Rationality, Irrationality, and Wilf Equivalence in Generalized Factor Order.

Let $P$ be a partially ordered set and consider the free monoid $P^{\ast}$ of all words over $P$. If $w,w' \in P^{\ast}$ then $w'$ is a factor of $w$ if there are words $u,v$ with $w=uw'v$. Define generalized factor order on $P^{\ast}$ by letting $u \leq w$ if there is a factor $w'$ of $w$ having the same length as $u$ such that $u \leq w'$, where the comparison of $u$ and $w'$ is done componentwise using the partial order in $P$. One obtains ordinary factor order by insisting that $u=w'$ or, equivalently, by taking $P$ to be an antichain. Given $u \in P^{\ast}$, we prove that the language $\mathcal{F}(u)=\{w : w \geq u\}$ is accepted by a finite state automaton. If $P$ is finite then it follows that the generating function $F(u)=\sum_{w \geq u} w$ is rational. This is an analogue of a theorem of Björner and Sagan for generalized subword order. We also consider $P=\mathbb{P}$, the positive integers with the usual total order, so that $\mathbb{P}^{\ast}$ is the set of compositions. In this case one obtains a weight generating function $F(u;t,x)$ by substituting $tx^n$ each time $n \in \mathbb{P}$ appears in $F(u)$. We show that this generating function is also rational by using the transfer-matrix method. Words $u,v$ are said to be Wilf equivalent if $F(u;t,x)=F(v;t,x)$ and we can prove various Wilf equivalences combinatorially. Björner found a recursive formula for the Möbius function of ordinary factor order on $P^{\ast}$. It follows that one always has $\mu (u,w)=0, \pm 1$. Using the Pumping Lemma we show that the generating function $M(u)= \sum_{w \geq u} | \mu (u,w) | w$ can be irrational.