Conjugating cyclic \(n\)-color compositions

Brian Hopkins1, Jesús Sistos Barrón2, Hua Wang3
1Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Saint Peter’s University, Jersey City NJ 07306 USA
2Department of Mathematics, University of Georgia, Athens GA 30602 USA
3Department of Mathematical Sciences, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro GA 30458 USA

Abstract

MacMahon extensively studied integer compositions, including the notion of conjugation. More recently, Agarwal introduced \(n\)-color compositions and their cyclic versions were considered by Gibson, Gray, and Wang. In this paper, we develop and study a conjugation rule for cyclic \(n\)-color compositions. Also, for fixed \(\ell\), we identify and enumerate the subset of self-conjugate compositions of \(\ell\), as well as establish a bijection between these and the set of cyclic regular compositions of \(\ell\) with only odd parts.

Keywords: integer compositions, n-color compositions, cyclic compositions, conjugation, combinatorial proofs