# Separable elements and splittings of Weyl groups

Christian Gaetz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - 3:30pm to 5:00pm
Via Zoom

Note: This talk begins with a pre-seminar (aimed at graduate students) at 3:30–4:00. The main talk starts at 4:10.

This is joint work with Yibo Gao. We introduce separable elements in finite Weyl groups, generalizing the well-studied class of separable permutations. We prove that the principal upper and lower order ideals in weak Bruhat order generated by a separable element are rank-symmetric and rank-unimodal, and that the product of their rank generating functions equals that of the whole group, answering an open problem of Fan Wei, who proved this result for the symmetric group.

We prove that the multiplication map from \$W/V \times V \to W\$ for a generalized quotient of the symmetric group is always surjective when \$V\$ 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, answering an open problem Morales, Pak, and Panova. We show that this multiplication map is a bijection if and only if \$V\$ 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, answering a question of Björner and Wachs (1988). All of these results are conjectured to extend to arbitrary finite Weyl groups.

Next, we show that separable elements in \$W\$ are in bijection with the faces of all dimensions of two copies of the graph associahedron of the Dynkin diagram of \$W\$. This correspondence associates to each separable element w a certain nested set; we give product formulas for the rank generating functions of the principal upper and lower order ideals generated by w in terms of these nested sets.

Finally we show that separable elements, although initially defined recursively, have a non-recursive characterization in terms of root system pattern avoidance in the sense of Billey and Postnikov.

The UW combinatorics seminar is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: UW combinatorics seminar: Christian Gaetz
Time: May 13, 2020 03:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://washington.zoom.us/j/96606695907

Meeting ID: 966 0669 5907
One tap mobile
+12532158782,,96606695907# US (Tacoma)
+19712471195,,96606695907# US (Portland)

+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 971 247 1195 US (Portland)
+1 213 338 8477 US (Los Angeles)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 602 753 0140 US (Phoenix)
+1 669 219 2599 US (San Jose)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 720 928 9299 US (Denver)
+1 267 831 0333 US (Philadelphia)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 470 250 9358 US (Atlanta)
+1 470 381 2552 US (Atlanta)
+1 646 518 9805 US (New York)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
+1 651 372 8299 US (St. Paul)
+1 786 635 1003 US (Miami)
Meeting ID: 966 0669 5907

Join by SIP
96606695907@zoomcrc.com

Join by H.323
162.255.37.11 (US West)
162.255.36.11 (US East)
221.122.88.195 (China)
115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai)