Math 581, Spring 2015

Homework 3
Solutions

April 8, 2015

Notation: f λ denotes the number of standard Young tableaux of shape λ

(also applies for λ = α/β – any skew shape). Kα/β,γ is the Kostka number,
equal to the number of (skew) semi-standard Young tableaux of (skew) shape
α/β and type γ (i.e. contain γi entries equal to i).

Problem 1. Find direct bijections between standard Young tableaux of shape

(n, n) and each of the following sets:
a) Dyck paths from (0, 0) to (2n, 0), i.e. paths of segments (0, 0) − (1, 1) and
(0, 0) − (1, −1) that don’t go below the x axis.
b) permutations of n elements that don’t have a decreasing subsequence of
length 3.

Solution: a) A Dyck path is a sequence s = s1 s2 . . . s2n of steps U (up) and

D (down). Let a = s−1 (U ), i.e. the positions of the U steps, and b = s−1 (D).
Let P be the tableaux of shape (n, n), whose first row is the sequence a and
second row b. The condition ”P is an SYT” is equivalent with

ai < bi ⇔ i’th U appears before i’th D ⇔ #s−1 (U )∩[1, . . . , bi ] ≥ #s−1 (D)∩[1, . . . , bi ].

The last condition for all i is equivalent to s being a ballot sequence (every
prefix has at least as many U s as Ds), i.e. a Dyck path.
b) Apply RSK to the 321-avoiding permutation π to obtain SYTs (P, Q).
By Schensted’s theorem π has no decreasing subsequence of length 3 iff the
shape of P has at most 2 rows. Let the rows of P and Q be P1 , P2 and Q1 , Q2 ,
respectively. Let Q0i = (2n − Qi )r (subtract the entries from 2n and reverse the
sequence). Then the tableau T , whose first row is P1 , Q02 and second row P2 , Q01
is an SYT of shape (n, n). Conversely, given T , one can obtain P and Q by
selecting the boxes with entries smaller than n + 1 for P and the larger than n
for Q.
Problem 2. (a) Let λ ` n and λ1 ≤ k. Give a bijective proof that

K(kn )/λ,(k−1)n = f λ ,

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i.e. the number of skew SSYTs of shape (k, . . . , k )/λ and type (k − 1, . . . , k − 1)
| {z } | {z }
n n
is equal to the number of SYTs of shape λ.
(b) Show that if γ = ((k − 1)n , 1n ), then Kkn ,γ is equal to the number of
permutations in Sn with no increasing subsequence of length k + 1.

Solution:
(a) Given a skew SSYT K of shape k n /λ, let ci be the set of elements in its
ith column. Define a tableaux T of shape λ, by assigning to its ith column the
elements [n] \ ci , arranged in decreasing order.
1 1 −→ 5 3 1
2 2 2 4 2
1 1 3 3 3
2 4 4 4 4
3 5 5 5 5
Claim: T is a reverse SYT.
Proof: Since each j appears k − 1 times in K and in each column at most
once, there is exactly one column in K, s.t. j 6∈ ci . So j appears in T exactly
once. Since the columns of T are decreasing, it remains to show that the rows
are decreasing. Let Ti,j denote the entry in the ith row and jth column of T .
Then it is given by

Ti,j = n + 1 − i − min(u ∈ cj : #(cj ∩ {u, . . . , n}) = n − u + 1 − (i − 1)).

Let the particular minimizer be uj , and suppose that uj > uj+1 (which would
imply Ti,j < Ti,j+1 . But uj is in row uj + i − 1 in K, so it is in a higher row
and to the left of uj+1 < uj – a contradiction. Hence T is a reverse SYT.
To get an ordinary SY T P replace all entries v by n + 1 − v.
(b) Let K 0 be an SSYT of shape k n and type ((k − 1)n , 1n ). Replace all
entries a → 2n + 1 − a and rotate 180◦ , we get an SSYT K 00 of shape k n and
type (1n , (k − 1)n ). Let Q = K 00 ∩ {1, . . . , n} – the subtableau of K formed by
the entries 1, . . . , n. Clearly Q is an SSYT of some shape λ, and the remaining
skew tableau K = K 00 \ Q is of shape k n /λ and, after subtracting n from its
entries, of type (k − 1)n . By (a) we have a bijection K ↔ P , an SYT of shape λ.
This gives a bijection with pairs (P, Q) of SYTs of the same shape and size n,
which fit inside the k n rectangle, so necessarily λ1 ≤ k. By RSK and Shensted’s
theorem these are in bijection with the permutations in question.
Problem 3.
RS
Let π = π1 . . . πn be a permutation and π → (P, Q), so the insertion
tableau of π under the Robinson-Schensted correspondence is P . Suppose that
shape(P ) = (m, . . . , m) (i.e. the Young diagram is a rectangle and, in particu-
| {z }
`
lar, n = m`). Denote by π c the ‘complement’ of π, i.e. the permutation such
that πic = n + 1 − πi for all i = 1, . . . , n. Denote by P c the tableau obtained

