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A paper by Boros, Little, Moll, Mosteig, and Stanley relates properties of a map defined on the space of rational functions to Eulerian polynomials. We link their work to the carries Markov chain, giving a new proof and slight generalization of one of their results., Comment: 6 pages

We study the conjugacy classes of the classical affine groups. We derive generating functions for the number of classes analogous to formulas of Wall and the authors for the classical groups. We use these to get good upper bounds for the number of classes. These naturally come up as difficult cases in the study of the non-coprime k(GV) problem of Brauer., Comment: 35 pages

In this expository article, we highlight the direct connection between card shuffling and the functions known as $P$-partitions that come from algebraic combinatorics. While many (but not all) of the results we discuss are known, we give a unified treatment. The key idea is this: the probability of obtaining a permutation $\pi$ from shelf shuffling is the probability that a random $P$-partition is sorted by $\pi$, and the probability of obtaining $\pi$ from riffle shuffling is the probability that a random $P$-partition is sorted by $\pi^{-1}$., Comment: 22 pages, 4 tables

The number of peaks of a random permutation is known to be asymptotically normal. We give a new proof of this and prove a central limit theorem for the distribution of peaks in a fixed conjugacy class of the symmetric group. Our technique is to apply ``analytic combinatorics'' to study a complicated but exact generating function for peaks in a given conjugacy class., 21 pages, 1 figure

Narayana numbers appear in many places in combinatorics and probability, and it is known that they are asymptotically normal. Using Stein's method of exchangeable pairs, we provide an error of approximation in total variation to a symmetric binomial distribution of order~$n^{-1}$, which also implies a Kolmogorov bound of order~$n^{-1/2}$ for the normal approximation. Our exchangeable pair is based on a birth-death chain and has remarkable properties, which allow us to perform some otherwise tricky moment computations. Although our main interest is in Narayana numbers, we show that our main abstract result can also give improved convergence rates for the Poisson-binomial and the hypergeometric distributions., Comment: 13 pages

Feit and Fine derived a generating function for the number of ordered pairs of commuting n by n matrices over the finite field F_q. This has been reproved and studied by Bryan and Morrison from the viewpoint of motivic Donaldson-Thomas theory. In this note we give a new proof of the Feit-Fine result, and generalize it to the Lie algebra of finite unitary groups and to the Lie algebra of odd characteristic finite symplectic groups. We extract some asymptotic information from these generating functions. Finally, we derive generating functions for the number of commuting nilpotent elements for the Lie algebras of the finite general linear and unitary groups, and of odd characteristic symplectic groups., 23 pages

In this paper we use generating function methods to obtain new asymptotic results about spaces of $F$-stable maximal tori in $GL_n(\overline{F_q})$, $Sp_{2n}(\overline{F_q})$, and $SO_{2n+1}(\overline{F_q})$. We recover stability results of Church--Ellenberg--Farb and Jim\'enez Rolland--Wilson for "polynomial" statistics on these spaces, and we compute explicit formulas for their stable values. We derive a double generating function for the characters of the cohomology of flag varieties in type B/C, which we use to obtain analogs in type B/C of results of Chen: we recover "twisted homological stability" for the spaces of maximal tori in $Sp_{2n}(\mathbb{C})$ and $SO_{2n+1}(\mathbb{C})$, and we compute a generating function for their "stable twisted Betti numbers". We also give a new proof of a result of Lehrer using symmetric function theory., Comment: 27 pages

This is the fourth paper in a series. We prove a conjecture made independently by Boston et al and Shalev. The conjecture asserts that there is an absolute positive constant delta such that if G is a finite simple group acting transitively on a set of size n > 1, then the proportion of derangements in G is greater than delta. We show that with possibly finitely many exceptions, one can take delta = .016. Indeed, we prove much stronger results showing that for many actions, the proportion of derangements goes to 1 as n increases and prove similar results for families of permutation representations., 24 pages

Consider a uniformly chosen random reduced decomposition of the longest element in the symmetric group. It is known that the location of the first transposition in this decomposition converges to the semicircle distribution. In this note we provide a sharp error term for this result, using the "comparison of generators" approach to Stein's method.

