Related papers: Non-Schur-positivity of chromatic symmetric functi…

We prove Stanley's conjecture that, if delta_n is the staircase shape, then the skew Schur functions s_{delta_n / mu} are non-negative sums of Schur P-functions. We prove that the coefficients in this sum count certain fillings of shifted…

We prove a general inclusion-exclusion relation for the extended chromatic symmetric function of a weighted graph, which specializes to (extended) $k$-deletion, and we give two methods to obtain numerous new bases from weighted graphs for…

Cylindric skew Schur functions, which are a generalisation of skew Schur functions, arise naturally in the study of P-partitions. Also, recent work of A. Postnikov shows they have a strong connection with a problem of considerable current…

Two celebrated conjectures in chromatic symmetric function theory concern the positivity chromatics symmetric functions of claw-free graphs. Here we extend the claw-free idea to general graphs and consider the e-positivity question for…

The ring of cyclic quasi-symmetric functions and its non-Escher subring are introduced in this paper. A natural basis consists of fundamental cyclic quasi-symmetric functions; for the non-Escher subring they arise as toric $P$-partition…

We prove that a graph with a cut vertex whose deletion produces at least five connected components must be missing a connected partition of some type. We prove that this also holds if there are four connected components that each have at…

We make a systematic study of a new combinatorial construction called a dual equivalence graph. We axiomatize these graphs and prove that their generating functions are symmetric and Schur positive. This provides a universal method for…

The strong chromatic number $\chi_{\text{s}}(G)$ of a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices is the least number $r$ with the following property: after adding $r \lceil n/r \rceil - n$ isolated vertices to $G$ and taking the union with any collection of…

We discover new linear relations between the chromatic symmetric functions of certain sequences of graphs and apply these relations to find new families of e-positive unit interval graphs. Motivated by the results of Gebhard and Sagan, we…

A graph is $k$-vertex-critical if $\chi(G)=k$ but $\chi(G-v)<k$ for all $v\in V(G)$ and $(G,H)$-free if it contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to $G$ or $H$. We show that there are only finitely many $k$-vertex-critical $(2P_2,H)$-free…

The theory of noncommutative Schur functions can be used to obtain positive combinatorial formulae for the Schur expansion of various classes of symmetric functions, as shown by Fomin and Greene. We develop a theory of noncommutative super…

In 1995 Stanley introduced a generalization of the chromatic polynomial of a graph $G$, called the chromatic symmetric function, $X_G$, which was generalized to noncommuting variables, $Y_G$, by Gebhard-Sagan in 2001. Recently there has…

We present an algebraic characterization of perfect graphs, i.e., graphs for which the clique number and the chromatic number coincide for every induced subgraph. We show that a graph is perfect if and only if certain nonnegative…

In 1995 Stanley conjectured that the chromatic symmetric functions of the graphs $P_{d,2}$, which we call triangular ladders, were $e$-positive. In this paper we confirm this conjecture, which is also an unsolved case of the celebrated…

FPSAC 2013 Extended Abstract. We introduce a new basis of the non-commutative symmetric functions whose elements have Schur functions as their commutative images. Dually, we build a basis of the quasi-symmetric functions which expand…

In Stanley's seminal 1995 paper on the chromatic symmetric function, he stated that there was no known graph that was not contractible to the claw and whose chromatic symmetric function was not $e$-positive, namely, not a positive linear…

We prove that for any tree with a vertex of degree at least six, its chromatic symmetric function is not $e$-positive, that is, it cannot be written as a nonnegative linear combination of elementary symmetric functions. This makes…

We show that the chromatic quasisymmetric function (CQF) of a labeled path graph on $n$ vertices is not symmetric unless the labeling is the natural labeling $1, 2, ..., n$ or its reverse $n, ..., 2, 1$. We also show that the star graph…

We define a D_0 graph to be a graph whose vertex set is a subset of permutations of n, with edges of the form ...bac... <--> ...bca... or ...acb... <--> ...cab... (Knuth transformations), or ...bac... <--> ...acb... or ...bca... <-->…

Stanley introduced the chromatic symmetric function of a simple graph, which is a generalization of a chromatic polynomial. This is expressed in terms of the integer points of the complements of the corresponding graphic arrangement.…