How to Draw a Correlation Function

We discuss connection between the XX0 Heisenberg spin chain and some aspects of enumerative combinatorics. The representation of the Bethe wave functions via the Schur functions allows to apply the theory of symmetric functions to the calculation of the correlation functions. We provide a combinatorial derivation of the dynamical auto-correlation functions and visualise them in terms of nests of self-avoiding lattice paths. Asymptotics of the auto-correlation functions are obtained in the double scaling limit provided that the evolution parameter is large.

Flip-sort and combinatorial aspects of pop-stack sorting

Flip-sort is a natural sorting procedure which raises fascinating combinatorial questions. It finds its roots in the seminal work of Knuth on stack-based sorting algorithms and leads to many links with permutation patterns. We present several structural, enumerative, and algorithmic results on permutations that need few (resp. many) iterations of this procedure to be sorted. In particular, we give the shape of the permutations after one iteration, and characterize several families of permutations related to the best and worst cases of flip-sort. En passant, we also give some links between pop-stack sorting, automata, and lattice paths, and introduce several tactics of bijective proofs which have their own interest. Comment: This v3 just updates the journal reference, according to the publisher wish

Row bounds needed to justifiably express flagged Schur functions with Gessel-Viennot determinants

Let $\lambda$ be a partition with no more than $n$ parts. Let $\beta$ be a weakly increasing $n$-tuple with entries from $\{ 1, ... , n \}$. The flagged Schur function in the variables $x_1, ... , x_n$ that is indexed by $\lambda$ and $\beta$ has been defined to be the sum of the content weight monomials for the semistandard Young tableaux of shape $\lambda$ whose values are row-wise bounded by the entries of $\beta$. Gessel and Viennot gave a determinant expression for the flagged Schur function indexed by $\lambda$ and $\beta$; this could be done since the pair $(\lambda, \beta)$ satisfied their "nonpermutable" condition for the sequence of terminals of an $n$-tuple of lattice paths that they used to model the tableaux. We generalize flagged Schur functions by dropping the requirement that $\beta$ be weakly increasing. Then for each $\lambda$ we give a condition on the entries of $\beta$ for the pair $(\lambda, \beta)$ to be nonpermutable that is both necessary and sufficient. When the parts of $\lambda$ are not distinct there will be multiple row bound $n$-tuples $\beta$ that will produce the same set of tableaux. We accordingly group the bounding $\beta$ into equivalence classes and identify the most efficient $\beta$ in each class for the determinant computation. We recently showed that many other sets of objects that are indexed by $n$ and $\lambda$ are enumerated by the number of these efficient $n$-tuples. We called these counts "parabolic Catalan numbers". It is noted that the $GL(n)$ Demazure characters (key polynomials) indexed by 312-avoiding permutations can also be expressed with these determinants. Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables. Identical to v.5, except for the insertion of a reference and the DMTCS journal's publication meta data

Subalgebras generated in degree two with minimal Hilbert function

What can be said about the subalgebras of the polynomial ring, with minimal or maximal Hilbert function? This question was discussed in a recent paper by M. Boij and A. Conca. In this paper we study the subalgebras generated in degree two with minimal Hilbert function. The problem to determine the generators of these algebras transfers into a combinatorial problem on counting maximal north-east lattice paths inside a shifted Ferrers diagram. We conjecture that the subalgebras generated in degree two with minimal Hilbert function are generated by an initial Lex or RevLex segment.