Papers

A graph with Laplacian matrix $L$ is called Laplacian integral if the eigenvalues of $L$ are all integers, and it is called $\{-1,0,1\}$-diagonalizable if $L$ has a full set of eigenvectors with entries from $\{-1,0,1\}$. We herein develop a structure theorem for both Laplacian integral graphs and $\{-1,0,1\}$-diagonalizable graphs of prime order, and combine it with some novel computational techniques to characterize all such graphs for orders larger than was previously possible. For example, we enumerate all Laplacian integral and $\{-1,0,1\}$-diagonalizable graphs of order $13$ or less, all $\{-1,0,1\}$-diagonalizable graphs of prime order $23$ or less, all regular integral graphs of order $15$ or less, and all regular $\{-1,0,1\}$-diagonalizable graphs of prime order $53$ or less. As an immediate byproduct of our work, we show that the $S_{n,n}$ conjecture for Laplacian integral graphs is true when $n = 12$, thus making $n = 16$ the smallest open case; additionally, we disprove two related conjectures regarding Laplacian spectra. We also establish an exponential lower bound on the number of connected $\{-1,0,1\}$-diagonalizable graphs of order $n$, thus beating the previously best-known (subexponential) lower bound. Finally, we show that every bipartite $\{-1,0,1\}$-diagonalizable graph is regular (a fact that fails to generalize to Laplacian integral graphs).

We prove equality conditions for the Ahlswede–Daykin (AD) inequality and the Fortuin–Kasteleyn–Ginibre (FKG) inequality. We then present a number of applications and special cases of these equality conditions. These include Björner's and Fishburn's inequalities for linear extensions of finite posets, the Lam–Postnikov–Pylyavskyy (LPP) and the Okounkov inequalities for Schur positivity of products of Schur functions. We conclude with equality conditions for the Ahlswede–Daykin–Schur (ADS) inequality recently introduced in Chan–Chen–Pak–Soskin (2026), which is an AD type extension of the LPP inequality.

We define an involution $h$ on Catalan structures through an abstract framework, prove an equidistribution theorem for four canonical statistics and present a generating function carrying these. This framework encompasses all combinatorial structures with a decomposition mirroring the first-return decomposition of Dyck paths. The fixed points of~$h$ are counted by Catalan numbers. Canonical bijections transport the equidistribution to eight well known concrete families, identifying the canonical statistics with native ones on each. In addition to its primary structure, each Catalan structure has a derived secondary structure, and $h$~interchanges primary and secondary structure. The involution factors as $h = \rev \circ \corev \circ \rev$, where $\rev$ and $\corev$ are two simpler involutions, and the composition $M = h \circ \rev$ coincides with Donaghey's automorphism on plane trees. This yields $M^{-1} = \rev \circ M \circ \rev$ and a period theorem: Iterating the secondary structure construction produces a sequence that repeats with period equal to the order of~$M$. It is an open problem to describe $h$ and the canonical statistics explicitly on most of the more than two hundred known families of Catalan structures.

A drawing of a graph is {\em $x$-monotone} if every vertical line intersects each edge of the graph at most once. We present an $O(n^5)$ time algorithm for deciding whether a simple drawing of the complete graph $K_n$ is weakly isomorphic to an $x$-monotone drawing. We note that this algorithm can also decide whether a drawing of $K_n$ is strongly isomorphic to an $x$-monotone drawing.

The study of matroid products has become an active area of research, owing to their connections with tropical ideals and linear representability. In this paper, we study matroidal abstractions of the multilinearity of symmetric powers of vector spaces, using a duality between symmetric powers of matroids and abstract rigidity. These observations allow us to solve Mason's conjecture concerning the equivalence of two definitions of a symmetric power of a matroid. We show that Mason's conjecture holds for second symmetric powers of matroids whereas it fails for third symmetric powers.

