Positivity conjecture for cumulants of minimum matching costs

From papers

Let Ck,m,nC_{k,m,n} be the minimum cost of a kk-matching in the random bipartite matching model, and let its cumulants κp\kappa_p be defined by

logFk,m,n(t)=p=1κptpp!,\log F_{k,m,n}(t)=\sum_{p=1}^{\infty}\frac{\kappa_p t^p}{p!},

where Fk,m,n(t)=E(exp(tCk,m,n))F_{k,m,n}(t)=\mathbb{E}(\exp(t\cdot C_{k,m,n})) is the moment generating function. Positivity conjecture. All the cumulants of Ck,m,nC_{k,m,n} are positive. This conjecture is based on computations for all kmn15k\leq m\leq n\leq 15 and less systematic computations for larger parameters; no proof or disproof is given in the source.

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Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Johan Wästlund, “Moment generating functions in combinatorial optimization: Bipartite matching”, arXiv:2602.07563 (2026).

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