Total positivity from a kind of lattice paths

Yu-Jie Cui, Bao-Xuan Zhu

Published 2023-08-09Version 1

Total positivity of matrices is deeply studied and plays an important role in various branches of mathematics. The main purpose of this paper is to study total positivity of a matrix $M=[M_{n,k}]_{n,k}$ generated by the weighted lattice paths in $\mathbb{N}^2$ from the origin $(0,0)$ to the point $(k,n)$ consisting of types of steps: $(0,1)$ and $(1,t+i)$ for $0\leq i\leq \ell$, where each step $(0,1)$ from height~$n-1$ gets the weight~$b_n(\textbf{y})$ and each step $(1,t+i)$ from height~$n-t-i$ gets the weight $a_n^{(i)}(\textbf{x})$. Using an algebraic method, we prove that the $\textbf{x}$-total positivity of the weight matrix $[a_i^{(i-j)}(\textbf{x})]_{i,j}$ implies that of $M$. Furthermore, using the Lindstr\"{o}m-Gessel-Viennot lemma, we obtain that both $M$ and the Toeplitz matrix of each row sequence of $M$ with $t\geq1$ are $\textbf{x}$-totally positive under the following three cases respectively: (1) $\ell=1$, (2) $\ell=2$ and restrictions for $a_n^{(i)}$, (3) general $\ell$ and both $a^{(i)}_n$ and $b_n$ are independent of $n$. In addition, for the case (3), we show that the matrix $M$ is a Riordan array, present its explicit formula and prove total positivity of the Toeplitz matrix of the each column of $M$. In particular, from the results for Toeplitz-total positivity, we also obtain the P\'olya frequency and log-concavity of the corresponding sequence. Finally, as applications, we in a unified manner establish total positivity and the Toeplitz-total positivity for many well-known combinatorial triangles, including the Pascal triangle, the Pascal square, the Delannoy triangle, the Delannoy square, the signless Stirling triangle of the first kind, the Legendre-Stirling triangle of the first kind, the Jacobi-Stirling triangle of the first kind, the Brenti's recursive matrix, and so on.