Combinatorics of partitions

Divided powers are an algebraic gadget that emulate, in an arbitrary ring, the functions $x\mapsto x^n/n!$ for all integers $n$, together with the natural functional equations that they satisfy. 

One of them is a nice binomial theorem without binomial coefficients : denoting $x^n/n!$ by $x^{[n]}$, one has $$(x+y)^{[n]}=\sum_{k=0}^n x^{[n-k]} y^{[k]}.$$ 

Another formula looks at what happens when one iterates the construction: if everything happens nicely, one has $$(x^{[n]})^{[m]}=\frac1{m!}\left(x^n/n!\right)^m = \frac1{(n!)^m m!} x^{nm} = \frac{(mn)!}{m! n!^m} x^{[mn]}.$$ 

 In the development of the theory, the remark that comes then is the necessary observation that the coefficient $(mn)!/{m! n!^m}$ is an integer, which is not obvious since it is written as a fraction. Two arguments are given to justify this fact. 

1. The formula $$\frac{(mn)!}{m! n!^m} = \prod_{k=1}^{m} \binom{k n-1}{n-1}$$ which the authors claim can be proved by induction
2. The observation that $(mn)!/m!n!^m$ is the number of (unordered) partitions of a set with $mn$ elements into $m$ subsets with $n$ elements.

The latter fact is a particular case of a more general counting question: if $n=(n_1,\dots,n_r)$ are integers and $N=n_1+\dots+n_r$, then the number of (unordered) partitions of a set with $N$ elements into subsets of cardinalities $n_1,\dots,n_r$ is equal to $$\frac{N!}{\prod n_i! \prod_{k>0} m_k(n)!},$$ where $m_k(n)$ is the number of occurences of $k$ in the sequence $(n_1,\dots,n_r)$. 

The goal of this blog post is to present a combinatorial argument for the first equality, and an alternative expression of the second number as a product of integers. We also give a formal, group theoretical proof, that this quotient of factorials solves the given counting problem. 

 $\gdef\abs#1{\lvert#1\rvert}$ $\gdef\Card{\operatorname{Card}}$  

Counting partitions of given type 

 Let $S$ be a set with $N$ elements. A partition of $S$ is a subset $\{s_1,\dots,s_r\}$ of $\mathfrak P(S)$ consisting of nonempty, pairwise disjoint, subsets whose union is $S$. Its *type* is the “multiset” of integers given by their cardinalities. Because no $s_i$ is empty, the type is a multiset of nonzero integers. It is slightly easier to authorize zero in this type; then a partition has to be considered as a multiset of subsets of $S$, still assumed pairwise disjoint, so that only the empty subset can be repeated.

The group $G$ of permutations of $S$ acts on the set $\Pi_S$ of partitions of $S$. This action preserves the type of a partition, so that we get an action on the set $\Pi_{S,n}$ on the set of partitions of type $n$, of any multiset of integers $n$. It is nonempty if and only if $\abs n=N$.

This action is transitive: Given two partitions $(s_1,\dots,s_r)$ and $(t_1,\dots t_r)$ with the same type $(n_1,\dots,n_r)$, numbered so that $\abs{s_i}=\abs{t_i}={n_i}$ for all $i$, we just define a permutation of $S$ that maps the elements of $s_i$ to $t_i$.

By the orbit-stabilizer theorem, the number of partitions of type $n$ is equal to $\Card(G)/\Card(G_s)$, where $G_s$ is the stabilizer of any partition $s$ of type $n$. Since $\Card(S)=N$, one has $\Card(G)=N!=\abs n!$.

On the other hand, the stabilizer $G_s$ of a partition $(s_1,\dots,s_r)$ can be described as follows. By an element $g$ of this stabilizer, the elements of $s_i$ are mapped to some set $s_j$ which has the same cardinality as $s_i$. In other words, there is a morphism of groups from $G_s$ to the subgroup of the symmetric group $\mathfrak S_r$ consisting of permutations that preserve the cardinality. This subgroup is a product of symmetric groups $\mathfrak S_{m_k}$, for all $k> 0$, where $m_k$ is the number of occurrences of $k$ in $(n_1,\dots,n_r)$. Here, we omit the factor corresponding to $k=0$ because our morphism doesnt' see it.

