11,805 research outputs found
On the Spectrum of the Derangement Graph
We derive several interesting formulae for the eigenvalues of the derangement graph and use them to settle affirmatively a conjecture of Ku regarding the least eigenvalue
Motzkin paths, Motzkin polynomials and recurrence relations
We consider the Motzkin paths which are simple combinatorial objects appearing in many contexts. They are counted by the Motzkin numbers, related to the well known Catalan numbers. Associated with the Motzkin paths, we introduce the Motzkin polynomial, which is a multi-variable polynomial "counting" all Motzkin paths of a certain type. Motzkin polynomials (also called Jacobi-Rogers polynomials) have been studied before, but here we deduce sonic properties based on recurrence relations. The recurrence relations proved here also allow an efficient computation of the Motzkin polynomials. Finally, we show that the matrix entries of powers of an arbitrary tridiagonal matrix are essentially given by Motzkin polynomials, a property commonly known but usually stated without proof
A Discontinuity in the Distribution of Fixed Point Sums
The quantity , defined as the number of permutations of the set
whose fixed points sum to , shows a sharp discontinuity
in the neighborhood of . We explain this discontinuity and study the
possible existence of other discontinuities in for permutations. We
generalize our results to other families of structures that exhibit the same
kind of discontinuities, by studying when ``fixed points'' is replaced
by ``components of size 1'' in a suitable graph of the structure. Among the
objects considered are permutations, all functions and set partitions.Comment: 1 figur
Ascent Sequences Avoiding Pairs of Patterns
Ascent sequences were introduced by Bousquet-Melou et al. in connection with (2+2)-avoiding posets and their pattern avoidance properties were first considered by Duncan and SteingrĂmsson. In this paper, we consider ascent sequences of length n role= presentation style= display: inline; font-size: 11.2px; word-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; position: relative; \u3enn avoiding two patterns of length 3, and we determine an exact enumeration for 16 different pairs of patterns. Methods include simple recurrences, bijections to other combinatorial objects (including Dyck paths and pattern-avoiding permutations), and generating trees. We also provide an analogue of the ErdĹ‘s-Szekeres Theorem to prove that any sufficiently long ascent sequence contains either many copies of the same number or a long increasing subsequence, with a precise bound
Why Delannoy numbers?
This article is not a research paper, but a little note on the history of
combinatorics: We present here a tentative short biography of Henri Delannoy,
and a survey of his most notable works. This answers to the question raised in
the title, as these works are related to lattice paths enumeration, to the
so-called Delannoy numbers, and were the first general way to solve Ballot-like
problems. These numbers appear in probabilistic game theory, alignments of DNA
sequences, tiling problems, temporal representation models, analysis of
algorithms and combinatorial structures.Comment: Presented to the conference "Lattice Paths Combinatorics and Discrete
Distributions" (Athens, June 5-7, 2002) and to appear in the Journal of
Statistical Planning and Inference
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