Restricted colored permutations and Chebyshev polynomials

Several authors have examined connections between restricted permutations and Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind. In this paper we prove analogues of these results for colored permutations. First we define a distinguished set of length two and length three patterns, which contains only 312 when just one color is used. Then we give a recursive procedure for computing the generating function for the colored permutations which avoid this distinguished set and any set of additional patterns, which we use to find a new set of signed permutations counted by the Catalan numbers and a new set of signed permutations counted by the large Schröder numbers. We go on to use this result to compute the generating functions for colored permutations which avoid our distinguished set and any layered permutation with three or fewer layers. We express these generating functions in terms of Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind and we show that they are special cases of generating functions for involutions which avoid 3412 and a layered permutation.     

Packing sets of patterns

Packing density is a permutation occurrence statistic which describes the maximal number of permutations of a given type that can occur in another permutation. In this article we focus on containment of sets of permutations. Although this question has been tangentially considered previously, this is the first article focusing exclusively on it. We find the packing density for various special sets of permutations and study permutation and pattern co-occurrence.     

Coding for locality in reconstructing permutations

The problem of storing permutations in a distributed manner arises in several common scenarios, such as efficient updates of a large, encrypted, or compressed data set. This problem may be addressed in either a combinatorial or a coding approach. The former approach boils down to presenting large sets of permutations with locality, that is, any symbol of the permutation can be computed from a small set of other symbols. In the latter approach, a permutation may be coded in order to achieve locality. Both approaches must present low query complexity to allow the user to find an element efficiently. We discuss both approaches, and give a particular focus to the combinatorial one. In the combinatorial approach, we provide upper and lower bounds for the maximal size of a set of permutations with locality, and provide several simple constructions which attain the upper bound. In cases where the upper bound is not attained, we provide alternative constructions using a variety of tools, such as Reed-Solomon codes, permutation polynomials, and multi-permutations. In addition, several low-rate constructions of particular interest are discussed. In the coding approach we discuss an alternative representation of permutations, present a paradigm for supporting arbitrary powers of the stored permutation, and conclude with a proof of concept that permutations may be stored more efficiently than ordinary strings over the same alphabet.     

The peak and descent statistics over ballot permutations

A ballot permutation is a permutation π such that in any prefix of π the descent number is not more than the ascent number. By using a reversal-concatenation map, we (i) give a formula for the joint distribution (pk, des) of the peak and descent statistics over ballot permutations, (ii) connect this distribution and the joint distribution (pk, des) over ordinary permutations in terms of generating functions, and (iii) confirm Spiro's conjecture which finds the equidistribution of the descent statistic for ballot permutations and an analogue of the descent statistic for odd order permutations.     

On natural isomorphisms of cycle permutation graphs

Two problems are approached in this paper. Given a permutation onn elements, which permutations onn elements yield cycle permutation graphs isomorphic to the cycle permutation graph yielded by the given permutation? And, given two cycle permutation graphs, are they isomorphic? Here the author deals only with natural isomorphisms, those isomorphisms which map the outer and inner cycles of one cycle permutation graph to the outer and inner cycles of another cycle permutation graph. A theorem is stated which then allows the construction of the set of permutations which yield cycle permutation graphs isomorphic to a given cycle permutation graph by a natural isomorphism. Another theorem is presented which finds the number of such permutations through the use of groups of symmetry of certain drawings of cycles in the plane. These drawings are also used to determine whether two given cycle permutation graphs are isomorphic by a natural isomorphism. These two methods are then illustrated by using them to solve the first problem, restricted to natural isomorphism, for a certain class of cycle permutation graphs.     

On the bottleneck assignment problem

In this paper, a new approach for solving the bottleneck assignment problem is presented. The problem is treated as a special class of permutation problems which we call max-min permutation problems. By defining a suitable neighborhood system in the space of permutations and designating certain permutations as critical solutions, it is shown that any critical solution yields a global optimum. This theorem is then used as a basis to develop a general method to solve max-min permutation problems.This work was carried out by the junior author while holding a Purdue University Fellowship.     

