Osculating Paths and Oscillating Tableaux

The combinatorics of certain osculating lattice paths is studied, and a relationship with oscillating tableaux is obtained. More specifically, the paths being considered have fixed start and end points on respectively the lower and right boundaries of a rectangle in the square lattice, each path can take only unit steps rightwards or upwards, and two different paths are permitted to share lattice points, but not to cross or share lattice edges. Such paths correspond to configurations of the six-vertex model of statistical mechanics with appropriate boundary conditions, and they include cases which correspond to alternating sign matrices and various subclasses thereof. Referring to points of the rectangle through which no or two paths pass as vacancies or osculations respectively, the case of primary interest is tuples of paths with a fixed number $l$ of vacancies and osculations. It is then shown that there exist natural bijections which map each such path tuple $P$ to a pair $(t,\eta)$, where $\eta$ is an oscillating tableau of length $l$ (i.e., a sequence of $l+1$ partitions, starting with the empty partition, in which the Young diagrams of successive partitions differ by a single square), and $t$ is a certain, compatible sequence of $l$ weakly increasing positive integers. Furthermore, each vacancy or osculation of $P$ corresponds to a partition in $\eta$ whose Young diagram is obtained from that of its predecessor by respectively the addition or deletion of a square. These bijections lead to enumeration formulae for osculating paths involving sums over oscillating tableaux.Comment: 65 pages; expanded versio

Fractional Perfect b-Matching Polytopes. I: General Theory

The fractional perfect b-matching polytope of an undirected graph G is the polytope of all assignments of nonnegative real numbers to the edges of G such that the sum of the numbers over all edges incident to any vertex v is a prescribed nonnegative number b_v. General theorems which provide conditions for nonemptiness, give a formula for the dimension, and characterize the vertices, edges and face lattices of such polytopes are obtained. Many of these results are expressed in terms of certain spanning subgraphs of G which are associated with subsets or elements of the polytope. For example, it is shown that an element u of the fractional perfect b-matching polytope of G is a vertex of the polytope if and only if each component of the graph of u either is acyclic or else contains exactly one cycle with that cycle having odd length, where the graph of u is defined to be the spanning subgraph of G whose edges are those at which u is positive.Comment: 37 page

Factorization theorems for classical group characters, with applications to alternating sign matrices and plane partitions

We show that, for a certain class of partitions and an even number of variables of which half are reciprocals of the other half, Schur polynomials can be factorized into products of odd and even orthogonal characters. We also obtain related factorizations involving sums of two Schur polynomials, and certain odd-sized sets of variables. Our results generalize the factorization identities proved by Ciucu and Krattenthaler (Advances in combinatorial mathematics, 39-59, 2009) for partitions of rectangular shape. We observe that if, in some of the results, the partitions are taken to have rectangular or double-staircase shapes and all of the variables are set to 1, then factorization identities for numbers of certain plane partitions, alternating sign matrices and related combinatorial objects are obtained.Comment: 22 pages; v2: minor changes, published versio

Integrable Lattice Models for Conjugate An(1)A^{(1)}_n

A new class of $A^{(1)}_n$ integrable lattice models is presented. These are interaction-round-a-face models based on fundamental nimrep graphs associated with the $A^{(1)}_n$ conjugate modular invariants, there being a model for each value of the rank and level. The Boltzmann weights are parameterized by elliptic theta functions and satisfy the Yang-Baxter equation for any fixed value of the elliptic nome q. At q=0, the models provide representations of the Hecke algebra and are expected to lead in the continuum limit to coset conformal field theories related to the $A^{(1)}_n$ conjugate modular invariants.Comment: 18 pages. v2: minor changes, such as page 11 footnot

Higher Spin Alternating Sign Matrices

We define a higher spin alternating sign matrix to be an integer-entry square matrix in which, for a nonnegative integer r, all complete row and column sums are r, and all partial row and column sums extending from each end of the row or column are nonnegative. Such matrices correspond to configurations of spin r/2 statistical mechanical vertex models with domain-wall boundary conditions. The case r=1 gives standard alternating sign matrices, while the case in which all matrix entries are nonnegative gives semimagic squares. We show that the higher spin alternating sign matrices of size n are the integer points of the r-th dilate of an integral convex polytope of dimension (n-1)^2 whose vertices are the standard alternating sign matrices of size n. It then follows that, for fixed n, these matrices are enumerated by an Ehrhart polynomial in r.Comment: 41 pages; v2: minor change

