A graph-theoretic remark on Stieltjes moment sequences

Abstract

For any integer $k\geq 1,$ define $L_k: \mathbb{R}^\mathbb{N}\to \mathbb{R}^\mathbb{N}$ by $(a_n)_{n\in\mathbb{N}}\mapsto (a'_n)_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ where $a'_n=\det(a_{n+i+j})_{i,j=0}^{k-1}$. Previously, Zhu showed that $L_k$ preserves the Stieltjes moment (SM) property of sequences (Proc. Am. Math. Soc., 2019). The proof used the characterization of SM sequences in terms of positive semidefinite Hankel matrices. In this note, we give another proof by viewing SM sequences as weighted enumerations of closed walks on $\mathbb{N}$. Our proof is essentially a double-counting argument that views a $k$-tuple of non-crossing Dyck paths as a single closed walk on some bipartite subgraph of $\mathbb{N}^k.$