Binary partition Created 2026-10-20 Updated 2026-10-31
An integer partition in which every part is a power of two. Its generating function is , because the factor indexed by chooses the multiplicity of the part .
Bulgarian solitaire 2026-10-20
A move removes one counter from each nonempty pile and forms a new pile from the removed counters. Thus the move acts on an integer partition of a fixed total.
A complex nilpotent matrix of size six is determined up to matrix similarity by its matrix rank and nilpotency index. Its Nilpotent Jordan block sizes form an integer partition of six. If there are blocks and the largest size is , then its matrix rank is and its minimal polynomial is . The eleven possible size lists areNo two have the same pair , which proves the assertion by Jordan normal form. The dimension restriction matters: in size seven, block lists and both have matrix rank four and minimal polynomial , but give different Jordan normal forms.
Pad a partition in a rectangle with zero rows until it has entries, and put . The complementary rotated diagram has row lengths . This is again a partition in a rectangle, and its size is . Repeating the operation recovers the original integer partition, so it gives a bijection between diagrams of size and diagrams of size . Consequently the coefficients of the Gaussian polynomial read the same in either direction. The displayed identity can be interpreted as an identity of Laurent polynomials; it does not require substituting at .
For the two-by-two rectangle, the empty diagram pairs with , and pairs with ; and each map to themselves. This establishes symmetry, while unimodality of Gaussian binomial coefficients is a stronger statement about the growth and decrease of successive coefficients.
Composition of an integer Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-20
A composition of an integer is an ordered tuple of positive integers with sum . Its length counts the parts. For example, and are different compositions of an integer, though they give the same integer partition. Stars and bars counts compositions of an integer with fixed length. [ref]
https://math.mit.edu/~fgotti/docs/Courses/C.%20Combinatorial%20Analysis/6.%20Compositions/Compositions.pdf. Gotti, Lecture 6, definition of a composition
Durfee square 2026-10-20
The largest square of cells in the upper-left corner of a Young diagram. For an integer partition , its side length is .
Ferrers diagram Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-20
A Ferrers diagram of an integer partition is a left-aligned array of dots with dots in row , using the longest row at the top here. Replacing each dot by a square cell gives a Young diagram. Reading the column lengths gives the conjugate partition.[ref]
Enumerative Combinatorics, Volume 1 (second-edition draft) by Richard Stanley. section 1.7, Ferrers and Young diagrams
Hook-content formula 2026-10-20
For an integer partition , , where is the cell's hook length. It counts Semistandard Young tableaux of shape whose entries belong to .
Integer partition Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-14
An integer partition of a nonnegative integer is a multiset of positive integers whose sum is : repetitions matter, but the order of the summands does not. Equivalently, write its parts in decreasing order, allowing equality:The notation says that is an integer partition of . The partition count counts all integer partitions of , with any number of parts. Zero has one empty integer partition, so . The partition of an integer article develops the same objects in representation theory of the symmetric group.[ref]
Enumerative Combinatorics, Volume 1 (second-edition draft) by Richard Stanley. section 1.7, definitions of partitions and diagrams
Computed example. The seven integer partitions of five are exactlyThus . Sorting each list of positive summands into decreasing order prevents repetitions in this enumeration. Grouping by largest part verifies completeness: largest parts contribute respectively possibilities. For largest part , the remaining is either or ; for largest part , the remaining uses only and , giving or .
All seven integer partitions of five, drawn as Ferrers diagrams: each row has as many dots as its part
. Details. An integer partition keeps sizes without named positions. The compositions of an integer and are different tuples, but sorting either gives the same integer partition . A weak composition of an integer also retains its empty first position; dropping its zero and sorting gives that same integer partition. Conversely, a set partition records which distinct elements belong to each block. For example, the set partitions and differ even though both have the same integer partition of block sizes.
The Ferrers diagram makes an integer partition into a shape. For , the column lengths are : exchanging rows and columns gives its conjugate partition . Exchanging again recovers , so this operation is a bijection. In particular, the three integer partitions of five with at most two parts are , , and ; their conjugate partitions , , and are precisely the three with largest part at most two. This visible symmetry explains the equal counts for these two restrictions. The square-cell version is the existing Young diagram.
