Super-strong (elsewhere referred to as strong) Wilf equivalence is a type of Wilf equivalence on words that was introduced by Kitaev et al. in 2009. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for two permutations in $n$ letters to be super-strongly Wilf equivalent, using distances between letters within a permutation. Furthermore, we give a characterization of such equivalence classes via two-colored binary trees. This allows us to prove, in the case of super-strong Wilf equivalence, the conjecture stated in (Kitaev et al., 2009) that the cardinality of each Wilf equivalence class is a power of 2.
For a hereditary permutation class $\mathcal{C}$, we say that two permutations $π$ and $σ$ of $\mathcal{C}$ are Wilf-equivalent in $\mathcal{C}$, if $\mathcal{C}$ has the same number of permutations avoiding $π$ as those avoiding $σ$. We say that a permutation class $\mathcal{C}$ exhibits a Wilf collapse if the number of permutations of size $n$ in $\mathcal{C}$ is asymptotically larger than the number of Wilf-equivalence classes formed by these permutations. In this paper, we show that Wilf collapse is a surprisingly common phenomenon. Among other results, we show that Wilf collapse occurs in…
We construct a sequence of finite automata that accept subclasses of the class of 4231-avoiding permutations. We thereby show that the Wilf-Stanley limit for the class of 4231-avoiding permutations is bounded below by 9.35. This bound shows that this class has the largest such limit among all classes of permutations avoiding a single permutation of length 4 and refutes the conjecture that the Wilf-Stanley limit of a class of permutations avoiding a single permutation of length k cannot exceed (k-1)^2.
We consider permutation classes having two basis elements of size three and one further basis element. We completely classify the possible enumeration sequences of such classes and demonstrate that there are far fewer of them than might be expected in principle.
The concept of pattern avoidance respectively containment in permutations can be extended to permutations on multisets in a straightforward way. In this note we present a direct proof of the already known fact that the well-known Stanley-Wilf Conjecture, stating that the number of permutations avoiding a given pattern does not grow faster than exponentially, also holds for permutations on multisets.
The subjects of rook equivalence and Wilf equivalence have both attracted considerable attention over the last half-century. In this paper we introduce a new notion of Wilf equivalence for integer partitions, and, using this notion, we prove that rook equivalence implies Wilf equivalence. We also prove that if we refine the notions of rook and Wilf equivalence in a natural way, then these two notions coincide. In [6] we prove that Wilf equivalence implies rook equivalence.
We study questions of even-Wilf-equivalence, the analogue of Wilf-equivalence when attention is restricted to pattern avoidance by permutations in the alternating group. Although some Wilf-equivalence results break when considering even-Wilf-equivalence analogues, we prove that other Wilf-equivalence results continue to hold in the even-Wilf-equivalence setting. In particular, we prove that t(t-1)...321 and (t-1)(t-2)...21t are even-shape-Wilf-equivalent for odd t, paralleling a result (which held for all t) of Backelin, West, and Xin for shape-Wilf-equivalence. This allows us to classify the …
For about 10 years, the classification of permutation patterns was thought completed up to length 6. In this paper, we establish a new class of Wilf-equivalent permutation patterns, namely, (n-1,n-2,n,tau)~(n-2,n,n-1,tau) for any tau in S_{n-3}. In particular, at level n=6, this result includes the only missing equivalence (546213)~(465213), and for n=7 it completes the classification of permutation patterns by settling all remaining cases in S_7.
Recently, Dokos et al. conjectured that for all $k, m\geq 1$, the patterns $ 12\ldots k(k+m+1)\ldots (k+2)(k+1) $ and $(m+1)(m+2)\ldots (k+m+1)m\ldots 21 $ are $maj$-Wilf-equivalent. In this paper, we confirm this conjecture for all $k\geq 1$ and $m=1$. In fact, we construct a descent set preserving bijection between $ 12\ldots k (k-1) $-avoiding permutations and $23\ldots k1$-avoiding permutations for all $k\geq 3$. As a corollary, our bijection enables us to settle a conjecture of Gowravaram and Jagadeesan concerning the Wilf-equivalence for permutations with given descent sets.