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from P by rotating the entire tableau by 180◦ and then replacing each entry b
by n + 1 − b, so that the result is again an SYT.
Show that P (π c ) = (P c )t , i.e. the insertion tableau under R-S of π c is equal
to the transpose of P c .
Solution: We have that π ∼ reading(P ), where ∼ denotes Knuth equiv-
alence, and reading(P ) is the reading word of P . Since the Knuth moves (as
a set) are invariant under the complementation operation, we have that π c ∼
reading(P )c . Let the rows of P be P1 , . . . , P` , then reading(P )c = P`c . . . P1c .
We have that Pic is a decreasing sequence of length m and for each j, the jth
entry in Pic is smaller than the jth entry in Pi−1 c
. Now it is easy to see that if

RS
P`c . . . P1c → Q,
c
then the ith column of Q is exactly the reverse of P`+1−i : by induction, inserting
c
the elements from Pi results in them bumping each other down along the last
column. So Q = (P c )t , and since Knuth equivalence is the same as having equal
insertion tableaux under RS, we have P (π c ) = Q = (P c )t .

Problem 4. Consider involutions π, i.e. permutations, such that π = π −1 . Let

RS
π → (P, Q).
A fixed point in a permutation is an index i, s.t. πi = i. Show that
a)** The number of fixed points in π is equal to the number of columns of
odd length in P .
b) Prove that
X
1 · 3 · · · · · (2n − 1) = f λ,
λ`2n,λ – even

where the sum goes over all partitions λ of 2n, s.t. λi is even for all i.
Solution:
a) Note that the number of odd columns is exactly
X
(λ1 − λ2 ) + (λ3 − λ4 ) + · · · = (−1)i+1 λi .
i

Let the number of fixed point be f . Consider the shadow diagram of π: since
π is an involution, the diagram is symmetric about the x = y axis and every
fixed point of π is the “middle” of a separate shadow line. Let this diagram be
D. We have that λ1 = #{shadow lines in D}, and the number of shadow lines
in D is
λ1 = f + d,
where d is the number of shadow lines that do not pass through a fixed point.
Any point from the permutation π is an outer vertex of some shadow line (i.e.
the vertex of a cone in the positive direction). Because of symmetry, every
shadow line has a corner on the x = y line: it is either a fixed point of π, which
makes it an outer vertex, or else it is not a point from π, which makes it an

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inner vertex (cone in the negative direction). The diagram D1 , obtained in the
second step of Viennot’s geometric RS, consists of the points which were the
inner vertices of D. Then D1 has exactly d vertices on x = y. Moreover, the
RS image of D1 has shape (λ2 , λ3 , . . .) and corresponds to an involution with d
fixed points. By induction, we have d = λ2 − λ3 + · · · . Since f = λ1 − d, we get

f = λ1 − λ2 + λ3 − · · · .
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b) We have that f λ = f λ , by transposing the corresponding SYTs. So the
r.h.s. of the sum is the number of SYTs whose columns have all even lengths.
By a) these correspond to involutions without fixed points. The number of
involutions without fixed points is the number of perfect matchings on 2n points
(matching i with πi ). This is the number of ways to partition the set [1, . . . , 2n]
into sets of size 2, modulo the ordering of the sets, i.e.
 
1 2n (2n)!
= n = (2n − 1)(2n − 3) · · · 1.
n! 2, 2, . . . , 2 2 n!

Problem 5.
Let τ be a poset with n elements, whose Hasse diagram is a rooted tree,
that is, there is a unique minimal element – the root, and there are no three
elements a, b, c, s.t. a ≺ b and c ≺ b (i.e. the tree is pointing up).
For each vertex v ∈ τ , define its hook to be

Hv = {w ∈ τ : v  w}

and the hook-length hv = #Hv .

A natural labeling is a bijection π : τ → {1, . . . , n}, such that if v ≺ w in τ
then π(v) < π(w).
Show that the number of natural labelings of τ is equal to
n!
Q .
v∈τ hv

Solution:
Let L(P ) be the number of natural labelings of a poset P and let T denote
our tree.
The shortest proof is by induction on n: The root v0 of the tree has to be
labeled 1. Let the children of the root be v1 , . . . , vk and Ti be the subtree of T
whose root is vi . There are
 
n−1
#T1 , . . . , #Tk
ways to distribute the numbers 2, . . . , n among the trees T1 , . . . , Tk . By induc-
tion we have
(#Ti )!
L(Ti ) = Q .
v∈Ti hv

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So  Y
n−1 (#T )! (n − 1)!
L(T ) = Q i =Q Q .
#T1 , . . . , #Tk i v∈Ti hv i v∈Ti hv

Finally, we have that hv0 = n, and since the hooks of all other vertices are the
same regardless of whether we are in Ti or T , we get the formula.