Counting by a generating function. An integer partition is determined by its multiplicities , the number of parts equal to . Its size condition is . Consequently its ordinary generating function isProof outline. Choose the term from the th geometric series. The product contributes exactly when those multiplicities describe an integer partition of , once for each such integer partition. As a formal power series, each coefficient is determined by finitely many factors: factors with contribute only their constant term to the coefficient of . For , multiplication through gives up to degree five, independently recovering . Restricting the factors gives the generating function for partitions with bounded parts. This is useful because restrictions on summands become choices of factors, while conjugate partitions turn restrictions on numbers of rows into restrictions on row lengths.[ref]
Enumerative Combinatorics, Volume 1 (second-edition draft) by Richard Stanley. section 1.8, conjugation and partition generating functions
Monomial symmetric function 2026-10-14
For an integer partition , sums the distinct monomials whose positive exponent multiset is . No multiplicity is attached to repeated parts. The functions of fixed total degree form a basis of the symmetric functions of that degree, since finite variable permutations identify precisely these monomial orbits.
Partition in a rectangle Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-20
An integer partition whose Young diagram has at most rows and at most cells per row. Zeros may pad the list of row lengths. The partition interpretation of Gaussian binomial coefficients counts these diagrams by their number of cells.
The Young diagrams of partitions in a rectangle with at most rows and at most cells in each row correspond to the lattice paths in the lattice-path interpretation of Gaussian binomial coefficients. Read the shaded row lengths from top to bottom; the result is a nonincreasing list of nonnegative integers. This bijection preserves the number of cells.
In a two-by-two rectangle, the possibilities are the empty integer partition, , , , , and . Their sizes are , giving . In particular, there are two allowed diagrams of size two, explaining the middle coefficient.[ref]
Partition into distinct parts 2026-10-31
An integer partition with no repeated part. For example, the partitions into distinct parts of are , , and . If counts those with all parts at most , separating those that omit from those that use it exactly once givesfor , with , for , and negative remaining sums counted as zero. Removing the unique part gives a bijection proving the second term; retaining the same maximum there would instead allow repetitions.
For an integer partition , its Young diagram has left-justified cells in row . A Young tableau of shape is a filling of its cells. Under the usual standard numbering convention, a standard Young tableau uses each integer once and increases strictly along every row and down every column. For a different fixed ordered set of distinct labels, the same inequalities define the corresponding ordered-label version, which becomes standard after replacing its labels by their ranks.
If the cycle partition contains a part , the Murnaghan–Nakayama rule isA border strip is a connected skew Young diagram with no block; its height is its number of occupied rows minus one. The remaining boxes must be a partition diagram. The recursion starts with character one for the empty diagram at the empty cycle type, and an empty sum is zero. Repeated removal for all cycle lengths computes the character value.
Write the hook cycle partition as , . At the identity, the representation dimension is : a standard tableau of shape is determined by the entry in its top-right box, any one of .
For , the only removable border strip of length is the vertical bottom strip. Its height is , and the remaining hook has size and dimension . A strip of length would leave the top-left box but disconnect the removed top-right box from the removed column, so none exists and the value is zero. For , the whole hook is a border strip of height and contributes . These cases combine asIn particular the formula includes zero at and the full-cycle sign at .
The two partition diagrams are transposes, so their characteristic-zero Specht modules differ by tensoring with the sign representation. A transposition has sign minus one. ConsequentlyThe middle character is , since the standard representation is the point-permutation representation minus its trivial line, and a transposition fixes points.
The stabilizer of an ordered pair is the subgroup fixing both entries, so the permutation module is . Induce in two stages through . The first stage is . The characteristic-zero induction branching rule for a symmetric group adds one box in every possible partition position, with multiplicity one. Thus the two second-stage decompositions areBy transitivity of induction this yieldsThe dimensions are , , and , whose sum is , checking the decomposition also at .
Give the invariant symmetric bilinear form for which its tabloid basis is orthonormal. DefineIn characteristic , this quotient is nonzero and simple when is -regular, meaning that no part occurs or more times. For other partitions it is zero, so the label “simple module” includes the nonzero/-regular qualification.
The James submodule theorem states that for every -submodule , either or . Applied to submodules of , it says that every proper submodule lies in the radical of the restricted form, giving the simplicity of the displayed nonzero quotient.
By Jordan normal form, each complex nilpotent matrix of size six can be put by matrix similarity into a block diagonal matrix whose Nilpotent Jordan blocks have sizesA Nilpotent Jordan block of size has matrix rank and minimal polynomial . Therefore, for the whole matrix,Thus the given matrix rank determines the number of Jordan blocks, and the given minimal polynomial determines the largest size . For size six these two data determine the entire integer partition. Here is the complete list, arranged by the largest size:To see that the list is exhaustive, choose the largest part between one and six and partition the remainder into parts at most . The resulting rows all have distinct pairs . Hence and have the same Jordan normal form .
Explicitly, choose invertible matrices such that and . ThenThis proves matrix similarity and illustrates the classification of six-dimensional nilpotent matrices by rank and nilpotency index.
