On the cyclically fully commutative elements of Coxeter groups

Let W be an arbitrary Coxeter group. If two elements have expressions that are cyclic shifts of each other (as words), then they are conjugate (as group elements) in W . We say that w is cyclically fully commutative (CFC) if every cyclic shift of any reduced expression for w is fully commutative (i.e., avoids long braid relations). These generalize Coxeter elements in that their reduced expressions can be described combinatorially by acyclic directed graphs, and cyclically shifting corresponds to source-to-sink conversions. In this paper, we explore the combinatorics of the CFC elements and enumerate them in all Coxeter groups. Additionally, we characterize precisely which CFC elements have the property that powers of them remain fully commutative, via the presence of a simple combinatorial feature called T. Boothby Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, VSA 156, Canada e-mail: [email protected] J. Burkert Department of Mathematics, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. Eichwald Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA e-mail: [email protected] D.C. Ernst Mathematics Department, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, NH 03264, USA e-mail: [email protected] R.M. Green Department of Mathematics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. Macauley ( ) Department of Mathematical Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA e-mail: [email protected] 124 J Algebr Comb (2012) 36:123–148 a band. This allows us to give necessary and sufficient conditions for a CFC element w to be logarithmic, that is, (wk)= k · (w) for all k ≥ 1, for a large class of Coxeter groups that includes all affine Weyl groups and simply laced Coxeter groups. Finally, we give a simple non-CFC element that fails to be logarithmic under these conditions.