We show that several apparently different aspects of a permutation are all tied to a single quantity, the cyclomatic number of its inversion graph. Every reduced word for the permutation orders the edges of the inversion graph one at a time, with the edges from first-occurrence letters forming a spanning forest and the edges from repeated letters accounting for the rest; the number of repeated letters is therefore the cyclomatic number. The excess of permutation cycles over sum components is also at most this quantity, and it follows that the gap between the Coxeter and reflection lengths is at least the cyclomatic number and at most twice it. When the inversion graph is a forest, these results unify classical characterizations of the boolean permutations due to Edelman, to Tenner, and to Petersen and Tenner. We also give a new proof that every connected acyclic inversion graph is a caterpillar.

We prove a wall-crossing formula for the Euler characteristics, considered as virtual mixed Hodge structures, of moduli spaces of $\varepsilon$-stable quasimaps to the Grassmannian $\mathbb{G}(r, N)$. For each $\varepsilon > 0$, we define a $\mathbb{Q}$-algebra automorphism of the ring of symmetric functions which takes the generating function for the $\mathbb{S}_n$-equivariant Euler characteristics of the moduli spaces of stable maps $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{g, n}(\mathbb{G}(r, N), d)$ to the corresponding generating function for Toda's moduli spaces of $\varepsilon$-stable quasimaps $\overline{\mathcal{Q}}_{g, n}^{\varepsilon}(\mathbb{G}(r, N), d)$. The automorphism is given by explicit $q$-deformations of the power sum symmetric functions. The $\varepsilon \to 0$ limit of our formula exchanges the spaces of stable maps and the Marian–Oprea–Pandharipande moduli spaces of stable quotients. Our proof uses the geometry of relative Quot schemes to relate the quasimap spaces to moduli spaces of weighted stable maps, for which we obtain wall-crossing formulas via symmetric function theory.

Levenshtein's sequence reconstruction model plays an essential role in information retrieval of advanced memory systems, such as the DNA-based storage systems. In the model, a word $\mathbf{x}\in\mathbb{Z}_q^n$ is transmitted through $N$ noisy channels, and the goal is to recover it. Errors occurring in the channels usually involve substitutions, insertions and deletions. Our focus is on insertions. One of the main questions in this context is determining the minimum number of channels $N$ required to recover the transmitted word $\mathbf{x}$. The original formulation of the reconstruction problem requires that all the output words from the channels are distinct. However, different insertion errors may lead to the same output words. In this paper, we investigate two reconstruction models where the channels are allowed to produce identical output words even though different insertion errors occur in the channels. These two models, called the multiset model and non-multiset model, generalize the Levenshtein's model. We denote the minimum number of channels required to unambiguously recover the transmitted word $\mathbf{x}\in\mathbb{Z}_q^n$ by $N_q^m(n,t)+1$ in the multiset model and $N_q^{nm}(n,t)+1$ in the non-multiset model, where $t$ is the exact number of insertions occurring in a channel. We determine $N_q^m(n,1)$ and $N_q^{nm}(n,1)$ for all $n$ and $q$, and show the somewhat surprising fact that $N_q^m(n,1)=N_q^{nm}(n,1)$. We also provide a full characterization of the words attaining this value and give a general lower bound on $N_q^m(n,t)$ for $t\ge1$ and a recursive upper bound. For $t=1$, we construct codes $C'\subseteq\mathbb{Z}_q^{n+2}$ from codes $C\subseteq\mathbb{Z}_q^n$ such that the number of channels required to determine the transmitted word $\mathbf{x}\in C'$ is small. This construction is shown to be optimal for certain parameters.

Holmsen proved in 2016 a generalization of the classical colorful Caratheodory theorem in which a matroid imposes additional constraints on the desired colorful transversal. His approach also works in the more general setting of oriented matroids, rather than relying directly on convex hulls. In this paper, we extend these ideas in several directions. First, we study which colorful Caratheodory-type results remain valid when convex cones replace convex hulls, as well as analogous modifications in the oriented matroid setting. Second, we consider variants in which the additional constraint on the transversal is not encoded by a matroid. This leads to new extensions of the classical Tverberg theorem. Our approach is topological, following the methods of Holmsen, and Kalai and Meshulam, on which it builds. The key idea is to analyze homology groups of simplicial complexes that encode colorful Caratheodory-type phenomena, such as the support complex of an oriented matroid. In particular, one shows that these complexes are (near-)d-Leray. We extend this analysis by carrying out more detailed homology computations for these complexes, with the aim of enabling further and more refined applications of the method.

