Lagmental Vicfred

Möbius Functions Invert Sums over Poset Intervals by Vicfred

Last updated: Wed 18 February 2015

The incidence-algebra inverse of the zeta function generalizes ordinary divisor Möbius inversion. The point is to make the formal expression readable enough to audit line by line.

Set-up

A finite poset \((P,\le)\) has intervals \([x,y]\) and an incidence algebra. Chains, antichains, and order ideals reveal different slices of its comparability structure.

$$ \zeta(x,y)=\begin{cases}1,&x\le y,\\0,&x\nleq y,\end{cases} $$

The definition determines which expressions are legal; only then does the identity become meaningful. An equality in \(\mathcal A\) may change ambient meaning, so I keep \(\mathsf D\) separate from \(\mathsf C\).

$$ \sum_{x\le z\le y}\mu(x,z)=\delta_{xy} $$

The calculation

The middle display is intentionally dense: it is where signs, bounds, multiplicities, or normalising factors are most likely to be lost.

$$ g(y)=\sum_{x\le y}f(x)\quad\Longrightarrow\quad f(y)=\sum_{x\le y}\mu(x,y)g(x) $$

What survives abstraction

The aligned summary deliberately puts the datum and conclusion on different rows. Mathematically, this is the distinction between specifying an object and proving a property of it.

$$ \begin{aligned} \mathsf{D}\;&:\quad \zeta(x,y)=\begin{cases}1,&x\le y,\\0,&x\nleq y,\end{cases},\\[5pt] \mathsf{C}\;&:\quad \sum_{x\le z\le y}\mu(x,z)=\delta_{xy}. \end{aligned} $$

The boundary

Width and height refer to antichains and chains in the poset, not to geometric dimensions of a drawing.

$$ \boxed{\begin{gathered} \text{compact conclusion}\\[-2pt] \sum_{x\le z\le y}\mu(x,z)=\delta_{xy} \end{gathered}} $$

I would use the boxed line as a reference later, while returning to the full display whenever a hypothesis becomes uncertain. That division keeps compression from becoming ambiguity.

This article was posted on Wed 10 March 2010. Facts and circumstances may have changed since publication.
Please contact me before jumping to conclusions if something seems wrong or unclear.