Lexicographic shellability of the Bruhat-Chevalley order on fixed-point-free involutions

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to prove that the Bruhat-Chevalley ordering of the symmetric group when restricted to the fixed-point-free involutions forms an $EL$-shellable poset whose order complex triangulates a ball. Another purpose of this article is to prove that the Deodhar-Srinivasan poset is a proper, graded subposet of the Bruhat-Chevalley poset on fixed-point-free involutions.

Accepted for publication in Israel Journal of Mathematics