117 research outputs found
Partitions of Matrix Spaces With an Application to -Rook Polynomials
We study the row-space partition and the pivot partition on the matrix space
. We show that both these partitions are reflexive
and that the row-space partition is self-dual. Moreover, using various
combinatorial methods, we explicitly compute the Krawtchouk coefficients
associated with these partitions. This establishes MacWilliams-type identities
for the row-space and pivot enumerators of linear rank-metric codes. We then
generalize the Singleton-like bound for rank-metric codes, and introduce two
new concepts of code extremality. Both of them generalize the notion of MRD
codes and are preserved by trace-duality. Moreover, codes that are extremal
according to either notion satisfy strong rigidity properties analogous to
those of MRD codes. As an application of our results to combinatorics, we give
closed formulas for the -rook polynomials associated with Ferrers diagram
boards. Moreover, we exploit connections between matrices over finite fields
and rook placements to prove that the number of matrices of rank over
supported on a Ferrers diagram is a polynomial in , whose
degree is strictly increasing in . Finally, we investigate the natural
analogues of the MacWilliams Extension Theorem for the rank, the row-space, and
the pivot partitions
The Number of Nowhere-Zero Flows on Graphs and Signed Graphs
A nowhere-zero -flow on a graph is a mapping from the edges of
to the set \{\pm1, \pm2, ..., \pm(k-1)\} \subset \bbZ such that, in
any fixed orientation of , at each node the sum of the labels over the
edges pointing towards the node equals the sum over the edges pointing away
from the node. We show that the existence of an \emph{integral flow polynomial}
that counts nowhere-zero -flows on a graph, due to Kochol, is a consequence
of a general theory of inside-out polytopes. The same holds for flows on signed
graphs. We develop these theories, as well as the related counting theory of
nowhere-zero flows on a signed graph with values in an abelian group of odd
order. Our results are of two kinds: polynomiality or quasipolynomiality of the
flow counting functions, and reciprocity laws that interpret the evaluations of
the flow polynomials at negative integers in terms of the combinatorics of the
graph.Comment: 17 pages, to appear in J. Combinatorial Th. Ser.
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