English

Garsia--Remmel $q$-rook numbers are not always unimodal

Combinatorics 2026-02-19 v3

Abstract

We show by an explicit example that the Garsia--Remmel qq-rook numbers of Ferrers boards do not all have unimodal sequences of coefficients. This resolves in the negative a question from 1986 by the aforementioned authors.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.19714,
  title  = {Garsia--Remmel $q$-rook numbers are not always unimodal},
  author = {Joel Brewster Lewis and Alejandro H. Morales},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.19714},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

9 pages. v3: expanded Remark 6, added a table with more examples of q-rook numbers that are not unimodal. Ancillary files include python code to generate examples of q-rook numbers that are not unimodal