We extend the notion of shape-Wilf-equivalence to vincular patterns (also known as "generalized patterns" or "dashed patterns"). First we introduce a stronger equivalence on patterns which we call filling-shape-Wilf-equivalence. When vincular patterns $α$ and $β$ are filling-shape-Wilf-equivalent, we prove that the direct sum $α\oplusσ$ is filling-shape-Wilf-equivalent to $β\oplusσ$. We also discover two new pairs of patterns which are filling-shape-Wilf-equivalent: when $α$, $β$, and $σ$ are nonempty consecutive patterns which are Wilf-equivalent, $α\oplusσ$ is filling-shape-Wilf-equivalent t…
We present a class of permutations for which the number of distinctly ordered subsequences of each permutation approaches an almost optimal value as the length of the permutation grows to infinity.
A frequent topic in the study of pattern avoidance is identifying when two sets of patterns $Π, Π'$ are Wilf equivalent, that is, when $|\text{Av}_n(Π)| = |\text{Av}_n(Π')|$ for all $n$. In recent work of Dokos et al. the notion of Wilf equivalence was refined to reflect when avoidance of classical patterns preserves certain statistics. In this article, we continue their work by examining $\text{des}$-Wilf equivalence when avoiding certain non-classical patterns.
We classify all bi-vincular patterns of length two and three according to the number of permutations avoiding them. These patterns were recently defined by Bousquet-Melou et. al., and are natural generalizations of Babson and Steingrimsson's generalized patterns. The patterns are divided into seven and 24 Wilf classes, for lengths two and three, respectively. For most of the patterns an explicit form for the number of permutations avoiding the pattern is given.
A permutation is so-called two stack sortable if it (i) avoids the (scattered) pattern 2-3-4-1, and (ii) contains a 3-2-4-1 pattern only as part of a 3-5-2-4-1 pattern. Here we show that the permutations on [n] satisfying condition (ii) alone are equinumerous with the permutations on [n] that avoid the mixed scattered/consecutive pattern 31-4-2. The proof uses a known bijection from 3-2-1-avoiding to 3-1-2-avoiding permutations.
The research on pattern-avoidance has yielded so far limited knowledge on Wilf-ordering of permutations. The Stanley-Wilf limits sqrt[n](|S_n(tau)|) and further works suggest asymptotic ordering of layered versus monotone patterns. Yet, Bona has provided the only known up to now result of its type on ordering of permutations: |S_n(1342)|<|S_n(1234)|<|S_n(1324)| for n>6. We give a different proof of this result by ordering S_3 up to the stronger shape-Wilf-order: |S_Y(213)|<=|S_Y(123)|<=|S_Y(312)| for any Young diagram Y, derive as a consequence that |S_Y(k+2,k+1,k+3,tau)|<=|S_Y(k+1,k+2,k+3,tau…
Savage and Sagan have recently defined a notion of st-Wilf equivalence for any permutation statistic st and any two sets of permutations $Π$ and $Π'$. In this paper we give a thorough investigation of st-Wilf equivalence for the charge statistic on permutations and use a bijection between the charge statistic and the major index to prove a conjecture of Dokos, Dwyer, Johnson, Sagan and Selsor regarding powers of 2 and the major index.
We prove that the set of patterns {1324,3416725} is Wilf-equivalent to the pattern 1234 and that the set of patterns {2143,3142,246135} is Wilf-equivalent to the set of patterns {2413,3142}. These are the first known unbalanced Wilf-equivalences for classical patterns between finite sets of patterns.