We compute generating functions for the sum of the real-valued character degrees of the finite general linear and unitary groups, through symmetric function computations. For the finite general linear group, we get a new combinatorial proof that every real-valued character has Frobenius-Schur indicator 1, and we obtain some q-series identities. For the finite unitary group, we expand the generating function in terms of values of Hall-Littlewood functions, and we obtain combinatorial expressions for the character degree sums of real-valued characters with Frobenius-Schur indicator 1 or -1., 29 pages

This is the third in a series of papers in which we prove a conjecture of Boston and Shalev that the proportion of derangements (fixed point free elements) is bounded away from zero for transitive actions of finite simple groups on a set of size greater than one. This paper treats the case of primitive subspace actions. It is also shown that if the dimension and codimension of the subspace go to infinity, then the proportion of derangements goes to one. Similar results are proved for elements in finite classical groups in cosets of the simple group. The results in this paper have applications to probabilistic generation of finite simple groups and maps between varieties over finite fields., 59 pages, final version, to appear in Transactions of AMS

Let g be a random element of a finite classical group G, and let \lambda_{z-1}(g) denote the partition corresponding to the polynomial z-1 in the rational canonical form of g. As the rank of G tends to infinity, \lambda_{z-1}(g) tends to a partition distributed according to a Cohen-Lenstra type measure on partitions. We give sharp upper and lower bounds on the total variation distance between the random partition \lambda_{z-1}(g) and the Cohen-Lenstra type measure.

Using generating functions, we enumerate regular semisimple conjugacy classes in the finite classical groups. For the general linear, unitary, and symplectic groups this gives a different approach to known results; for the special orthogonal groups the results are new., Comment: 19 pages

The tools of zero biasing are adapted to yield a general result suitable for analyzing the behavior of certain growth processes. The main theorem is applied to prove central limit theorems, with explicit error terms in the L^1 metric, for certain statistics of the Jack measure on partitions and for the number of balls drawn in a Polya-Eggenberger urn process., Comment: 21 pages. Error in one term of the bound of the main theorem has been corrected, resulting in some changes to the bound for urn process

We define an analog of Plancherel measure for the set of rooted unlabeled trees on n vertices, and a Markov chain which has this measure as its stationary distribution. Using the combinatorics of commutation relations, we show that order n^2 steps are necessary and suffice for convergence to the stationary distribution., 13 pages

We present explicit upper bounds for the number and size of conjugacy classes in finite Chevalley groups and their variations. These results have been used by many authors to study zeta functions associated to representations of finite simple groups, random walks on Chevalley groups, the final solution to the Ore conjecture about commutators in finite simple groups and other similar problems. In this paper, we solve a strong version of the Boston-Shalev conjecture on derangements in simple groups for most of the families of primitive permutation group representations of finite simple groups (the remaining cases are settled in two other papers of the authors and applications are given in a third)., Comment: 53 pages

General Berry-Esseen bounds are developed for the exponential distribution using Stein's method. As an application, a sharp error term is obtained for Hora's result that the spectrum of the Bernoulli-Laplace Markov chain has an exponential limit. This is the first use of Stein's method to study the spectrum of a graph with a non-normal limit., 26 pages; this is a major revision, with an additional co-author (A. Rollin) and sharp bounds

Stein's method is used to prove limit theorems for random character ratios. Tools are developed for four types of structures: finite groups, Gelfand pairs, twisted Gelfand pairs, and association schemes. As one example an error term is obtained for a central limit theorem of Kerov on the spectrum of the Cayley graph of the symmetric group generated by i-cycles, or equivalently for the character ratio of a Plancherel distributed representation on an i-cycle. Other main examples include an error term for a central limit theorem of Ivanov on character ratios of random projective representations of the symmetric group, and a new central limit theorem for the spectrum of certain graphs whose vertices are the set of perfect matchings on 2n symbols. The error terms in the resulting limit theorems are typically O(n^{-1/4}) or better. The results are obtained with remarkably little information: a character formula for a single representation close to the trivial representation and estimates on two step transition probabilities of a random walk. Although the limit theorems stated in this paper are all for the case of normal approximation, many of the tools developed are quite general. Indeed, both the construction of an exchangeable pair used for Stein's method and lemmas computing certain moments are useful for arbitrary distributional approximation., Comment: 52 pages

