Abstract
Let \(\prod {_{2n}^e }\) denote the subposet obtained by selecting even ranks in the partition lattice \(\prod {_{2n} } \). We show that the homology of \(\prod {_{2n}^e }\) has dimension \(\frac{{(2n)!}}{{2^{2n - 1} }}E_{2n - 1}\), where \(E_{2n - 1} \) is the tangent number. It is thus an integral multiple of both the Genocchi number and an André or simsun number. Using the general theory of rank-selected homology representations developed in [22], we show that, for the special case of \(\prod {_{2n}^e }\), the character of the symmetric group S 2n on the homology is supported on the set of involutions. Our proof techniques lead to the discovery of a family of integers b i(n), 2 ≤ i ≤ n, defined recursively. We conjecture that, for the full automorphism group S 2n, the homology is a sum of permutation modules induced from Young subgroups of the form \(S_2^i xS_1^{2n - 2i}\), with nonnegative integer multiplicity b i(n). The nonnegativity of the integers b i(n) would imply the existence of new refinements, into sums of powers of 2, of the tangent number and the André or simsun number a n(2n).
Similarly, the restriction of this homology module to S 2n−1 yields a family of integers d i(n), 1 ≤ i ≤ n − 1, such that the numbers 2−i d i(n) refine the Genocchi number G 2n . We conjecture that 2−i d i(n) is a positive integer for all i.
Finally, we present a recursive algorithm to generate a family of polynomials which encode the homology representations of the subposets obtained by selecting the top k ranks of \(\prod {_{2n}^e } \), 1 ≤ k ≤ n − 1. We conjecture that these are all permutation modules for S 2n .
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Sundaram, S. The Homology of Partitions with an Even Number of Blocks. Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics 4, 69–92 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022437708487
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022437708487