Shareshian–Wachs conjecture for chromatic quasisymmetric functions

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Let G=(V,E)G=(V,E) be a unit interval graph, with its vertices in the natural order. Define its chromatic quasisymmetric function by

χG(x;q)=∑κqasc⁡(κ)xκ,\chi_G(x;q)=\sum_{\kappa}q^{\operatorname{asc}(\kappa)}x^\kappa,

where the sum is over proper colorings and asc⁡(κ)\operatorname{asc}(\kappa) counts edges {i,j}\{i,j\} with i<ji<j and κ(i)<κ(j)\kappa(i)<\kappa(j). Shareshian–Wachs conjecture. The function χG(x;q)\chi_G(x;q) is symmetric and ee-positive. This is the quasisymmetric refinement of the Stanley–Stembridge conjecture. Although Hikita proved the Stanley–Stembridge conjecture, that proof does not imply the Shareshian–Wachs conjecture, which remains open.

References

Primary source

Laura Colmenarejo and Ian Klein, “The Total Chromatic Quasisymmetric Functions of a Graph”, arXiv:2601.23170 (2026).

Additional references

20 papers in this index state this conjecture (2011–2026). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2509.02841, arXiv:2410.08366, arXiv:2407.06155, arXiv:2211.03967, arXiv:2208.09857, arXiv:2201.13080, arXiv:2012.00913, arXiv:1910.07308, arXiv:1904.11155, arXiv:1903.03998, arXiv:1812.03445, arXiv:1711.07152, and 7 more.

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