Motivated by Bourque and Pevzner's simulation study of the parsimony method for studying genome rearrangement, Berestycki and Durrett used techniques from random graph theory to prove that the minimum parsimony distance after iterating the random transposition shuffle undergoes a transition from Poisson to normal behavior. This paper establishes an analogous result for minimum parsimony distance after iterates of riffle shuffles or iterates of riffle shuffles and cuts. The analysis is elegant and uses different tools: Stein's method and generating functions. A useful technique which emerges is that of making a problem more tractable by adding extra symmetry, then using Stein's method to exploit the symmetry in the modified problem, and from this deducing information about the original problem., Comment: 23 pages

We investigate the proportion of fixed point free permutations (derangements) in finite transitive permutation groups. This article is the first in a series where we prove a conjecture of Shalev that the proportion of such elements is bounded away from zero for a simple finite group. In fact, there are much stronger results. This article focuses on finite Chevalley groups of bounded rank. We also discuss derangements in algebraic groups and in more general primitive groups. These results have applications in questions about probabilistic generation of finite simple groups and maps between varieties over finite fields., Comment: To appear in Proceedings of Durham Conference on Groups, Geometry, and Combinatorics (2001)

Connections between longest increasing subsequences in random permutations and eigenvalues of random matrices with complex entries have been intensely studied. This note applies properties of random elements of the finite general linear group to obtain results about the longest increasing subsequence in non- uniform random permutations., Results for longest decreasing subsequence are added

Using symmetric function theory, we study the cycle structure and increasing subsequence structure of permutations after various shuffling methods, emphasizing the role of Cauchy type identities and the Robinson-Schensted-Knuth correspondence. One consequence is a cycle index for riffle shuffles when one deals from the bottom of the deck; conclusions are drawn concerning the distribution of fixed points and the asymptotic distribution of cycle structure. In studying cycle structure of unimodal permutations and their generalizations we are led to an interesting variation of the RSK correspondence. This yields a probabilistic interpretation of a Schur-type function., parts I,II have been merged to one paper; a few remarks added about top to random, riffle shuffles, long cycles

Using representation theoretic work on the Whitehouse module, a formula is obtained for the cycle structure of a riffle shuffle followed by a cut. This result will be merged with the paper [F6]., Very minor revisions; fix typos and add in asymptotics

The asymptotic probability theory of conjugacy classes of the finite general linear and unitary groups leads to a probability measure on the set of all partitions of natural numbers. A simple method of understanding these measures in terms of Markov chains is given and compared with work on the uniform measure. Elementary probabilistic proofs of the Rogers-Ramanujan identities follow. As a corollary, the main case of Bailey's lemma is interpreted as finding eigenvectors of the transition matrix of the Markov chain. It is shown that the viewpoint of Markov chains extends to quivers., Comment: Final version, to appear in Bull LMS. The one math change is to fix a typo in the limit in Corollary 2. We also make two historical corrections

The asymptotic study of the conjugacy classes of a random element of the finite affine group leads one to define a probability measure on the set of all partitions of all positive integers. Four different probabilistic understandings of this measure are given--three using symmetric function theory and one using Markov chains. This leads to non-trivial enumerative results. Cycle index generating functions are derived and are used to compute the large dimension limiting probabilities that an element of the affine group is separable, cyclic, or semisimple and to study the convergence to these limits. This yields the first examples of such computations for a maximal parabolic subgroup of a finite classical group., Comment: Revised version, to appear in J. Algebra. A few typos are fixed; no substantive changes

We consider potential theory on Bratteli diagrams arising from Macdonald polynomials. The case of Hall-Littlewood polynomials is particularly interesting; the elements of the diagram are partitions, the branching multiplicities are integers, the combinatorial dimensions are Green's polynomials, and the Jordan form of a randomly chosen unipotent upper triangular matrix over a finite field gives rise to a harmonic function. The case of Schur functions yields natural deformations of the Young lattice and Plancharel measure. Many harmonic functions are constructed and algorithms for sampling from the underlying probability measures are given.

