English

Cyclic Sieving of Multisets with Bounded Multiplicity and the Frobenius Coin Problem

Combinatorics 2025-04-25 v2 Representation Theory

Abstract

The two subjects in the title are related via the specialization of symmetric polynomials at roots of unity. Let f(z1,,zn)Z[z1,,zn]f(z_1,\ldots,z_n)\in\mathbb{Z}[z_1,\ldots,z_n] be a symmetric polynomial with integer coefficients and let ω\omega be a primitive ddth root of unity. If dnd|n or d(n1)d|(n-1) then we have f(1,,ωn1)Zf(1,\ldots,\omega^{n-1})\in\mathbb{Z}. If dnd|n then of course we have f(ω,,ωn)=f(1,,ωn1)Zf(\omega,\ldots,\omega^n)=f(1,\ldots,\omega^{n-1})\in\mathbb{Z}, but when d(n+1)d|(n+1) we also have f(ω,,ωn)Zf(\omega,\ldots,\omega^n)\in\mathbb{Z}. We investigate these three families of integers in the case f=hk(b)f=h_k^{(b)}, where hk(b)h_k^{(b)} is the coefficient of tkt^k in the generating function i=1n(1+zit++(zit)b1)\prod_{i=1}^n (1+z_it+\cdots+(z_it)^{b-1}). These polynomials were previously considered by several authors. They interpolate between the elementary symmetric polynomials (bb=2) and the complete homogeneous symmetric polynomials (bb\to\infty). When gcd(b,d)=1\gcd(b,d)=1 with dnd|n or d(n1)d|(n-1) we find that the integers hk(b)=(1,ω,,ωn1)h_k^{(b)}=(1,\omega,\ldots,\omega^{n-1}) are related to cyclic sieving of multisets with multiplicities bounded above by bb, generalizing the well know cyclic sieving results for sets (b=2b=2) and multisets (bb\to \infty). When gcd(b,d)=1\gcd(b,d)=1 and d(n+1)d|(n+1) we find that the integers hk(b)(ω,ω2,,ωn)h_k^{(b)}(\omega,\omega^2,\ldots,\omega^n) are related to the Frobenius coin problem with two coins. The case gcd(b,d)1\gcd(b,d)\neq 1 is more complicated. At the end of the paper we combine these results with the expansion of hk(b)h_k^{(b)} in various bases of the ring of symmetric polynomials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.00378,
  title  = {Cyclic Sieving of Multisets with Bounded Multiplicity and the Frobenius Coin Problem},
  author = {Drew Armstrong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.00378},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Version 2 fixes the numbering system, adds Remark 3.3 and adds the calculation of case b=2 to Theorem 3.4c