English

Enumeration of splitting subsets of endofunctions on finite sets

Combinatorics 2023-06-08 v1

Abstract

Let dd and nn be positive integers such that dnd|n. Let [n]={1,2,,n}[n]=\{1,2,\ldots,n\} and TT be an endofunction on [n][n]. A subset WW of [n][n] of cardinality n/dn/d is said to be dd-splitting if WTWTd1W=[n]W \cup TW \cup \cdots \cup T^{d-1}W =[n]. Let σ(d;T)\sigma(d;T) denote the number of dd-splitting subsets. If σ(2;T)>0\sigma(2;T)>0, then we show that σ(2;T)=gT(1)\sigma(2;T)=g_T(-1), where gT(t)g_T(t) is the generating function for the number of TT-invariant subsets of [n][n]. It is interesting to note that substituting a root of unity into a polynomial with integer coefficients has an enumerative meaning. More generally, let gT(t1,,td)g_T(t_1,\ldots,t_d) be the generating function for the number of dd-flags of TT-invariant subsets. We prove for certain endofunctions TT, if σ(d;T)>0\sigma(d;T)>0, then σ(d;T)=gT(ζ,ζ2,,ζd)\sigma(d;T)=g_T(\zeta,\zeta^2,\ldots,\zeta^d), where ζ\zeta is a primitive dthd^{th} root of unity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2306.04256,
  title  = {Enumeration of splitting subsets of endofunctions on finite sets},
  author = {Divya Aggarwal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.04256},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

19 pages, 12 figures