English

Separable elements and splittings of Weyl groups

Combinatorics 2020-11-03 v2

Abstract

We continue the study of separable elements in finite Weyl groups. These elements generalize the well-studied class of separable permutations. We show that the multiplication map W/U×UWW/U \times U \to W is a length-additive bijection, or splitting, of the Weyl group WW when UU is an order ideal in right weak order generated by a separable element; this generalizes a result for the symmetric group, answering an open problem of Wei. For a generalized quotient of the symmetric group, we show that this multiplication map is a bijection if and only if UU is an order ideal in right weak order generated by a separable element, thereby classifying those generalized quotients which induce splittings of the symmetric group, resolving a problem of Bj\"{o}rner and Wachs from 1988. We also prove that this map is always surjective when UU is an order ideal in right weak order. Interpreting these sets of permutations as linear extensions of 2-dimensional posets gives the first direct combinatorial proof of an inequality due originally to Sidorenko in 1991, answering an open problem Morales, Pak, and Panova. We also prove a new qq-analog of Sidorenko's formula. All of these results are conjectured to extend to arbitrary finite Weyl groups. Finally, we show that separable elements in WW are in bijection with the faces of all dimensions of several copies of the graph associahedron of the Dynkin diagram of WW. This correspondence associates to each separable element ww a certain nested set; we give product formulas for the rank generating functions of the principal upper and lower order ideals generated by ww in terms of these nested sets, generalizing several known formulas.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1911.11172,
  title  = {Separable elements and splittings of Weyl groups},
  author = {Christian Gaetz and Yibo Gao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.11172},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

25 pages, comments welcome; v2: minor edits and journal reference

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:26:54.123Z