English

Linear transformations and strong $q$-log-concavity for certain combinatorial triangle

Combinatorics 2016-05-03 v1

Abstract

It is well-known that the binomial transformation preserves the log-concavity property and log-convexity property. Let (a+nb+k)\binom{a+n}{b+k} be the binomial coefficients and (n,kj)\binom{n,k}{j} be defined by (b0+b1x++bkxk)n:=j=0kn(n,kj)xj,(b_0+b_1x+\cdots+b_kx^{k})^n:=\sum_{j=0}^{kn}\binom{n,k}{j}x^j, where the sequence (bi)0ik(b_i)_{0\leq i\leq k} is log-concave. In this paper, we prove that the linear transformation yn(q)=k=0n(a+nb+k)xk(q)y_n(q)=\sum_{k=0}^n\binom{a+n}{b+k}x_k(q) preserves the strong qq-log-concavity property for any fixed nonnegative integers aa and bb, which strengthens and gives a simple proof of results of Ehrenborg and Steingrimsson, and Wang, respectively, on linear transformations preserving the log-concavity property. We also show that the linear transformation yn=i=0kn(n,kj)xiy_n=\sum_{i=0}^{kn}\binom{n,k}{j}x_i not only preserves the log-concavity property, but also preserves the log-convexity property, which extends the results of Ahmia and Belbachir about the ss-triangle transformation preserving the log-convexity property and log-concavity property. Let [An,k(q)]n,k0[A_{n,k}(q)]_{n, k\geq0} be an infinite lower triangular array of polynomials in qq with nonnegative coefficients satisfying the recurrence \begin{eqnarray*}\label{re} A_{n,k}(q)=f_{n,k}(q)\,A_{n-1,k-1}(q)+g_{n,k}(q)\,A_{n-1,k}(q)+h_{n,k}(q)\,A_{n-1,k+1}(q), \end{eqnarray*} for n1n\geq 1 and k0k\geq 0, where A0,0(q)=1A_{0,0}(q)=1, A0,k(q)=A0,1(q)=0A_{0,k}(q)=A_{0,-1}(q)=0 for k>0k>0. We present criterions for the strong qq-log-concavity of the sequences in each row of [An,k(q)]n,k0[A_{n,k}(q)]_{n, k\geq0}. As applications, we get the strong qq-log-concavity or the log-concavity of the sequences in each row of many well-known triangular arrays, such as the Bell polynomials triangle, the Eulerian polynomials triangle and the Narayana polynomials triangle in a unified approach.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1605.00257,
  title  = {Linear transformations and strong $q$-log-concavity for certain combinatorial triangle},
  author = {Bao-Xuan Zhu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.00257},
  year   = {2016}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:45:47.445Z