Solutions of the boundary Yang-Baxter equation for ADE models

We present the general diagonal and, in some cases, non-diagonal solutions of the boundary Yang-Baxter equation for a number of related interaction-round-a-face models, including the standard and dilute A_L, D_L and E_{6,7,8} models.Comment: 32 pages. Sections 7.2 and 9.2 revise

Extreme diagonally and antidiagonally symmetric alternating sign matrices of odd order

For each $\alpha \in \{0,1,-1 \}$, we count diagonally and antidiagonally symmetric alternating sign matrices (DASASMs) of fixed odd order with a maximal number of $\alpha$'s along the diagonal and the antidiagonal, as well as DASASMs of fixed odd order with a minimal number of $0$'s along the diagonal and the antidiagonal. In these enumerations, we encounter product formulas that have previously appeared in plane partition or alternating sign matrix counting, namely for the number of all alternating sign matrices, the number of cyclically symmetric plane partitions in a given box, and the number of vertically and horizontally symmetric ASMs. We also prove several refinements. For instance, in the case of DASASMs with a maximal number of $-1$'s along the diagonal and the antidiagonal, these considerations lead naturally to the definition of alternating sign triangles. These are new objects that are equinumerous with ASMs, and we are able to prove a two parameter refinement of this fact, involving the number of $-1$'s and the inversion number on the ASM side. To prove our results, we extend techniques to deal with triangular six-vertex configurations that have recently successfully been applied to settle Robbins' conjecture on the number of all DASASMs of odd order. Importantly, we use a general solution of the reflection equation to prove the symmetry of the partition function in the spectral parameters. In all of our cases, we derive determinant or Pfaffian formulas for the partition functions, which we then specialize in order to obtain the product formulas for the various classes of extreme odd DASASMs under consideration.Comment: 41 pages, several minor improvements in response to referee's comments. Final version. Matches published version except for very minor change

On the weighted enumeration of alternating sign matrices and descending plane partitions

We prove a conjecture of Mills, Robbins and Rumsey [Alternating sign matrices and descending plane partitions, J. Combin. Theory Ser. A 34 (1983), 340-359] that, for any n, k, m and p, the number of nxn alternating sign matrices (ASMs) for which the 1 of the first row is in column k+1 and there are exactly m -1's and m+p inversions is equal to the number of descending plane partitions (DPPs) for which each part is at most n and there are exactly k parts equal to n, m special parts and p nonspecial parts. The proof involves expressing the associated generating functions for ASMs and DPPs with fixed n as determinants of nxn matrices, and using elementary transformations to show that these determinants are equal. The determinants themselves are obtained by standard methods: for ASMs this involves using the Izergin-Korepin formula for the partition function of the six-vertex model with domain-wall boundary conditions, together with a bijection between ASMs and configurations of this model, and for DPPs it involves using the Lindstrom-Gessel-Viennot theorem, together with a bijection between DPPs and certain sets of nonintersecting lattice paths.Comment: v2: published versio

Interaction-Round-a-Face Models with Fixed Boundary Conditions: The ABF Fusion Hierarchy

We use boundary weights and reflection equations to obtain families of commuting double-row transfer matrices for interaction-round-a-face models with fixed boundary conditions. In particular, we consider the fusion hierarchy of the Andrews-Baxter-Forrester models, for which we find that the double-row transfer matrices satisfy functional equations with an su(2) structure.Comment: 48 pages, LaTeX, requires about 79000 words of TeX memory. Submitted to J. Stat. Phy

Integrable Boundaries, Conformal Boundary Conditions and A-D-E Fusion Rules

The $sl(2)$ minimal theories are labelled by a Lie algebra pair $(A,G)$ where $G$ is of $A$-$D$-$E$ type. For these theories on a cylinder we conjecture a complete set of conformal boundary conditions labelled by the nodes of the tensor product graph $A\otimes G$. The cylinder partition functions are given by fusion rules arising from the graph fusion algebra of $A\otimes G$. We further conjecture that, for each conformal boundary condition, an integrable boundary condition exists as a solution of the boundary Yang-Baxter equation for the associated lattice model. The theory is illustrated using the $(A_4,D_4)$ or 3-state Potts model.Comment: 4 pages, REVTe