Clique-Stable Set separation in perfect graphs with no balanced skew-partitions

Inspired by a question of Yannakakis on the Vertex Packing polytope of perfect graphs, we study the Clique-Stable Set Separation in a non-hereditary subclass of perfect graphs. A cut (B,W) of G (a bipartition of V(G)) separates a clique K and a stable set S if $K\subseteq B$ and $S\subseteq W$. A Clique-Stable Set Separator is a family of cuts such that for every clique K, and for every stable set S disjoint from K, there exists a cut in the family that separates K and S. Given a class of graphs, the question is to know whether every graph of the class admits a Clique-Stable Set Separator containing only polynomially many cuts. It is open for the class of all graphs, and also for perfect graphs, which was Yannakakis' original question. Here we investigate on perfect graphs with no balanced skew-partition; the balanced skew-partition was introduced in the proof of the Strong Perfect Graph Theorem. Recently, Chudnovsky, Trotignon, Trunck and Vuskovic proved that forbidding this unfriendly decomposition permits to recursively decompose Berge graphs using 2-join and complement 2-join until reaching a basic graph, and they found an efficient combinatorial algorithm to color those graphs. We apply their decomposition result to prove that perfect graphs with no balanced skew-partition admit a quadratic-size Clique-Stable Set Separator, by taking advantage of the good behavior of 2-join with respect to this property. We then generalize this result and prove that the Strong Erdos-Hajnal property holds in this class, which means that every such graph has a linear-size biclique or complement biclique. This property does not hold for all perfect graphs (Fox 2006), and moreover when the Strong Erdos-Hajnal property holds in a hereditary class of graphs, then both the Erdos-Hajnal property and the polynomial Clique-Stable Set Separation hold.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1308.644

Stable multivariate WW-Eulerian polynomials

We prove a multivariate strengthening of Brenti's result that every root of the Eulerian polynomial of type $B$ is real. Our proof combines a refinement of the descent statistic for signed permutations with the notion of real stability-a generalization of real-rootedness to polynomials in multiple variables. The key is that our refined multivariate Eulerian polynomials satisfy a recurrence given by a stability-preserving linear operator. Our results extend naturally to colored permutations, and we also give stable generalizations of recent real-rootedness results due to Dilks, Petersen, and Stembridge on affine Eulerian polynomials of types $A$ and $C$. Finally, although we are not able to settle Brenti's real-rootedness conjecture for Eulerian polynomials of type $D$, nor prove a companion conjecture of Dilks, Petersen, and Stembridge for affine Eulerian polynomials of types $B$ and $D$, we indicate some methods of attack and pose some related open problems.Comment: 17 pages. To appear in J. Combin. Theory Ser.

Parking Spaces

Let $W$ be a Weyl group with root lattice $Q$ and Coxeter number $h$. The elements of the finite torus $Q/(h+1)Q$ are called the $W$-{\sf parking functions}, and we call the permutation representation of $W$ on the set of $W$-parking functions the (standard) $W$-{\sf parking space}. Parking spaces have interesting connections to enumerative combinatorics, diagonal harmonics, and rational Cherednik algebras. In this paper we define two new $W$-parking spaces, called the {\sf noncrossing parking space} and the {\sf algebraic parking space}, with the following features: 1) They are defined more generally for real reflection groups. 2) They carry not just $W$-actions, but $W\times C$-actions, where $C$ is the cyclic subgroup of $W$ generated by a Coxeter element. 3) In the crystallographic case, both are isomorphic to the standard $W$-parking space. Our Main Conjecture is that the two new parking spaces are isomorphic to each other as permutation representations of $W\times C$. This conjecture ties together several threads in the Catalan combinatorics of finite reflection groups. We provide evidence for the conjecture, proofs of some special cases, and suggest further directions for the theory.Comment: 49 pages, 10 figures, Version to appear in Advances in Mathematic