Frozen-corner determinant conjecture for alternating sign matrices

About 1 year old · traced to

Let AnA_n be the number of n×nn\times n alternating sign matrices, and let Bn,sB_{n,s} be the number of such matrices having an s×ss\times s square of zero entries located in a corner. Define

gn(z):=2F1(−n+1n2n∣1−z),g_n(z):={}_2F_1\left(\left.\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ -n+1\quad n }{ 2n } \right| 1-z\right), fi±(z):=[1±(−1)iz](1−z)i−1zign−s+i(z).f_i^{\pm}(z):=\left[1\pm(-1)^i z\right]\frac{(1-z)^{i-1}}{z^i}g_{n-s+i}(z).

For fixed nn and ss, let MM be the s×ss\times s matrix with entries

Mij:=An−s+jAn−s+j−1∮C0∮C0fi+(z)fj−(w)1−z−wdz dw(2πi)2,i,j=1,…,s,M_{ij}:=\frac{A_{n-s+j}}{A_{n-s+j-1}}\oint_{C_0}\oint_{C_0}\frac{f_i^+(z)f_j^-(w)}{1-z-w}\frac{\mathrm{d}z\,\mathrm{d}w}{(2\pi\mathrm{i})^2},\qquad i,j=1,\dots,s,

where C0C_0 is a small closed contour around the origin containing no other singularity of the integrand.

Frozen-corner determinant conjecture. The number Bn,sB_{n,s} may be evaluated as

Bn,s=Andet⁡1≤i,j≤s(1−M),B_{n,s}=A_n\det_{1\leq i,j\leq s}(1-M),

where MM is equivalently given by the explicit finite-sum expression in the source or by the preceding hypergeometric and contour-integral definitions.

The formula is proposed on the basis of numerical support and is intended to enumerate ASMs with a prescribed frozen corner. Its status is unresolved in the supplied source.

References

Primary source

Filippo Colomo and Andrei G. Pronko, “Frozen-corner enumeration of Alternating Sign Matrices”, arXiv:2509.14006 (2026).

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.