On the Schur-positivity of various sets of set partitions

Mathematics > Combinatorics [Submitted on 14 Jun 2026] Title:On the Schur-positivity of various sets of set partitions View PDFAbstract:A symmetric function is called Schur-positive if it admits an expansion in the Schur basis with nonnegative coefficients. In this paper, we study the Schur positivity of symmetric functions naturally associated with set partitions, with respect to two different notions of descent. In the first case, the Schur expansion involves hook-shaped Young diagrams, and the corresponding coefficients are given by Touchard-Riordan polynomials, which enumerate matchings by their number of crossings. In the second case, the Schur functions correspond to two-rows Young diagrams, and the coefficients are partial sums of associated Bell numbers. A key ingredient of our approach in the second case is the notion of a removable singleton, defined algebraically and shown to admit an equivalent combinatorial interpretation via jeu-de-taquin rectification of skew tableaux. As an application, we establish Schur positivity for various classes of symmetric functions indexed by non-crossing partitions and partitions with a given number of parts. We provide an explicit combinatorial description of the tableaux that contribute to the Schur expansion, and we connects the obtained coefficients to some known integer sequences. References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.