Let $H$ be an inclusion-free hypergraph on $n$ vertices. A weight assignment $w:[n]\to[d]$ is isolating if there is a unique edge $e$ whose weight $w(e) = \sum_{i \in e} w(i)$ is minimum. We show that the number of isolating weight assignments is at least $$ n\sum_{j=0}^{d-1} j^{n-1}, $$ a bound which is attained with equality by the hypergraph consisting of the $n$ singleton edges. This proves the conjecture stated in Faber & Harris (2018). We also prove the bound for a more general class of edge-weight objectives, including arbitrary edge offsets.

Let $R_m$ be the least positive integer $r$ such that there exists a set $A\subseteq \mathbb{Z}_{m}$ with $A+A=\mathbb{Z}_m$ for which the number of ordered solutions of $n=x+y$ with $x,y\in A$ is at most $r$ for every $n\in \mathbb{Z}_m$. In this note we prove that $R_m\leqslant 128$ for every positive integer $m$, improving the previous bound $R_m\leqslant 192$.

Fix a positive integer $n$, and put $B_d=\{d,2d,\ldots,nd\}$. Let $M_k(n)$ be the least integer $m$ for which one translate of each of $B_1,\ldots,B_k$ can be placed pairwise disjointly in $[m]$. We prove that, for every $\eps\in(0,1)$ and all sufficiently large $k$, one has $M_k(n)\le n\lceil(1+\eps)k\rceil$. Since the trivial counting bound gives $M_k(n)\ge nk$, it follows that $M_k(n)=(1+o(1))nk$ for every fixed $n$. This confirms a conjecture of Alon, Dębski, Grytczuk and Przybyło on prescribed-difference packings of fixed-cardinality arithmetic progressions.

Let $S(G)$ denote the Seidel matrix of a simple graph $G$, and let $E_S(G)$ be the Seidel energy of $G$, defined as the sum of the absolute values of the eigenvalues of $S(G)$. In this paper, we study the change of Seidel energy under edge deletion. For an independent-set blow-up graph $G=H[n_1,\ldots,n_p]$, we establish a general structural criterion within the framework of independent-set blow-up graphs. More precisely, if the endpoints of the deleted edge $e$ belong to blow-up parts of sizes $n_a$ and $n_b$, respectively, then $E_S(G-e)>E_S(G)$ whenever both $n_a,n_b$ are at least $4$, or one is $3$ and the other is at least $6$, or one is $2$ and the other is at least $15$. As applications, we obtain the following consequences. First, for every Turán graph $T(n,r)$ with $r\geq4$ and $n\geq4r$, deleting any edge strictly increases the Seidel energy. Second, for complete multipartite graphs, we derive an exact reduced-order spectral criterion for the remaining cases not covered by the structural result. This criterion determines whether the Seidel energy increases, decreases, or remains unchanged after deleting an edge, by using matrices whose orders depend only on the number of partite sets. These results provide affirmative answers to two problems proposed by Tian et al. [Linear and Multilinear Algebra 70 (19) (2022), 4597–4614].

We study a generalization of the star coloring problem on hypergraphs. For a family of connected subhypergraphs $\mathcal{F}$, we define an $\mathcal{F}$-coloring of a hypergraph as a coloring avoiding monochromatic hyperedges and any 2-colored member of $\mathcal{F}$. We let $\chi^r_{\mathcal{F}}(d)$ be the maximum of the minimum number of colors needed for an $\mathcal{F}$-coloring of an $r$-uniform hypergraph with maximum degree $d.$ We show bounds for $\chi^r_{\mathcal{F}}(d)$, that also yield results on star and acyclic coloring problem on hypergraphs.

