Complementary Riordan arrays

Abstract Recently, the concept of the complementary array of a Riordan array (or recursive matrix) has been introduced. Here we generalize the concept and distinguish between dual and complementary arrays. We show a number of properties of these arrays, how they are computed and their relation with inversion. Finally, we use them to find explicit formulas for the elements of many recursive matrices

Human and constructive proof of combinatorial identities: an example from Romik

International audienceIt has become customary to prove binomial identities by means of the method for automated proofs as developed by Petkovšek, Wilf and Zeilberger. In this paper, we wish to emphasize the role of "human'' and constructive proofs in contrast with the somewhat lazy attitude of relaying on "automated'' proofs. As a meaningful example, we consider the four formulas by Romik, related to Motzkin and central trinomial numbers. We show that a proof of these identities can be obtained by using the method of coefficients, a human method only requiring hand computations

Generic MANOVA limit theorems for products of projections

We study the convergence of the empirical spectral distribution of $\mathbf{A} \mathbf{B} \mathbf{A}$ for $N \times N$ orthogonal projection matrices $\mathbf{A}$ and $\mathbf{B}$, where $\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{Tr}(\mathbf{A})$ and $\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{Tr}(\mathbf{B})$ converge as $N \to \infty$, to Wachter's MANOVA law. Using free probability, we show mild sufficient conditions for convergence in moments and in probability, and use this to prove a conjecture of Haikin, Zamir, and Gavish (2017) on random subsets of unit-norm tight frames. This result generalizes previous ones of Farrell (2011) and Magsino, Mixon, and Parshall (2021). We also derive an explicit recursion for the difference between the empirical moments $\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{Tr}((\mathbf{A} \mathbf{B} \mathbf{A})^k)$ and the limiting MANOVA moments, and use this to prove a sufficient condition for convergence in probability of the largest eigenvalue of $\mathbf{A} \mathbf{B} \mathbf{A}$ to the right edge of the support of the limiting law in the special case where that law belongs to the Kesten-McKay family. As an application, we give a new proof of convergence in probability of the largest eigenvalue when $\mathbf{B}$ is unitarily invariant; equivalently, this determines the limiting operator norm of a rectangular submatrix of size $\frac{1}{2}N \times \alpha N$ of a Haar-distributed $N \times N$ unitary matrix for any $\alpha \in (0, 1)$. Unlike previous proofs, we use only moment calculations and non-asymptotic bounds on the unitary Weingarten function, which we believe should pave the way to analyzing the largest eigenvalue for products of random projections having other distributions.Comment: 49 pages, 1 figur

Counting Dyck paths by area and rank

The set of Dyck paths of length $2n$ inherits a lattice structure from a bijection with the set of noncrossing partitions with the usual partial order. In this paper, we study the joint distribution of two statistics for Dyck paths: \emph{area} (the area under the path) and \emph{rank} (the rank in the lattice). While area for Dyck paths has been studied, pairing it with this rank function seems new, and we get an interesting $(q,t)$-refinement of the Catalan numbers. We present two decompositions of the corresponding generating function: one refines an identity of Carlitz and Riordan; the other refines the notion of $\gamma$-nonnegativity, and is based on a decomposition of the lattice of noncrossing partitions due to Simion and Ullman. Further, Biane's correspondence and a result of Stump allow us to conclude that the joint distribution of area and rank for Dyck paths equals the joint distribution of length and reflection length for the permutations lying below the $n$-cycle $(12...n)$ in the absolute order on the symmetric group.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures. Connections with work of C. Stump (arXiv:0808.2822v2) eliminated the need for 5 pages of proof in the first draf