This morphism is surjective, because it has a section. Given a permutation $\sigma$ of $\{1,\dots,r\}$ that preserves the cardinalities, we have essentially shown above how to construct a permutation of $S$ that induces $\sigma$, and this permutation belongs to $G_s$. More precisely, if we number the elements of $s_i$ as $(x_{i,1},\dots,x_{i,n_i})$, we lift $\sigma$ to the permutation that maps $x_{i,j}$ to $x_{\sigma(i),j}$ for all $i,j$. This makes sense since $n_{i}=n_{\sigma(i)}$ for all $i$.

The kernel of this morphism $G_s\to \prod_{k>0} \mathfrak S_{m_k}$ consists of permutations that fix each $s_i$. It is clearly equal to the product of the symmetric groups $\prod \mathfrak S_{n_i}$.

One thus has $\Card(G_s)=\prod n_i! \prod_{k>0} m_k!$, as was to be shown.

A combinatorial interpretation of the first relation

As we said above, that relation $$\frac{(mn)!}{m^ n!^m} = \prod_{k=1}^{m-1} \binom{kn-1}{n-1}$$ can be proved by induction, just playing with factorials, but we want a combinatorial interpretation for it. (Here we assume that $n\geq 1$.)
By the preceding paragraph, the left hand side is the number of partitions of a set with $mn$ elements of type $(n,\dots,n)$. We may assume that this set is numbered $\{1,\dots,mn\}$.

Such a partition can be defined as follows. First, we choose the subset that contains $1$: this amounts to choosing $n-1$ elements among $\{2,\dots,mn\}$, and there are $\binom{mn-1}{n-1}$ possibilities. Now, we have to choose the subset that contains the smallest element which is not in the first chosen subset. There are $n-1$ elements to choose among the remaining $mn-n-1=(m-1)n-1$ ones, hence $\binom{(m-1)n-1}{n-1}$ possibilities. And we go on in the same way, until we have chosen the $m$ required subsets. (For the last one, there is course only one such choice, and notice that the last factor is $\binom{n-1}{n-1}=1$.)

An integral formula for the number of partitions of given type

Finally, we wish to give an alternating formula for the number of partitions of given type of a set $S$ that makes it clear that it is an integer. Again, we can assume that the set $S$ is equal to $\{1,\dots,N\}$ and that $n=(n_1,\dots,n_r)$ is a multiset of integers such that $\abs n=N$.

Let us write $n$ in an other way, $n=(0^{m_0},1^{m_1},\dots)$, meaning that $0$ is repeated $m_0$ times, $1$ is repeated $m_1$ times, etc. One has $N=\sum k m_k$. The idea is that we can first partition $S$ into a subsets of cardinalities $m_1$, $2m_2$,… and then subpartition these subsets: the first one into $m_1$ subsets with one element, the second into $m_2$ subsets with two elements, etc.

The number of ordered partitions with $m_1$, $2m_2$… elements is the multinomial number $$\binom{N}{m_1,2m_2,\dots}.$$ And the other choice is the product of integers as given in the preceding section. This gives $$\frac{\abs n!}{\prod_i n_i! \prod_{k>0}m_k(n)!} = \binom{N}{m_1,2m_2,\dots}\prod_{k>0} \frac{(km_k)!}{k!^{m_k} m_k(n)!}.$$ We can also write the fractions that appear in the product as integers: $$\frac{\abs n!}{\prod_i n_i! \prod_{k>0}m_k(n)!} =\binom{N}{m_1,2m_2,\dots} \prod_{k>0} \prod_{m=1}^{m_k} \binom {km-1}{k-1}.$$