Two permutations $π$ and $τ$ are c-Wilf equivalent if, for each $n$, the number of permutations in $S_n$ avoiding $π$ as a consecutive pattern (i.e., in adjacent positions) is the same as the number of those avoiding $τ$. In addition, $π$ and $τ$ are strongly c-Wilf equivalent if, for each $n$ and $k$, the number of permutations in $S_n$ containing $k$ occurrences of $π$ as a consecutive pattern is the same as for $τ$. In this paper we introduce a third, more restrictive equivalence relation, defining $π$ and $τ$ to be super-strongly c-Wilf equivalent if the above condition holds for any set o…
We prove that the Stanley-Wilf limit of any layered permutation pattern of length $\ell$ is at most $4\ell^2$, and that the Stanley-Wilf limit of the pattern 1324 is at most 16. These bounds follow from a more general result showing that a permutation avoiding a pattern of a special form is a merge of two permutations, each of which avoids a smaller pattern. If the conjecture is true that the maximum Stanley-Wilf limit for patterns of length $\ell$ is attained by a layered pattern then this implies an upper bound of $4\ell^2$ for the Stanley-Wilf limit of any pattern of length $\ell$. We also …
Stankova and West proved in 2002 that the patterns 231 and 312 are shape-Wilf-equivalent. Their proof was nonbijective and fairly complicated. We give a new characterization of 231 and 312 avoiding full rook placements and use this to give a simple bijective proof of the shape-Wilf- equivalence.
We introduce "fertility Wilf equivalence," "strong fertility Wilf equivalence," and "postorder Wilf equivalence," three variants of Wilf equivalence for permutation classes that formalize some phenomena that have appeared in the study of West's stack-sorting map. We introduce "sliding operators" and show that they induce useful bijections among sets of valid hook configurations. Combining these maps with natural decompositions of valid hook configurations, we give infinitely many examples of fertility, strong fertility, and postorder Wilf equivalences. As a consequence, we obtain infinitely ma…
We prove several Wilf-equivalences for vincular patterns of length 4, some of which generalize to infinite families of vincular patterns. We also present functional equations for the generating functions for the number of permutations of length n avoiding a single pattern for the patterns 124-3, 134-2, 231-4, 241-3, 132-4, and 142-3. This nearly completes the Wilf-classification of vincular patterns of length 4. As a corollary, these results imply Wilf-equivalences for certain barred patterns of length 5 with a single bar.
We give a sufficient condition for the two dashed patterns $τ^{(1)}-τ^{(2)}-\cdots-τ^{(\ell)}$ and $τ^{(\ell)}-τ^{(\ell-1)}-\cdots-τ^{(1)}$ to be (strongly) Wilf-equivalent. This permits to solve in a unified way several problems of Heubach and Mansour on Wilf-equivalences on words and compositions, as well as a conjecture of Baxter and Pudwell on Wilf-equivalences on permutations. We also give a better explanation of the equidistribution of the parameters $\MAK+\bMAJ$ and $\MAK'+\bMAJ$ on ordered set partitions. These results can be viewed as consequences of a simple proposition which states …
Stankova and West showed that for any non-negative integer $s$ and any permutation $γ$ of $\{4,5,\dots,s+3\}$ there are as many permutations that avoid $231γ$ as there are that avoid $312γ$. We extend this result to the setting of words.
Egge conjectured that permutations avoiding the set of patterns $\{2143,3142,τ\}$, where $τ\in\{246135,254613,263514,524361,546132\}$, are enumerated by the large Schröder numbers. Consequently, $\{2143,3142,τ\}$ with $τ$ as above is Wilf-equivalent to the set of patterns $\{2413,3142\}$. Burstein and Pantone proved the case of $τ=246135$. We prove the remaining four cases. As a byproduct of our proof, we also enumerate the case $τ=4132$.
The Rearrangement Conjecture states that if two words over $\mathbb{P}$ are Wilf-equivalent in the factor order on $\mathbb{P}^\ast$ then they are rearrangements of each other. We introduce the notion of strong Wilf-equivalence and prove that if two words over $\mathbb{P}$ are strongly Wilf-equivalent then they are rearrangements of each other. We further conjecture that Wilf-equivalence implies strong Wilf-equivalence.
The existence of apparently coincidental equalities (also called Wilf-equivalences) between the enumeration sequences, or generating functions, of various hereditary classes of combinatorial structures has attracted significant interest. We investigate such coincidences among non-crossing matchings and a variety of other Catalan structures including Dyck paths, 231-avoiding permutations and plane forests. In particular we consider principal classes defined by not containing an occurrence of a single given structure. An easily computed equivalence relation among structures is described such tha…
We give some new Wilf equivalences for signed patterns which allow the complete classification of signed patterns of lengths three and four. The problem is considered for pattern avoidance by general as well as involutive signed permutations.
