Hyperplane arrangements and diagonal harmonics

Abstract

In 2003, Haglund's {\sf bounce} statistic gave the first combinatorial interpretation of the $q,t$-Catalan numbers and the Hilbert series of diagonal harmonics. In this paper we propose a new combinatorial interpretation in terms of the affine Weyl group of type $A$. In particular, we define two statistics on affine permutations; one in terms of the Shi hyperplane arrangement, and one in terms of a new arrangement - which we call the Ish arrangement. We prove that our statistics are equivalent to the {\sf area'} and {\sf bounce} statistics of Haglund and Loehr. In this setting, we observe that {\sf bounce} is naturally expressed as a statistic on the root lattice. We extend our statistics in two directions: to extended Shi arrangements and to the bounded chambers of these arrangements. This leads to a (conjectural) combinatorial interpretation for all integral powers of the Bergeron-Garsia nabla operator applied to the elementary symmetric functions.