Schroder combinatorics and $ν$-associahedra

We study $ν$-Schröder paths, which are Schröder paths which stay weakly above a given lattice path $ν$. Some classical bijective and enumerative results are extended to the $ν$-setting, including the relationship between small and large Schröder paths. We introduce two posets of $ν$-Schröder objects, namely $ν$-Schröder paths and trees, and show that they are isomorphic to the face poset of the $ν$-associahedron $A_ν$ introduced by Ceballos, Padrol and Sarmiento. A consequence of our results is that the $i$-dimensional faces of $A_ν$ are indexed by $ν$-Schröder paths with $i$ diagonal steps, and we obtain a closed-form expression for these Schröder numbers in the special case when $ν$ is a `rational' lattice path. Using our new description of the face poset of $A_ν$, we apply discrete Morse theory to show that $A_ν$ is contractible. This yields one of two proofs presented for the fact that the Euler characteristic of $A_ν$ is one. A second proof of this is obtained via a formula for the $ν$-Narayana polynomial in terms of $ν$-Schröder numbers.

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