An explicit formula for Koornwinder moments and Rains' positivity conjecture

The asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) is an important particle model with deep connections to orthogonal polynomials. Motivated by this connection, Corteel and Williams introduced the Koornwinder moments $M_{\lambda }^Z$ at $t=q$, which generalize the moments of Askey–Wilson polynomials. They showed that the partition function of the two-species ASEP is equal to $M_{\lambda }^Z$ for a one-row partition $\lambda$. In this paper, we investigate a conjecture of Rains on the positivity of the minimal numerator of the Koornwinder moment $M_{\lambda }^Z$. We derive the first explicit formula for this moment, thereby obtaining a precise formulation of the conjecture by determining the minimal denominator of $M_{\lambda }^Z$. We also propose a generalization of the conjecture for the more general Koornwinder moments $M_{\lambda ,\mu }^Z$ indexed by two partitions at special parameter values. We prove the generalized Rains’ conjecture in two special cases: $(\xi ,q)=(1,0)$ and $(\xi ,q)=(1,1)$. For $(\xi ,q)=(1,0)$, we construct a lattice path model and obtain a combinatorial formula for $M_{\lambda ,\mu }^Z$ in terms of non-intersecting lattice paths. For $(\xi ,q)=(1,1)$, we establish an explicit product formula for $M_{\lambda ,\mu }^Z$ and give a combinatorial interpretation using lecture hall tableaux.