Hook coefficients of chromatic functions

Abstract

The chromatic symmetric function of a graph is a generalization of the chromatic polynomial. The key motivation for studying the structure of a chromatic symmetric function is to answer positivity conjectures by Stanley in 1995 and Gasharov in 1996. As a symmetric function one can write the chromatic symmetric function in the basis of Schur functions. In this paper we address the positivity of the Schur coefficients when the parameter of the Schur function is a hook shape. Furthermore, when a graph is the incomparability graph of a poset with specific properties we construct a correspondence between acyclic orientations of the graph and P-tableaux with a hook shape.