The third problem in Ben Green's collection of 100 open problems asks whether an open subset of $(0,1)$ that does not contain $x,y,z$ with $xy=z$ must have measure at most 1/3. We give an affirmative answer to this question. As part of the proof we obtain a result of independent interest that gives a lower bound for the size of the sumset and the difference set of a set of reals in terms not just of its size but also of a parameter that measures how far it is from being an interval.

For a free $\mathbb{Z}_2$-space $X$, the co-index $\mathrm{coind}(X)$ is the largest integer $m$ for which there exists a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-equivariant map $S^m \to X$, where $S^m$ carries the antipodal action. Since suspension sends such a map to a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-equivariant map $S^{m+1}\to S(X),$ one always has $$\mathrm{coind}(S(X)) \geq \mathrm{coind}(X)+1.$$ We prove that the excess over this lower bound can be arbitrarily large. More precisely, for every $n \geq 2$, we construct a finite free $n$-dimensional simplicial $\mathbb{Z}_2$-complex $\mathcal{K}$ such that $\mathrm{coind}(\mathcal{K})=1$ and $\mathrm{coind}(S(\mathcal{K}))=n+1$. This answers a question of Simonyi, Tardos, and Vrécica on the possible growth of co-index under suspension and, equivalently, shows that the co-index lower bound on the chromatic number of a graph $G$ obtained from $B_0(G)$ can exceed the corresponding bound obtained from the box complex $B(G)$ by an arbitrarily large amount.

This paper introduces, analyzes, and applies variants of the enumeration framework symmetric lexicographic symmetric-subset reverse search for the enumeration of symmetric feasible subsets of a finite set up to symmetry. The framework is implemented in detail for three applications: cocircuits, circuits, and triangulations of point configurations. There are two new methods presented and analyzed to check the lexicographic minimality of a subset in its orbit: the critical-element method and the modified switch-table method. Moreover, new application-dependent methods to reduce the number of necessary enumeration nodes are introduced: rank-pruning for cocircuits and lex-pruning for triangulations. With a C++-implementation of the ideas in the software package TOPCOM, in all three applications known benchmarks can be computed faster by a large margin. The following new numbers could be computed for the first time (among others): the number of cocircuits of the 9-cube, the number of circuits of the 8-cube, and the number of all triangulations of the product of a 5- and a 3-simplex, as well as the number of all triangulations of a point configuration in dimension six with 17~points with disconnected flip-graph (constructed by Santos). Moreover, for Santos's triangulation it has computationally been checked that its flip-graph component is indeed purely non-regular. Furthermore, in another instance in dimension five with 26 points (also constructed by Santos), a flaw has been detected: Santos's triangulation can be heuristically flipped to a regular triangulation in the original point configuration. In a mildly modified version of the point configuration, the heuristics cannot flip Santos's triangulation to a regular triangulation anymore.

Recently, Chudnovsky, Cook, Davies, Oum, and Tan obtained the first finite bound on the chromatic number of t-perfect graphs, showing that they are 199053-colorable. We improve this bound to 186 by refining their proof. The original proof establishes that every graph with large odd girth and large chromatic number contains a certain structure called an r-arithmetic rope, and that its existence in a certain leveling of a graph with large odd girth would imply an odd wheel as a t-minor, a known obstruction of t-perfectness. While their technique requires a lower bound on the chromatic number that is exponential in r, we show that the existence of an r-arithmetic rope can already be guaranteed under a linear bound. Using a slightly weakened notion of arithmetic ropes allows us to reduce the bound even further.

