings instead of twofold coverings. We will also examine ways of reducing the size of the set of twofold coverings that we must consider when we follow the proof by Marcus, Spielman, and Srivastava. The other topic that will be covered in this dissertation will be alternating trees and tiered trees. We will define a new generalization of alternating trees, which we will call tiered trees. We will also define a generalized weight system on these tiered trees. We will prove some enumerative results about tiered trees that demonstrate how they can be viewed as being obtained by applying certain procedures to certain types of alternating trees. We also provide a bijection between the set of permutations in Sn and the set of weight 0 alternating trees with n+1 vertices. We use this bijection to define a new statistic of permutations called the weight of a permutation, and use this weight to define a new q-Eulerian polynomial

A Survey of Alternating Permutations

This survey of alternating permutations and Euler numbers includes refinements of Euler numbers, other occurrences of Euler numbers, longest alternating subsequences, umbral enumeration of classes of alternating permutations, and the cd-index of the symmetric group.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figure

Interlacing Ehrhart Polynomials of Reflexive Polytopes

It was observed by Bump et al. that Ehrhart polynomials in a special family exhibit properties similar to the Riemann {\zeta} function. The construction was generalized by Matsui et al. to a larger family of reflexive polytopes coming from graphs. We prove several conjectures confirming when such polynomials have zeros on a certain line in the complex plane. Our main new method is to prove a stronger property called interlacing