KAIST Discrete Math Seminar

A permutation tableau is a relatively new combinatorial object introduced by Postnikov in his study of totally nonnegative Grassmanian. As one can guess from its name, permutation tableaux are in bijection with permutations. Surprisingly, there is also a connection between permutation tableaux and a statistical physics model called PASEP (partially asymmetric exclusion process). In this talk, we study some combinatorial properties of permutation tableaux. One of our result is a sign-imbalace formula for permutation tableaux which is very similar to the sign-imbalace formula for standard Young tableaux conjectured by Stanley.