Stable multivariate Eulerian polynomials and generalized Stirling permutations

We study Eulerian polynomials as the generating polynomials of the descent statistic over Stirling permutations-a class of restricted multiset permutations. We develop their multivariate refinements by indexing variables by the values at the descent tops, rather than the position where they appear. We prove that the obtained multivariate polynomials are stable, in the sense that they do not vanish whenever all the variables lie in the open upper half-plane. Our multivariate construction generalizes the multivariate Eulerian polynomial for permutations, and extends naturally to r-Stirling and generalized Stirling permutations. The benefit of this refinement is manifold. First of all, the stability of the multivariate generating functions implies that their univariate counterparts, obtained by diagonalization, have only real roots. Second, we obtain simpler recurrences of a general pattern, which allows for essentially a single proof of stability for all the cases, and further proofs of equidistributions among different statistics. Our approach provides a unifying framework of some recent results of Bona, Branden, Brenti, Janson, Kuba, and Panholzer. We conclude by posing several interesting open problems.