THE EXPECTED JAGGEDNESS OF ORDER IDEALS

Thejaggednessof an order ideal$I$in a poset$P$is the number of maximal elements in$I$plus the number of minimal elements of$P$not in$I$. A probability distribution on the set of order ideals of$P$istoggle-symmetricif for every$p\in P$, the probability that$p$is maximal in$I$equals the probability that$p$is minimal not in$I$. In this paper, we prove a formula for the expected jaggedness of an order ideal of $P$under any toggle-symmetric probability distribution when$P$is the poset of boxes in a skew Young diagram. Our result extends the main combinatorial theorem of Chan–López–Pflueger–Teixidor [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc., forthcoming. 2015,arXiv:1506.00516], who used an expected jaggedness computation as a key ingredient to prove an algebro-geometric formula; and it has applications to homomesies, in the sense of Propp–Roby, of the antichain cardinality statistic for order ideals in partially ordered sets.

A De Bruijn–Erdős Theorem for Chordal Graphs

A special case of a combinatorial theorem of De Bruijn and Erdős asserts that every noncollinear set of $n$ points in the plane determines at least $n$ distinct lines. Chen and Chávtal suggested a possible generalization of this assertion in metric spaces with appropriately defined lines. We prove this generalization in all metric spaces induced by connected chordal graphs.

Hindman's theorem: an ultrafilter argument in second order arithmetic

Hindman's Theorem is a prototypical example of a combinatorial theorem with a proof that uses the topology of the ultrafilters. We show how the methods of this proof, including topological arguments about ultrafilters, can be translated into second order arithmetic.