The Ramsey community number $r_k$ is the smallest size at which a network is better described by communities than by none, under a Bayesian detection rule. On the diamond hierarchical lattice we show that $r_k$ is an exact renormalization-group crossing: the block-model sufficient statistics obey a linear map with eigenvalues $\{bs,b\}$, the degree-corrected evidence density flows to $\ln K$ at a community fixed point, and $r_k$ is the generation at which the running evidence clears the detection threshold. Degree correction advances detection by two generations. We derive $r_k(b,s;q)$ in closed form for the whole family. Finally, placing on the lattice the Reichardt–Bornholdt community Hamiltonian – whose ground state is the partition itself – we find an exact community-ordered phase: below the ferromagnetic critical temperature the two hubs lock into opposite communities for any resolution $\gamma>0$, a staggered order that persists as $n\to\infty$. Allowing each nested sub-community its own label, the optimal partition is a hierarchy of $q_{\rm opt}\sim\sqrt{n}$ communities, so the number of Potts states that best describes the network grows with the network. This hierarchy orders thermally level by level, through a cascade of first-order transitions whose temperatures fall as $1/\ln q$, so every stable level persists as $n\to\infty$: the emergent partition is detectable, optimal, and thermodynamically ordered.

Let \(q\) be an odd prime power and let \(V=\F_q^{2m}\), equipped with \(Q(x)=x_1^2+\cdots+x_{2m}^2\). We develop a semidefinite Delsarte framework for the two-set Erdős–Falconer distance problem over \(V\). The framework reduces the natural \(q^m\)-scale positive-proportion theorem to a uniform \(L^1\) anti-concentration statement for positive convex combinations of classical Kloosterman sums. Assuming this Kloosterman anti-concentration conjecture, we prove that, for every \(0<\alpha<\frac12\), there exists a constant \(C_{m,\alpha}\) such that \[ \min\{|E|,|F|\}\ge C_{m,\alpha}q^m \quad\Longrightarrow\quad |\Delta_Q^\times(E,F)|>\alpha(q-1) \] for all \(E,F\subset\F_q^{2m}\). More generally, a \(q^{-\theta}\)-level version of the Kloosterman input yields the geometric threshold \(q^{m+\theta}\). Unconditionally, we establish a uniform \(q^{-\frac13}\)-level \(L^1\) lower bound whenever the support has size at most \(\alpha(q-1)\), with \(0<\alpha<\frac12\). Consequently, \[ \min\{|E|,|F|\}\ge C_{m,\alpha}q^{m+\frac13} \quad\Longrightarrow\quad |\Delta_Q^\times(E,F)|>\alpha(q-1). \] The proof uses positive semidefinite \(2\times2\) Gram matrices on quadratic frequency shells, the shell Fourier transform in even dimension, and a minimax separation argument that produces a uniform signed combination of Kloosterman columns. We also provide evidence for the constant-scale Kloosterman conjecture and discuss its limitations near full support.

Given a graph $L$, the maximal anti-Ramsey function $\chiS(n,e,L)$ denotes the minimum integer $\chiS$ for which there exists an $n$-vertex graph $G$ with at least $e$ edges admitting an edge-coloring with $\chiS$ colors in which each copy of $L$ in $G$ is rainbow. In 1989, Burr, Erdős, Graham, and Sós posed the following problem: Is it true that for all $\epsilon>0$, there exists $c(\epsilon)>0$ such that for all sufficiently large $n$, $ \chiS\left(n,\binom{n}{2}-\lfloor n^{2-\epsilon}\rfloor,P_4\right)>c(\epsilon)n^2. $ Very recently, Li, Ning, and Xie gave a negative answer to the problem for all $0< \epsilon< 1/2$. In this note, we establish that a quadratic lower bound holds in the complementary regime $ \epsilon\geq 1/2$. More specifically, we prove that for all $\epsilon\ge 1/2$ and sufficiently large $n$, there is an absolute constant $c>0$ such that $ \chiS\left(n,\binom{n}{2}-\lfloor n^{2-\epsilon}\rfloor,P_4\right)>c n^2. $

