Bergeron's positivity and unimodality conjecture for q-binomial differences

Let a,b,c,da,b,c,d be positive integers such that aa is the smallest and ad=bcad=bc. The qq-binomial coefficient is

(m+nm)q=(1q)(1q2)(1qm+n)(1q)(1q2)(1qm)(1q)(1q2)(1qn).\binom{m+n}{m}_q=\frac{(1-q)(1-q^2)\cdots(1-q^{m+n})}{(1-q)(1-q^2)\cdots(1-q^m)\cdot(1-q)(1-q^2)\cdots(1-q^n)}.

Thus (m+nm)q\binom{m+n}{m}_q is a symmetric polynomial in qq. Bergeron's positivity and unimodality conjecture. The coefficients of the symmetric polynomial

(b+cb)q(a+dd)q\binom{b+c}{b}_q-\binom{a+d}{d}_q

are nonnegative and unimodal. This extends Bergeron's positivity problem, which asks whether these coefficients are always nonnegative. The conjecture is proved combinatorially in the cases a3a\leq 3 and b,c4b,c\geq 4; the general assertion remains open.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Fabrizio Zanello, “On Bergeron's positivity problem for q-binomial coefficients”, arXiv:1709.06187 (2018).

Progress summary

Never refreshed

Nothing recorded yet. Refresh searches the literature and the public web for attempts on this problem, and writes the first summary here.

Solutions 0

No solutions have been posted yet.