Growth diagrams, Domino insertion and Sign-imbalance

We study some properties of domino insertion, focusing on aspects related to Fomin's growth diagrams. We give a self-contained proof of the semistandard domino-Schensted correspondence given by Shimozono and White, bypassing the connections with mixed insertion entirely. The correspondence is extended to the case of a nonempty 2-core and we give two dual domino-Schensted correspondences. We use our results to settle Stanley's `2^{n/2}' conjecture on sign-imbalance and to generalise the domino generating series of Kirillov, Lascoux, Leclerc and Thibon.Comment: 24 page

On the sign-imbalance of skew partition shapes

Let the sign of a skew standard Young tableau be the sign of the permutation you get by reading it row by row from left to right, like a book. We examine how the sign property is transferred by the skew Robinson-Schensted correspondence invented by Sagan and Stanley. The result is a remarkably simple generalization of the ordinary non-skew formula. The sum of the signs of all standard tableaux on a given skew shape is the sign-imbalance of that shape. We generalize previous results on the sign-imbalance of ordinary partition shapes to skew ones.Comment: 14 pages; former section 8 is removed and the rest is slightly update

On the sign-imbalance of partition shapes

Let the sign of a standard Young tableau be the sign of the permutation you get by reading it row by row from left to right, like a book. A conjecture by Richard Stanley says that the sum of the signs of all SYTs with n squares is 2^[n/2]. We present a stronger theorem with a purely combinatorial proof using the Robinson-Schensted correspondence and a new concept called chess tableaux. We also prove a sharpening of another conjecture by Stanley concerning weighted sums of squares of sign-imbalances. The proof is built on a remarkably simple relation between the sign of a permutation and the signs of its RS-corresponding tableaux.Comment: 12 pages. Better presentatio

Some remarks on sign-balanced and maj-balanced posets

Let P be a poset with elements 1,2,...,n. We say that P is sign-balanced if exactly half the linear extensions of P (regarded as permutations of 1,2,...,n) are even permutations, i.e., have an even number of inversions. This concept first arose in the work of Frank Ruskey, who was interested in the efficient generation of all linear extensions of P. We survey a number of techniques for showing that posets are sign-balanced, and more generally, computing their "imbalance." There are close connections with domino tilings and, for certain posets, a "domino generalization" of Schur functions due to Carre and Leclerc. We also say that P is maj-balanced if exactly half the linear extensions of P have even major index. We discuss some similarities and some differences between sign-balanced and maj-balanced posets.Comment: 30 pages. Some inaccuracies in Section 3 have been corrected, and Conjecture 3.6 has been adde

The Hopf algebra of odd symmetric functions

We consider a q-analogue of the standard bilinear form on the commutative ring of symmetric functions. The q=-1 case leads to a Z-graded Hopf superalgebra which we call the algebra of odd symmetric functions. In the odd setting we describe counterparts of the elementary and complete symmetric functions, power sums, Schur functions, and combinatorial interpretations of associated change of basis relations.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figures. v2: some correction