Related papers: Poset Entropy versus Number of Linear Extensions: …
Extending results of Linial (1984) and Aigner (1985), we prove a uniform lower bound on the balance constant of a poset $P$ of width $2$. This constant is defined as $\delta(P) = \max_{(x, y)\in P^2}\min\{\mathbb{P}(x\prec y),…
Given an underlying undirected simple graph, we consider the set of all acyclic orientations of its edges. Each of these orientations induces a partial order on the vertices of our graph and, therefore, we can count the number of linear…
The classical 1991 result by Brightwell and Winkler states that the number of linear extensions of a poset is #P-complete. We extend this result to posets with certain restrictions. First, we prove that the number of linear extension for…
We revisit the well-known problem of sorting under partial information: sort a finite set given the outcomes of comparisons between some pairs of elements. The input is a partially ordered set P, and solving the problem amounts to…
We use an entropy based method to study two graph maximization problems. We upper bound the number of matchings of fixed size $\ell$ in a $d$-regular graph on $N$ vertices. For $\frac{2\ell}{N}$ bounded away from 0 and 1, the logarithm of…
A grid poset -- or grid for short -- is a product of chains. We ask, what does a random linear extension of a grid look like? In particular, we show that the average "jump number," i.e., the number of times that two consecutive elements in…
A linear extension of a poset $P$ is a permutation of the elements of the set that respects the partial order. Let $L(P)$ denote the number of linear extensions. It is a #P complete problem to determine $L(P)$ exactly for an arbitrary…
Let $(\mathcal{P},\leqslant)$ be a finite poset. Define the numbers $a_1,a_2,\ldots$ (respectively, $c_1,c_2,\ldots$) so that $a_1+\ldots+a_k$ (respectively, $c_1+\ldots+c_k$) is the maximal number of elements of $\mathcal{P}$ which may be…
We revisit classic balancing problems for linear extensions of a partially ordered set $P$, proving results that go far beyond many of the best earlier results on this topic. For example, with $p(x\prec y)$ the probability that $x$ precedes…
An old conjecture of Kahn and Saks says, roughly, that any poset $P$ of large enough width contains elements $x,y$ which are "balanced" in the sense that the probability that $x$ precedes $y$ in a uniformly random linear extension of $P$ is…
Joret, Micek, Milans, Trotter, Walczak, and Wang recently asked if there exists a constant $d$ such that if $P$ is a poset with cover graph of $P$ of pathwidth at most $2$, then $\dim(P)\leq d$. We answer this question in the affirmative by…
Partially ordered sets (posets) are fundamental combinatorial objects with important applications in computer science. Perhaps the most natural algorithmic task, given a size-$n$ poset, is to compute its number of linear extensions. In 1991…
Motivated by quite recent research involving the relationship between the dimension of a poset and graph-theoretic properties of its cover graph, we show that for every $d\geq 1$, if $P$ is a poset and the dimension of a subposet $B$ of $P$…
Let $(P,\leq)$ be a finite poset (partially ordered set), where $P$ has cardinality $n$. Consider linear extensions of $P$ as permutations $x_1x_2\cdots x_n$ in one-line notation. For distinct elements $x,y\in P$, we define…
A popular method in combinatorial optimization is to express polytopes P, which may potentially have exponentially many facets, as solutions of linear programs that use few extra variables to reduce the number of constraints down to a…
Consider the partially ordered set on $[t]^n:=\{0,\dots,t-1\}^n$ equipped with the natural coordinate-wise ordering. Let $A(t,n)$ denote the number of antichains of this poset. The quantity $A(t,n)$ has a number of combinatorial…
We examine the lattice of all order congruences of a finite poset from the viewpoint of combinatorial algebraic topology. We will prove that the order complex of the lattice of all nontrivial order congruences (or order-preserving…
The Knot Entropy Conjecture states that the exponential growth rate of the number of $n$-edge lattice polygons with knot-type $K$ is the same as that for unknot polygons. Moreover, the next order growth follows a power law in $n$ with an…
Let $P$ be a finite poset of width two, i.e., with no three-element antichain. We associate with $P$ a skew Young diagram $\Upsilon(P)$ and discuss some of the properties of the map $\Upsilon$. In particular, if we regard $\Upsilon(P)$ as a…
We study graph orientations that minimize the entropy of the in-degree sequence. The problem of finding such an orientation is an interesting special case of the minimum entropy set cover problem previously studied by Halperin and Karp…