For every loopless matroid $M$ and every Feichtner–Yuzvinsky building set $\mathcal{G}$ containing the top flat, we construct an integral tangent class $T_{M,\mathcal{G}}^{\mathbb{Z}}\in K_{\mathbb{Z}}(M,\mathcal{G})$; in the realizable case it specializes to the class of the tangent bundle of the corresponding wonderful compactification, it recovers the Hilbert series of the Chow ring through Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch, and it satisfies the expected Chern-alpha lower bounds. This reproduces the tangent class and its key properties studied by the first author in arXiv:2606.22650. The main body of this paper was produced autonomously, without human mathematical guidance, by Danus, an AI mathematical reasoning agent. Danus solved the problem before arXiv:2606.22650 was publicly available, demonstrating the potential of AI agents in mathematical research. We reproduce its output faithfully, adding only editorial comments; the experiment is documented in Appendix B.

Let $f(N)$ denote the largest size of a set $A\subseteq [N]=\{1,\ldots,N\}$ containing no distinct $a,b,c$ such that \[ \frac2a=\frac1b+\frac1c . \] We prove \[ f(N)\gg N\exp\!\left(-(2\sqrt{\log(24/7)}+o(1))\sqrt{\log\log N}\right). \] The construction filters the odd integers up to $N$ by a random affine image of a dense three-term-progression-free set in a prime field $\mathbb{F}_q$ with $q\asymp\log N$, and then deletes a controlled family of collapsed triples.

The search for Hamiltonian cycles in vertex-transitive graphs and digraphs is a classical problem at the interface of graph theory and group theory. In the undirected setting, this goes back to the well-known conjectures of Lovász and Thomassen concerning Hamiltonian paths and cycles in connected vertex-transitive graphs. Dating back to Rankin's 1946 work, the directed analogue has an even longer history, linking the search for long cycles to classical group-rearrangement problems. Trotter and Erdős showed in 1978 that connected vertex-transitive digraphs need not be Hamiltonian. In light of this result, Alspach asked in 1981 whether there exist connected vertex-transitive digraphs whose longest directed cycle misses arbitrarily many vertices. This question was only recently resolved by Bucić, Hendrey, Mohar, Steiner and Yepremyan, who constructed connected vertex-transitive digraphs on $n$ vertices whose longest directed cycle omits $(1-o(1))\log n$ vertices. They conjectured that the number of omitted vertices can grow linearly with $n$, remarking that it would already be interesting to improve their logarithmic lower bound to a polynomial bound. In this paper, we confirm their conjecture in a strong form by constructing infinitely many connected vertex-transitive digraphs on $n$ vertices whose longest directed cycle omits at least $n/12$ vertices. In the same work, Bucić, Hendrey, Mohar, Steiner and Yepremyan also proved that every connected vertex-transitive digraph on $n$ vertices contains a directed cycle of length $\Omega(n^{1/3})$, giving the first lower bound for this problem that grows with $n$. We improve this to $\Omega(\sqrt n)$, matching the order of Babai's classical theorem from 1979 for undirected vertex-transitive graphs.

We construct universal cycles for affine planes in $\mathbb F_q^n$ for all prime powers $q$ and all $n\ge4$, using sliding windows of length three. The construction is local-to-global: explicit local cycles are built on frame configurations, the linear $2$-subspaces are organized by a layered frame decomposition, and the resulting cycles are assembled by gluing along shared directions. The universal cycle obtained has direction set containing all $1$-subspaces. We also extend the construction to universal cycles for $3$-subspaces of $\mathbb F_q^n$.

For $n\ge1$, we let $$x_n:=\tan\bigl(\sum_{k=1}^{n}\arctan k\bigr).$$ In 2008, Amdeberhan, Medina, and Moll conjectured that $x_n\not \in \mathbb{Z}$ for every $n\ge5$. This was known for a set of positive integers of density $\tfrac{120}{817}\approx0.1469$. We prove that an integer value $x_n=m$ satisfies $|m|\ge e^{(1/2+o(1))\,n\log n}$, which we use to deduce that $$\#\{\,1\leq n\le N:x_n\in\mathbb{Z}\,\}=O(\log N). $$ In particular, the conjecture holds for a density-one set of $n$. The results in this note were formalized in Lean/Mathlib and produced autonomously by AxiomProver from natural-language statements.

