Generalized Irreducible Divisor Graphs

In 1988, I. Beck introduced the notion of a zero-divisor graph of a commutative rings with $1$. There have been several generalizations in recent years. In particular, in 2007 J. Coykendall and J. Maney developed the irreducible divisor graph. Much work has been done on generalized factorization, especially $\tau$-factorization. The goal of this paper is to synthesize the notions of $\tau$-factorization and irreducible divisor graphs in domains. We will define a $\tau$-irreducible divisor graph for non-zero non-unit elements of a domain. We show that by studying $\tau$-irreducible divisor graphs, we find equivalent characterizations of several finite $\tau$-factorization properties.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Communications in Algebr

Matrix factorizations and link homology

For each positive integer n the HOMFLY polynomial of links specializes to a one-variable polynomial that can be recovered from the representation theory of quantum sl(n). For each such n we build a doubly-graded homology theory of links with this polynomial as the Euler characteristic. The core of our construction utilizes the theory of matrix factorizations, which provide a linear algebra description of maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules on isolated hypersurface singularities.Comment: 108 pages, 61 figures, latex, ep

Tame Decompositions and Collisions

A univariate polynomial f over a field is decomposable if f = g o h = g(h) for nonlinear polynomials g and h. It is intuitively clear that the decomposable polynomials form a small minority among all polynomials over a finite field. The tame case, where the characteristic p of Fq does not divide n = deg f, is fairly well-understood, and we have reasonable bounds on the number of decomposables of degree n. Nevertheless, no exact formula is known if $n$ has more than two prime factors. In order to count the decomposables, one wants to know, under a suitable normalization, the number of collisions, where essentially different (g, h) yield the same f. In the tame case, Ritt's Second Theorem classifies all 2-collisions. We introduce a normal form for multi-collisions of decompositions of arbitrary length with exact description of the (non)uniqueness of the parameters. We obtain an efficiently computable formula for the exact number of such collisions at degree n over a finite field of characteristic coprime to p. This leads to an algorithm for the exact number of decomposable polynomials at degree n over a finite field Fq in the tame case

Minimal factorizations of permutations into star transpositions

We give a compact expression for the number of factorizations of any permutation into a minimal number of transpositions of the form (excluded due to format error) source. This generalizes earlier work of Pak in which substantial restrictions were placed on the permutation being factored. Our result exhibits an unexpected and simple symmetry of star factorizations that has yet to be explained in a satisfactory manner