Whitney Twins, Whitney Duals, and Operadic Partition Posets

Abstract

We say that a pair of nonnegative integer sequences $(\{a_k\}_{k\geq 0},\{b_k\}_{k\geq 0})$ is Whitney-realizable if there exists a poset $P$ for which (the absolute values) of the Whitney numbers of the first and second kind are given by the numbers $a_k$ and $b_k$ respectively. The pair is said to be Whitney-dualizable if, in addition, there exists another poset $Q$ for which their Whitney numbers of the first and second kind are instead given by $b_k$ and $a_k$ respectively. In this case, we say that $P$ and $Q$ are Whitney duals. We use results on Whitney duality, recently developed by the first two authors, to exhibit a family of sequences which allows for multiple realizations and Whitney-dual realizations. More precisely, we study edge labelings for the families of posets of pointed partitions $\Pi_n^{\bullet}$ and weighted partitions $\Pi_n^{w}$ which are associated to the operads $\mathcal{P}erm$ and $\mathcal{C}om^2$ respectively. The first author and Wachs proved that these two families of posets share the same pair of Whitney numbers. We find EW-labelings for $\Pi_n^{\bullet}$ and $\Pi_n^{w}$ and use them to show that they also share multiple nonisomorphic Whitney dual posets. In addition to EW-labelings, we also find two new EL-labelings for $\Pi_n^\bullet$ answering a question of Chapoton and Vallette. Using these EL-labelings of $\Pi_n^\bullet$, and an EL-labeling of $\Pi_n^w$ introduced by the first author and Wachs, we give combinatorial descriptions of bases for the operads $\mathcal{P}re\mathcal{L}ie, \mathcal{P}erm,$ and $\mathcal{C}om^2$. We also show that the bases for $\mathcal{P}erm$ and $\mathcal{C}om^2$ are PBW bases.