English

Hopf algebra maps taking chromatic symmetric functions to their graph complements

Combinatorics 2025-09-23 v1

Abstract

Cho and van Willigenburg (arXiv:1508.07670) and Alinaeifard, Wang, and van Willgenburg (arXiv:2010.00147) introduce multiplicative chromatic bases for the ring Λ\Lambda of symmetric functions, consisting of the chromatic symmetric functions (CSFs) of a sequence of connected graphs G1,G2,G_1,G_2,\dots such that GnG_n has total weight nn, together with the CSFs of their disjoint unions. In arXiv:1707.04058, Tsujie introduces an alternative ring structure Λ~\widetilde{\Lambda} on the vector space Λ\Lambda that makes CSFs multiply over joins instead of over disjoint unions. The m~λ\widetilde{m}_\lambda basis, consisting of all CSFs of weighted cliques, is a multiplicative basis for Λ~\widetilde{\Lambda}, as is the rλr_\lambda basis of complete multipartite graphs studied by Penaguiao (arXiv:1803.08824) and Crew and Spirkl (arXiv:2009.14141). We show that one can get more of these "cochromatic bases" (where the starting graphs are combined by joins instead of disjoint unions, hence forming a multiplicative basis for Λ~\widetilde{\Lambda} instead of Λ\Lambda) if and only if the starting graphs are edgeless. We also show that Λ~\widetilde{\Lambda} is a Hopf algebra with the same coproduct as Λ\Lambda, and that many of the chromatic bases for Λ\Lambda generated by cliques can be taken to their corresponding cochromatic bases via Hopf algebra isomorphisms ΛΛ~.\Lambda \to \widetilde{\Lambda}. We also show that there is a single Hopf algebra morphism taking the CSFs of all unweighted triangle-free graphs to the CSFs of their complements, and we give several more conditions and examples for when one can or cannot find Hopf algebra maps taking the CSFs of certain graphs to the CSFs of their complements. Finally, we show that KK-analogues of many of the above statements also hold if one instead uses the Kromatic symmetric function (KSF) defined by Crew, Pechenik, and Spirkl (arXiv:2301.02177).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.16318,
  title  = {Hopf algebra maps taking chromatic symmetric functions to their graph complements},
  author = {Shao Yuan Lin and Laura Pierson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.16318},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

25 pages, comments welcome!