Symmetric Decompositions and the Strong Sperner Property for Noncrossing Partition Lattices

We prove that the noncrossing partition lattices associated with the complex reflection groups $G(d,d,n)$ for $d,n\geq 2$ admit symmetric decompositions into Boolean subposets. As a result, these lattices have the strong Sperner property and their rank-generating polynomials are symmetric, unimodal, and $\gamma$-nonnegative. We use computer computations to complete the proof that every noncrossing partition lattice associated with a well-generated complex reflection group is strongly Sperner, thus answering affirmatively a question raised by D. Armstrong.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. Final version. The results of the initial version were extended to symmetric Boolean decompositions of noncrossing partition lattice

Richard Stanley through a crystal lens and from a random angle

We review Stanley's seminal work on the number of reduced words of the longest element of the symmetric group and his Stanley symmetric functions. We shed new light on this by giving a crystal theoretic interpretation in terms of decreasing factorizations of permutations. Whereas crystal operators on tableaux are coplactic operators, the crystal operators on decreasing factorization intertwine with the Edelman-Greene insertion. We also view this from a random perspective and study a Markov chain on reduced words of the longest element in a finite Coxeter group, in particular the symmetric group, and mention a generalization to a poset setting.Comment: 11 pages; 3 figures; v2 updated references and added discussion on Coxeter-Knuth grap

Braids, posets and orthoschemes

In this article we study the curvature properties of the order complex of a graded poset under a metric that we call the ``orthoscheme metric''. In addition to other results, we characterize which rank 4 posets have CAT(0) orthoscheme complexes and by applying this theorem to standard posets and complexes associated with four-generator Artin groups, we are able to show that the 5-string braid group is the fundamental group of a compact nonpositively curved space.Comment: 33 pages, 16 figure

Decomposition and enumeration in partially ordered sets

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mathematics, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-126).by Patricia Hersh.Ph.D