A good leaf order on simplicial trees

Using the existence of a good leaf in every simplicial tree, we order the facets of a simplicial tree in order to find combinatorial information about the Betti numbers of its facet ideal. Applications include an Eliahou-Kervaire splitting of the ideal, as well as a refinement of a recursive formula of H\`a and Van Tuyl for computing the graded Betti numbers of simplicial trees.Comment: 17 pages, to appear; Connections Between Algebra and Geometry, Birkhauser volume (2013

Counting matrices over finite fields with support on skew Young diagrams and complements of Rothe diagrams

We consider the problem of finding the number of matrices over a finite field with a certain rank and with support that avoids a subset of the entries. These matrices are a q-analogue of permutations with restricted positions (i.e., rook placements). For general sets of entries these numbers of matrices are not polynomials in q (Stembridge 98); however, when the set of entries is a Young diagram, the numbers, up to a power of q-1, are polynomials with nonnegative coefficients (Haglund 98). In this paper, we give a number of conditions under which these numbers are polynomials in q, or even polynomials with nonnegative integer coefficients. We extend Haglund's result to complements of skew Young diagrams, and we apply this result to the case when the set of entries is the Rothe diagram of a permutation. In particular, we give a necessary and sufficient condition on the permutation for its Rothe diagram to be the complement of a skew Young diagram up to rearrangement of rows and columns. We end by giving conjectures connecting invertible matrices whose support avoids a Rothe diagram and Poincar\'e polynomials of the strong Bruhat order.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, 1 tabl

Generalizing Tanisaki's ideal via ideals of truncated symmetric functions

We define a family of ideals $I_h$ in the polynomial ring $\mathbb{Z}[x_1,...,x_n]$ that are parametrized by Hessenberg functions $h$ (equivalently Dyck paths or ample partitions). The ideals $I_h$ generalize algebraically a family of ideals called the Tanisaki ideal, which is used in a geometric construction of permutation representations called Springer theory. To define $I_h$, we use polynomials in a proper subset of the variables ${x_1,...,x_n}$ that are symmetric under the corresponding permutation subgroup. We call these polynomials {\em truncated symmetric functions} and show combinatorial identities relating different kinds of truncated symmetric polynomials. We then prove several key properties of $I_h$, including that if $h>h'$ in the natural partial order on Dyck paths then $I_{h} \subset I_{h'}$, and explicitly construct a Gr\"{o}bner basis for $I_h$. We use a second family of ideals $J_h$ for which some of the claims are easier to see, and prove that $I_h = J_h$. The ideals $J_h$ arise in work of Ding, Develin-Martin-Reiner, and Gasharov-Reiner on a family of Schubert varieties called partition varieties. Using earlier work of the first author, the current manuscript proves that the ideals $I_h = J_h$ generalize the Tanisaki ideals both algebraically and geometrically, from Springer varieties to a family of nilpotent Hessenberg varieties.Comment: v1 had 27 pages. v2 is 29 pages and adds Appendix B, where we include a recent proof by Federico Galetto of a conjecture given in the previous version. We also add some connections between our work and earlier results of Ding, Gasharov-Reiner, and Develin-Martin-Reiner. v3 corrects a typo in Valibouze's citation in the bibliography. To appear in Journal of Algebraic Combinatoric

Matrix Schubert varieties and Gaussian conditional independence models

Seth Sullivant was partially supported by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation and the US National Science Foundation (DMS 0954865)

Complete Intersection Dimension

A new homological invariant is introduced for a finite module over a commutative noetherian ring: its CI-dimension. In the local case, sharp quantitative and structural data are obtained for modules of finite CI-dimension, providing the first class of modules of (possibly) infinite projective dimension with a rich structure theory of free resolutions

FFRT properties of hypersurfaces and their F-signatures

This paper studies properties of certain hypersurfaces in prime characteristic: we give sufficient and necessary conditions for some classes of such hypersurfaces to have Finite F-representation Type (FFRT) and we compute the F-signatures of these hypersurfaces. The main method used in this paper is based on finding explicit matrix factorizations