Lehmer code transforms and Mahonian statistics on permutations

In 2000 Babson and Steingrímsson introduced the notion of vincular patterns in permutations. They show that essentially all well-known Mahonian permutation statistics can be written as combinations of such patterns. Also, they proved and conjectured that other combinations of vincular patterns are still Mahonian. These conjectures were proved later: by Foata and Zeilberger in 2001, and by Foata and Randrianarivony in 2006.In this paper we give an alternative proof of some of these results. Our approach is based on permutation codes which, like the Lehmer code, map bijectively permutations onto subexcedant sequences. More precisely, we give several code transforms (i.e., bijections between subexcedant sequences) which when applied to the Lehmer code yield new permutation codes which count occurrences of some vincular patterns. These code transforms can be seen as a pre-compression step of the Lehmer code because they map some redundancies into runs of 0s. Also, our proofs, unlike the previous ones, provide explicit bijections between permutations having a given value for two different Mahonian pattern-based statistics.     

Simple permutations and algebraic generating functions

A simple permutation is one that never maps a nontrivial contiguous set of indices contiguously. Given a set of permutations that is closed under taking subpermutations and contains only finitely many simple permutations, we provide a framework for enumerating subsets that are restricted by properties belonging to a finite “query-complete set.” Such properties include being even, being an alternating permutation, and avoiding a given generalised (blocked or barred) pattern. We show that the generating functions for these subsets are always algebraic, thereby generalising recent results of Albert and Atkinson. We also apply these techniques to the enumeration of involutions and cyclic closures.     

Reduced Decompositions with One Repetition and Permutation Pattern Avoidance

In 2007, Tenner established a connection between pattern avoidance in permutations and the Bruhat order on permutations by showing that the downset of a permutation in the Bruhat order is a Boolean algebra if and only if the permutation is 3412 and 321 avoiding. Tenner conjectured, but did not prove, that if the permutation is 321 avoiding and contains exactly one 3412 pattern, or if the permutation is 3412 avoiding and contains exactly one 321 pattern, then there exists a reduced decomposition with precisely one repetition. This property actually characterizes permutations with precisely one repetition. The goal of this paper is to prove this equivalence as a first step in our program to count permutations with few repetitions of 321 and 3412 and to understand Bruhat downsets by means of pattern avoidance.     

A state-space approach to quantum permutations

In this exposition of quantum permutation groups, an alternative to the ‘Gelfand picture’ of compact quantum groups is proposed. This point of view is inspired by algebraic quantum mechanics and interprets the states of an algebra of continuous functions on a quantum permutation group as quantum permutations. This interpretation allows talk of an element of a quantum permutation group, and allows a clear understanding of the difference between deterministic, random, and quantum permutations. The interpretation is illustrated by various quantum permutation group phenomena.     

Gray code for permutations with a fixed number of cycles

We give the first Gray code for the set of n-length permutations with a given number of cycles. In this code, each permutation is transformed into its successor by a product with a cycle of length three, which is optimal. If we represent each permutation by its transposition array then the obtained list still remains a Gray code and this allows us to construct a constant amortized time (CAT) algorithm for generating these codes. Also, Gray code and generating algorithm for n-length permutations with fixed number of left-to-right minima are discussed.     

The maximal-inversion statistic and pattern-avoiding permutations

We define a new combinatorial statistic, maximal-inversion, on a permutation. We remark that the number M(n,k) of permutations in S_n with k maximal-inversions is the signless Stirling number c(n,n−k) of the first kind. A permutation π in S_n is uniquely determined by its maximal-inversion set . We prove it by making an algorithm for retrieving the permutation from its maximal-inversion set. Also, we remark on how the algorithm can be used directly to determine whether a given set is the maximal-inversion set of a permutation. As an application of the algorithm, we characterize the maximal-inversion set for pattern-avoiding permutations. Then we give some enumerative results concerning permutations with forbidden patterns.     

Permutations with extremal number of fixed points

We extend Stanley's work on alternating permutations with extremal number of fixed points in two directions: first, alternating permutations are replaced by permutations with a prescribed descent set; second, instead of simply counting permutations we study their generating polynomials by number of excedances. Several techniques are used: Désarménien's desarrangement combinatorics, Gessel's hook-factorization and the analytical properties of two new permutation statistics “DEZ” and “lec.” Explicit formulas for the maximal case are derived by using symmetric function tools.     

