## Tsukerman, Emmanuel and Williams, Lauren and Sturmfels, Bernd - Symmetric matrices, Catalan paths, and correlations

dmtcs:6337 - Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science, April 22, 2020, DMTCS Proceedings, 28th International Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC 2016)
Symmetric matrices, Catalan paths, and correlations

Authors: Tsukerman, Emmanuel and Williams, Lauren and Sturmfels, Bernd

Kenyon and Pemantle (2014) gave a formula for the entries of a square matrix in terms of connected principal and almost-principal minors. Each entry is an explicit Laurent polynomial whose terms are the weights of domino tilings of a half Aztec diamond. They conjectured an analogue of this parametrization for symmetric matrices, where the Laurent monomials are indexed by Catalan paths. In this paper we prove the Kenyon-Pemantle conjecture, and apply this to a statistics problem pioneered by Joe (2006). Correlation matrices are represented by an explicit bijection from the cube to the elliptope.

Volume: DMTCS Proceedings, 28th International Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC 2016)
Published on: April 22, 2020
Submitted on: July 4, 2016
Keywords: Combinatorics,[MATH.MATH-CO]Mathematics [math]/Combinatorics [math.CO]