Francois Bergeron

Written for graduate students in mathematics or non-specialist mathematicians who wish to learn the basics about some of the most important current research in the field, this book provides an intensive, yet accessible, introduction to the subject of algebraic combinatorics. After recalling basic notions of combinatorics, representation theory, and some commutative algebra, the main material provides links between the study of coinvariant—or diagonally coinvariant—spaces and the study of Macdonald polynomials and related operators. This gives rise to a large number of combinatorial questions relating to objects counted by familiar numbers such as the factorials, Catalan numbers, and the number of Cayley trees or parking functions. The author offers ideas for extending the theory to other families of finite Coxeter groups, besides permutation groups.

Written for graduate students in mathematics or non-specialist mathematicians who wish to learn the basics about some of the most important current research in the field, this book provides an intensive, yet accessible, introduction to the subject of algebraic combinatorics. After recalling basic notions of combinatorics, representation theory, and some commutative algebra, the main material provides links between the study of coinvariant—or diagonally coinvariant—spaces and the study of Macdonald polynomials and related operators. This gives rise to a large number of combinatorial questions relating to objects counted by familiar numbers such as the factorials, Catalan numbers, and the number of Cayley trees or parking functions. The author offers ideas for extending the theory to other families of finite Coxeter groups, besides permutation groups.

The combinatorial theory of species, introduced by Joyal in 1980, provides a unified understanding of the use of generating functions for both labelled and unlabelled structures and as a tool for the specification and analysis of these structures. Of particular importance is their capacity to transform recursive definitions of tree-like structures into functional or differential equations, and vice versa. The goal of this book is to present the basic elements of the theory and to give a unified account of its developments and applications. It offers a modern introduction to the use of various generating functions, with applications to graphical enumeration, Polya theory and analysis of data structures in computer science, and to other areas such as special functions, functional equations, asymptotic analysis and differential equations. This book will be a valuable reference to graduate students and researchers in combinatorics, analysis, and theoretical computer science.