Permutation tableaux and permutation patterns

In this paper we introduce and study a class of tableaux which we call permutation tableaux; these tableaux are naturally in bijection with permutations, and they are a distinguished subset of the -diagrams of Alex Postnikov [A. Postnikov, Webs in totally positive Grassmann cells, in preparation; L. Williams, Enumeration of totally positive Grassmann cells, Adv. Math. 190 (2005) 319-342]. The structure of these tableaux is in some ways more transparent than the structure of permutations; therefore we believe that permutation tableaux will be useful in furthering the understanding of permutations. We give two bijections from permutation tableaux to permutations. The first bijection carries tableaux statistics to permutation statistics based on relative sizes of pairs of letters in a permutation and their places. We call these statistics weak excedance statistics because of their close relation to weak excedances. The second bijection carries tableaux statistics (via the weak excedance statistics) to statistics based on generalized permutation patterns. We then give enumerative applications of these bijections. One nice consequence of these results is that the polynomial enumerating permutation tableaux according to their content generalizes both Carlitz' q-analog of the Eulerian numbers [L. Carlitz, q-Bernoulli and Eulerian numbers, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 76 (1954) 332-350] and the more recent q-analog of the Eulerian numbers found in [L. Williams, Enumeration of totally positive Grassmann cells, Adv. Math. 190 (2005) 319-342]. We conclude our paper with a list of open problems, as well as remarks on progress on these problems which has been made by A. Burstein, S. Corteel, N. Eriksen, A. Reifegerste, and X. Viennot.     

Enumeration of Bigrassmannian Permutations Below a Permutation in Bruhat Order

In theory of Coxeter groups, bigrassmannian elements are well known as elements which have precisely one left descent and precisely one right descent. In this article, we prove formulas on enumeration of bigrassmannian permutations weakly below a permutation in Bruhat order in the symmetric groups. For the proof, we use equivalent characterizations of bigrassmannian permutations by Lascoux-Schützenberger and Reading.     

On Quantum Immanants and the Cycle Basis of the Quantum Permutation Space

There are many combinatorial expressions for evaluating characters of the Hecke algebra of type A. However, with rare exceptions, they give simple results only for permutations that have minimal length in their conjugacy class. For other permutations, a recursive formula has to be applied. Consequently, quantum immanants are complicated objects when expressed in the standard basis of the quantum permutation space. In this paper, we introduce another natural basis of the quantum permutation space, and we prove that coefficients of quantum immanants in this basis are class functions.     

On generation of permutations through decomposition of symmetric groups into cosets

A hardware-oriented algorithm for generating permutations is presented that takes as a theoretic base an iterative decomposition of the symmetric groupS _n into cosets. It generates permutations in a new order. Simple ranking and unranking algorithms are given. The construction of a permutation generator is proposed which contains a cellular permutation network as a main component. The application of the permutation generator for solving a class of combinatorial problems on parallel computers is suggested.     

Evacuation and a geometric construction for Fibonacci tableaux

Tableaux have long been used to study combinatorial properties of permutations and multiset permutations. Discovered independently by Robinson and Schensted and generalized by Knuth, the Robinson–Schensted correspondence has provided a fundamental tool for relating permutations to tableaux. In 1963, Schützenberger defined a process called evacuation on standard tableaux which gives a relationship between the pairs of tableaux (P,Q) resulting from the Schensted correspondence for a permutation and both the reverse and the complement of that permutation. Viennot gave a geometric construction for the Schensted correspondence and Fomin described a generalization of the correspondence which provides a bijection between permutations and pairs of chains in Young's lattice.In 1975, Stanley defined a Fibonacci lattice and in 1988 he introduced the idea of a differential poset. Roby gave an insertion algorithm, analogous to the Schensted correspondence, for mapping a permutation to a pair of Fibonacci tableaux. The main results of this paper are to give an evacuation algorithm for the Fibonacci tableaux that is analogous to the evacuation algorithm on Young tableaux and to describe a geometric construction for the Fibonacci tableaux that is similar to Viennot's geometric construction for Young tableaux.     

The pure descent statistic on permutations

We introduce a new statistic based on permutation descents which has a distribution given by the Stirling numbers of the first kind, i.e., with the same distribution as for the number of cycles in permutations. We study this statistic on the sets of permutations avoiding one pattern of length three by giving bivariate generating functions. As a consequence, new classes of permutations enumerated by the Motzkin numbers are obtained. Finally, we deduce results about the popularity of the pure descents in all these restricted sets.     

The Enumeration of Maximally Clustered Permutations

The maximally clustered permutations are characterized by avoiding the classical permutation patterns {3421, 4312, 4321}. This class contains the freely braided permutations and the fully commutative permutations. In this work, we show that the generating functions for certain fully commutative pattern classes can be transformed to give generating functions for the corresponding freely braided and maximally clustered pattern classes. Moreover, this transformation of generating functions is rational. As a result, we obtain enumerative formulas for the pattern classes mentioned above as well as the corresponding hexagon-avoiding pattern classes where the hexagon-avoiding permutations are characterized by avoiding {46718235, 46781235, 56718234, 56781234}.