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Exponential Dowling structures

The notion of exponential Dowling structures is introduced, generalizing Stanley's original theory of exponential structures. Enumerative theory is developed to determine the Möbius function of exponential Dowling structures, including a restriction of these structures to elements whose types satisfy a semigroup condition. Stanley's study of permutations associated with exponential structures leads to a similar vein of study for exponential Dowling structures. In particular, for the extended r-divisible partition lattice we show the Möbius function is, up to a sign, the number of permutations in the symmetric group on rn+k elements having descent set {r, 2r, ..., nr}. Using Wachs' original EL-labeling of the r-divisible partition lattice, the extended r-divisible partition lattice is shown to be EL-shellable.