## Karola Mészáros ; Alejandro H. Morales - Flow polytopes and the Kostant partition function

dmtcs:3096 - Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science, January 1, 2012, DMTCS Proceedings vol. AR, 24th International Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC 2012) - https://doi.org/10.46298/dmtcs.3096
Flow polytopes and the Kostant partition function

Authors: Karola Mészáros ; Alejandro H. Morales

We establish the relationship between volumes of flow polytopes associated to signed graphs and the Kostant partition function. A special case of this relationship, namely, when the graphs are signless, has been studied in detail by Baldoni and Vergne using techniques of residues. In contrast with their approach, we provide combinatorial proofs inspired by the work of Postnikov and Stanley on flow polytopes. As an application of our results we study a distinguished family of flow polytopes: the Chan-Robbins-Yuen polytopes. Inspired by their beautiful volume formula $\prod_{k=0}^{n-2} Cat(k)$ for the type $A_n$ case, where $Cat(k)$ is the $k^{th}$ Catalan number, we introduce type $C_{n+1}$ and $D_{n+1}$ Chan-Robbins-Yuen polytopes along with intriguing conjectures about their volumes.

Volume: DMTCS Proceedings vol. AR, 24th International Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC 2012)
Section: Proceedings
Published on: January 1, 2012
Imported on: January 31, 2017
Keywords: Kostant partition function, flow polytopes, Chan-Robbins-Yuen polytope, Morris identity,[INFO.INFO-DM] Computer Science [cs]/Discrete Mathematics [cs.DM]