English

Shuffle series

Combinatorics 2025-03-05 v3 Algebraic Topology

Abstract

We apply operad theory to enumerative combinatorics in order to count the number of shuffles between series-parallel posets and chains. We work with three types of shuffles, two of them noncommutative, for example a left deck-divider shuffle AA between PP and QQ is a shuffle of the posets in which, on every maximal chain mAm\subset A, the minimum and maximum elements belong to PP and no two consecutive points of QQ appear consecutively on mm. The number of left deck-divider shuffles of PP and QQ differ from the number of left deck-divider shuffles of QQ and PP. The generating functions whose nn coefficient counts shuffles between a poset PP and 1<2<<n1<2<\cdots<n are called shuffle series. We explain how shuffle series are isomorphic to order series as algebras over the operad of series parallel posets. The weak and strict order polynomials are well known in the literature. At the level of generating series, with the theory of sets with a negative number of elements, we introduce a third order series and prove a theorem in the style of Stanley's Reciprocity Theorem compatible with the structure of algebras over the operad of finite posets. We conclude by describing the relationship of our work with the combinatorial properties of the operadic tensor product of free trees operads.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2311.08717,
  title  = {Shuffle series},
  author = {Khushdil Ahmad and Eric Rubiel Dolores-Cuenca and Khurram Shabbir},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.08717},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

To appear on Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics. We corrected issues with the logic of the exposition, and changed the style of the narrative

R2 v1 2026-06-28T13:21:41.882Z