We show that finite twin-width does not imply accessibility for finitely generated groups, which answers a question of Esperet. That is, we prove that there exists a finitely generated group $\Gamma$ that has finite uniform twin-width but is not accessible. In particular, for every finite generating set $S$ of $\Gamma$, the Cayley graph $Cay(\Gamma ; S)$ has finite twin-width but is not accessible. The example is obtained by combining Wilkes construction of a finitely generated inaccessible residually $p$-finite groups with a result of Bonnet, Geniet, Tessera and Thomasse regarding the twin-width of groups acting faithfully on regular rooted trees.

For positive integers $1\le r<d<n$ consider subsets $S\subseteq \mathbb{G}(r,V)$ of the $r$-plane Grassmannian of an $n$-dimensional Hilbert space $V$ saturated in the sense that the $r$-plane $\eta''$ belongs to $S$ whenever it is the orthogonal projection of $\eta'\in S$ onto a $d$-plane through $\eta\in S$. Motivated by such closure operators' natural occurrence in projective-geometry and linear preserver problems, we classify said saturated sets as precisely the disjoint unions of Grassmannian spines, with cores standing in a relation of mutual separation that can be made precise (a spine being the set of $r$-planes containing a fixed core $k$-plane $\pi$ for some $0\le k\le r$). This generalizes the author's results describing saturated $r$-plane sets in the tame dimensional regime $2r\le d$, where the disjoint unions in question by necessity collapse to single spines.

Phylogenetic trees are rooted trees with branch lengths that record genetic divergence or elapsed time, and quantifying differences between them is central to a wide range of evolutionary and epidemiological analyses. Graph-polynomial encodings of rooted trees provide an accurate, interpretable, and computationally efficient way to compare tree shapes, but existing polynomial encodings must be paired with auxiliary structures to study rooted trees with branch lengths. We introduce a bivariate polynomial encoding that incorporates branch lengths directly into a recursive computation from the leaf vertices to the root vertex of a tree. We prove that, for rooted trees with branch lengths and no vertices of degree two, which include all standard phylogenetic trees, two trees have the same polynomial if and only if their underlying unlabeled trees are isomorphic and the branch lengths of corresponding edges are equal. We apply the polynomial encoding to three published HIV-1 phylogenies sampled in different epidemiological settings and show that it accurately separates the three datasets based on their tree topologies and branch lengths, outperforming previous polynomial-based approaches for analyzing rooted trees with branch lengths.

We attach to a finite group $G$ and a structured payoff probe $\phi$ an integer payoff-difference lattice $M_\phi(G)$ and its conductor $C_\phi(G)$: the primes at which $M_\phi(G)$ loses rank modulo $p$. Our main result is an exact computation: for any CA-group the commuting conductor is rad$(b-1)$, where $b$ is the number of maximal abelian subgroups. In particular, conductor primes need not divide $|G|$: the prime $3$ occurs for a $2$-group of order $64$ with $b=7$. The commuting Smith spectrum is an invariant of the isoclinism class and obeys an exact direct-product law, giving ${\rm C_{comm}}(G\times H) = {\rm C_{comm}}(G) \cup {\rm C_{comm}}(H)$ unconditionally. A Galois-orbit-trace character probe reads a complementary layer: an index-$2$ subgroup forces $2\in {\rm C_{char}}(G)$ while no odd prime is forced, and ${\rm C_{comm}}(D_{2q}) = \{q\}$, ${\rm C_{char}}(D_{2q}) = \{2\}$ for all odd primes $q$. Certified exhaustive computation ($|G|\le128$ commuting, $|G|\le64$ character) and a deformation-family analysis support the general program: classify the Smith torsion of the compressed centralizer-type incidence matrix $B_G$.