Let $π\in \mathfrak{S}_m$ and $σ\in \mathfrak{S}_n$ be permutations. An occurrence of $π$ in $σ$ as a consecutive pattern is a subsequence $σ_i σ_{i+1} \cdots σ_{i+m-1}$ of $σ$ with the same order relations as $π$. We say that patterns $π, τ\in \mathfrak{S}_m$ are strongly c-Wilf equivalent if for all $n$ and $k$, the number of permutations in $\mathfrak{S}_n$ with exactly $k$ occurrences of $π$ as a consecutive pattern is the same as for $τ$. In 2018, Dwyer and Elizalde conjectured (generalizing a conjecture of Elizalde from 2012) that if $π, τ\in \mathfrak{S}_m$ are strongly c-Wilf equivalen…
In a recent paper, Backelin, West and Xin describe a map $ϕ^*$ that recursively replaces all occurrences of the pattern $k... 21$ in a permutation $σ$ by occurrences of the pattern $(k-1)... 21 k$. The resulting permutation $ϕ^*(σ)$ contains no decreasing subsequence of length $k$. We prove that, rather unexpectedly, the map $ϕ^*$ commutes with taking the inverse of a permutation. In the BWX paper, the definition of $ϕ^*$ is actually extended to full rook placements on a Ferrers board (the permutations correspond to square boards), and the construction of the map $ϕ^*$ is the key step in provi…
In their paper \cite{DokosDwyer:Permutat12}, Dokos et al. conjecture that the major index statistic is equidistributed among 1423-avoiding, 2413-avoiding, and 2314-avoiding permutations. In this paper we confirm this conjecture by constructing two major index preserving bijections, $Θ:S_n(1423)\to S_n(2413)$ and $Ω:S_n(2314)\to S_n(2413)$. In fact, we show that $Θ$ (respectively, $Ω$) preserves numerous other statistics including the descent set, right-to-left maximum (respectively, left-to-right minimum), and a new statistic we call top-steps (respectively, bottom-steps).
For a permutation $π$, let $S_{n}(π)$ be the number of permutations on $n$ letters avoiding $π$. Marcus and Tardos proved the celebrated Stanley-Wilf conjecture that $L(π)= \lim_{n \to \infty} S_n(π)^{1/n}$ exists and is finite. Backed by numerical evidence, it has been conjectured by many researchers over the years that $L(π)=Θ(k^2)$ for every permutation $π$ on $k$ letters. We disprove this conjecture, showing that $L(π)=2^{k^{Θ(1)}}$ for almost all permutations $π$ on $k$ letters.
We provide a geometric condition that guarantees strong Wilf equivalence in the generalized factor order. This provides a powerful tool for proving specific and general Wilf equivalence results, and several such examples are given.