Random walk on the chambers of hyperplanes arrangements is used to define a family of card shuffling measures $H_{W,x}$ for a finite Coxeter group W and real $x \neq 0$. By algebraic group theory, there is a map from the semisimple orbits of the adjoint action of a finite group of Lie type on its Lie algebra to the conjugacy classes of the Weyl group. Choosing such a semisimple orbit uniformly at random thereby induces a probability measure on the conjugacy classes of the Weyl group. For types A, B, and the identity conjugacy class of W for all types, it is proved that for q very good, this measure on conjugacy classes is equal to the measure arising from $H_{W,q}$., Added new section and example

The eigenvalue spacing of a uniformly chosen random finite unipotent matrix in its permutation action on lines is studied. We obtain bounds for the mean number of eigenvalues lying in a fixed arc of the unit circle and offer an approach toward other asymptotics. For the case of all unipotent matrices, the proof gives a probabilistic interpretation to identities of Macdonald from symmetric function theory. For the case of upper triangular matrices over a finite field, connections between symmetric function theory and a probabilistic growth algorithm of Borodin emerge..

Two notions of riffle shuffling on finite Coxeter groups are given: one using Solomon's descent algebra and another using random walk on chambers of hyperplane arrangements. These coincide for types $A$,$B$,$C$, $H_3$, and rank two groups. Both notions have the same, simple eigenvalues. The hyperplane definition is especially natural and satisfies a positivity property when $W$ is crystallographic and the relevant parameter is a good prime. The hyperplane viewpoint suggests interesting connections with Lie theory and leads to a notion of riffle shuffling for arbitrary real hyperplane arrangements and oriented matroids. Connections with Cellini's descent algebra are given.

For W a finite Coxeter group, a formula is found for the size of W equivalence classes of subsets of a base. The proof is a case-by-case analysis using results and tables of Carter and Orlik/Solomon. As a corollary we obtain an alternating sum identity which generalizes a well-known identity from the theory of Coxeter groups., Comment: 6 pages

Generating functions for the number of commuting m-tuples in the symmetric groups are obtained. We define a natural sequence of ``orbifold Euler characteristics'' for a finite group G acting on a manifold X. Our definition generalizes the ordinary Euler characteristic of X/G and the string-theoretic orbifold Euler characteristic. Our formulae for commuting m-tuples underlie formulas that generalize the results of Macdonald and Hirzebruch-Hofer concerning the ordinary and string-theoretic Euler characteristics of symmetric products.

Let W be either the number of descents or inversions of a permutation. Stein's method is applied to show that W satisfies a central limit theorem with error rate n^(-1/2). The construction of an exchangeable pair (W,W') used in Stein's method is non-trivial and uses a non-reversible Markov chain., 9 pages; final version appearing in IMS Lecture Notes, Volume 46 "Stein's Method: Expository Lectures and Applications". Change in title, slightly better bounds and exposition, updated bibliography

Solomon's descent algebra is used to define a family of signed measures M(W,x) for a finite Coxeter group W and non-zero x. The measures corresponding to W of types A and B are known to arise from the theory of card shuffling and to be related to the Poincare-Birkhoff-Witt theorem and splittings of Hochschild homology. Formulas for these measures are obtained in special cases. The eigenvalues of the associated Markov chains are computed. By elementary algebraic group theory, choosing a random semisimple orbit on a Lie algebra corresponding to a finite group of Lie type G^F induces a measure on the conjugacy classes of the Weyl group W of G^F. It is conjectured that this measure on conjugacy classes is equal to the measure arising from M(W,q) (and further that M(W,q) is non-negative on all elements of W). This conjecture is proved for all types for the identity conjugacy class of W, and is confirmed for all conjugacy classes for W of types A, B, and C., Comment: 13 pages; minor changes, incorrect conjecture removed

The Macdonald symmetric functions are used to define measures on the set of all partitions of all integers. Probabilistic algorithms are given for growing partitions according to these measures. The case of Hall-Littlewood polynomials is related to the finite classical groups, and the corresponding algorithms simplify. The case of Schur functions leads to a $q$-analog of Plancharel measure, and a conditioned version of the corresponding algorithms yields generalizations of the hook walk of combinatorics., Comment: 30 pages