Counting factorizations of Coxeter elements into products of reflections

In this paper, we count factorizations of Coxeter elements in well-generated complex reflection groups into products of reflections. We obtain a simple product formula for the exponential generating function of such factorizations, which is expressed uniformly in terms of natural parameters of the group. In the case of factorizations of minimal length, we recover a formula due to P. Deligne, J. Tits and D. Zagier in the real case and to D. Bessis in the complex case. For the symmetric group, our formula specializes to a formula of D. M. Jackson.Comment: 38 pages, including 18 pages appendix. To appear in Journal of the London Mathematical Society. v3: minor changes and corrected references; v2: added extended discussion on the definition of Coxeter element

Lyashko-Looijenga morphisms and submaximal factorisations of a Coxeter element

When W is a finite reflection group, the noncrossing partition lattice NCP_W of type W is a rich combinatorial object, extending the notion of noncrossing partitions of an n-gon. A formula (for which the only known proofs are case-by-case) expresses the number of multichains of a given length in NCP_W as a generalised Fuss-Catalan number, depending on the invariant degrees of W. We describe how to understand some specifications of this formula in a case-free way, using an interpretation of the chains of NCP_W as fibers of a Lyashko-Looijenga covering (LL), constructed from the geometry of the discriminant hypersurface of W. We study algebraically the map LL, describing the factorisations of its discriminant and its Jacobian. As byproducts, we generalise a formula stated by K. Saito for real reflection groups, and we deduce new enumeration formulas for certain factorisations of a Coxeter element of W.Comment: 18 pages. Version 2 : corrected typos and improved presentation. Version 3 : corrected typos, added illustrated example. To appear in Journal of Algebraic Combinatoric

"Case-free" derivation for Weyl groups of the number of reflection factorisations of a Coxeter element

Chapuy and Stump have given a nice generating series for the number of factorisations of a Coxeter element as a product of reflections. Their method is to evaluate case by case a character-theoretic expression. The goal of this note is to give a uniform evaluation of their character-theoretic expression in the case of Weyl groups, by using combinatorial properties of Deligne-Lusztig representations.Comment: 5 page

Hurwitz numbers for reflection groups II: Parabolic quasi-Coxeter elements

We define parabolic quasi-Coxeter elements in well generated complex reflection groups. We characterize them in multiple natural ways, and we study two combinatorial objects associated with them: the collections $\operatorname{Red}_W(g)$ of reduced reflection factorizations of $g$ and $\operatorname{RGS}(W,g)$ of the relative generating sets of $g$. We compute the cardinalities of these sets for large families of parabolic quasi-Coxeter elements and, in particular, we relate the size $\#\operatorname{Red}_W(g)$ with geometric invariants of Frobenius manifolds. This paper is second in a series of three; we will rely on many of its results in part III to prove uniform formulas that enumerate full reflection factorizations of parabolic quasi-Coxeter elements, generalizing the genus-$0$ Hurwitz numbers.Comment: v2: 50 pages, minor edits, comments very much welcome