Differential posets and restriction in critical groups

In recent work, Benkart, Klivans, and Reiner defined the critical group of a faithful representation of a finite group $G$, which is analogous to the critical group of a graph. In this paper we study maps between critical groups induced by injective group homomorphisms and in particular the map induced by restriction of the representation to a subgroup. We show that in the abelian group case the critical groups are isomorphic to the critical groups of a certain Cayley graph and that the restriction map corresponds to a graph covering map. We also show that when $G$ is an element in a differential tower of groups, critical groups of certain representations are closely related to words of up-down maps in the associated differential poset. We use this to generalize an explicit formula for the critical group of the permutation representation of the symmetric group given by the second author, and to enumerate the factors in such critical groups.Comment: 18 pages; v2: minor edits and updated reference

Balance constants for Coxeter groups

The $1/3$-$2/3$ Conjecture, originally formulated in 1968, is one of the best-known open problems in the theory of posets, stating that the balance constant (a quantity determined by the linear extensions) of any non-total order is at least $1/3$. By reinterpreting balance constants of posets in terms of convex subsets of the symmetric group, we extend the study of balance constants to convex subsets $C$ of any Coxeter group. Remarkably, we conjecture that the lower bound of $1/3$ still applies in any finite Weyl group, with new and interesting equality cases appearing. We generalize several of the main results towards the $1/3$-$2/3$ Conjecture to this new setting: we prove our conjecture when $C$ is a weak order interval below a fully commutative element in any acyclic Coxeter group (an generalization of the case of width-two posets), we give a uniform lower bound for balance constants in all finite Weyl groups using a new generalization of order polytopes to this context, and we introduce generalized semiorders for which we resolve the conjecture. We hope this new perspective may shed light on the proper level of generality in which to consider the $1/3$-$2/3$ Conjecture, and therefore on which methods are likely to be successful in resolving it.Comment: 27 page

On the Sperner property for the absolute order on complex reflection groups

Two partial orders on a reflection group, the codimension order and the prefix order, are together called the absolute order when they agree. We show that in this case the absolute order on a complex reflection group has the strong Sperner property, except possibly for the Coxeter group of type $D_n$, for which this property is conjectural. The Sperner property had previously been established for the noncrossing partition lattice $NC_W$, a certain maximal interval in the absolute order, but not for the entire poset, except in the case of the symmetric group. We also show that neither the codimension order nor the prefix order has the Sperner property for general complex reflection groups.Comment: 12 pages, comments welcome; v2: minor edits and journal referenc