Inversion sequences are finite sequences of non-negative integers, where the value of each entry is bounded from above by its position. Patterns in inversion sequences have been studied by Corteel-Martinez-Savage-Weselcouch and Mansour-Shattuck in the classical case, where patterns can occur in any positions, and by Auli-Elizalde in the consecutive case, where only adjacent entries can form an occurrence of a pattern. These papers classify classical and consecutive patterns of length 3 into Wilf equivalence classes according to the number of inversion sequences avoiding them. In this paper we …
For a set of permutation patterns $Π$, let $F^\text{st}_n(Π,q)$ be the st-polynomial of permutations avoiding all patterns in $Π$. Suppose $312\inΠ$. For a class of permutation statistics which includes inversion and descent statistics, we give a formula that expresses $F^\text{st}_n(Π;q)$ in terms of these st-polynomials where we take some subblocks of the patterns in $Π$. Using this formula, we can construct many examples of nontrivial st-Wilf equivalences. In particular, this disproves a conjecture by Dokos, Dwyer, Johnson, Sagan, and Selsor that all $\text{inv}$-Wilf equivalences are trivi…
We study sorting operators $\mathbf{A}$ on permutations that are obtained composing Knuth's stack sorting operator $\mathbf{S}$ and the reversal operator $\mathbf{R}$, as many times as desired. For any such operator $\mathbf{A}$, we provide a size-preserving bijection between the set of permutations sorted by $\mathbf{S} \circ \mathbf{A}$ and the set of those sorted by $\mathbf{S} \circ \mathbf{R} \circ \mathbf{A}$, proving that these sets are enumerated by the same sequence, but also that many classical permutation statistics are equidistributed across these two sets. The description of this …
Let S_n denote the symmetric group of all permutations of the set {1, 2, ...,n} and let S = \cup_{n\ge0} S_n. If Pi is a set of permutations, then we let Av_n(Pi) be the set of permutations in S_n which avoid every permutation of Pi in the sense of pattern avoidance. One of the celebrated notions in pattern theory is that of Wilf-equivalence, where Pi and Pi' are Wilf equivalent if #Av_n(Pi)=#Av_n(Pi') for all n\ge0. In a recent paper, Sagan and Savage proposed studying a q-analogue of this concept defined as follows. Suppose st:S->N is a permutation statistic where N represents the nonnegativ…
In 2012, Sagan and Savage introduced the notion of $st$-Wilf equivalence for a statistic $st$ and for sets of permutations that avoid particular permutation patterns which can be extended to generalized permutation patterns. In this paper we consider $inv$-Wilf equivalence on sets of two or more consecutive permutation patterns. We say that two sets of generalized permutation patterns $Π$ and $Π'$ are $inv$-Wilf equivalent if the generating function for the inversion statistic on the permutations that simultaneously avoid all elements of $Π$ is equal to the generating function for the inversio…
In [2] we introduced a new notion of Wilf equivalence of integer partitions and proved that rook equivalence implies Wilf equivalence. In the present paper we prove the converse and thereby establish a new criterion for rook equivalence. We also refine two of the standard criteria for rook equivalence and establish another new one involving what we call \emph{nested sequences of L's}.
We launch a systematic study of the refined Wilf-equivalences by the statistics $\mathsf{comp}$ and $\mathsf{iar}$, where $\mathsf{comp}(π)$ and $\mathsf{iar}(π)$ are the number of components and the length of the initial ascending run of a permutation $π$, respectively. As Comtet was the first one to consider the statistic $\mathsf{comp}$ in his book {\em Analyse combinatoire}, any statistic equidistributed with $\mathsf{comp}$ over a class of permutations is called by us a {\em Comtet statistic} over such class. This work is motivated by a triple equidistribution result of Rubey on $321$-avo…
Let $\mathcal{S}_n(π)$ (resp. $\mathcal{I}_n(π)$ and $\mathcal{AI}_n(π)$) denote the set of permutations (resp. involutions and alternating involutions) of length $n$ which avoid the permutation pattern $π$. For $k,m\geq 1$, Backelin-West-Xin proved that $|\mathcal{S}_n(12\cdots kτ)|= |\mathcal{S}_n(k\cdots 21τ)|$ by establishing a bijection between these two sets, where $τ= τ_1τ_2\cdots τ_m$ is an arbitrary permutation of $k+1,k+2,\ldots,k+m$. The result has been extended to involutions by Bousquet-Mélou and Steingrímsson and to alternating permutations by the first author. In this paper, we …
We complete the Wilf classification of signed patterns of length 5 for both signed permutations and signed involutions. New general equivalences of patterns are given which prove Jaggard's conjectures concerning involutions in the symmetric group avoiding certain patterns of length 5 and 6. In this way, we also complete the Wilf classification of S_5, S_6, and S_7 for both permutations and involutions.
Let $E_n^r=\{[τ]_a=(τ_1^{(a_1)},...,τ_n^{(a_n)})| τ\in S_n,\ 1\leq a_i\leq r\}$ be the set of all signed permutations on the symbols 1,2,...,n with signs 1,2,...,r. We prove, for every 2-letter signed pattern $[τ]_a$, that the number of $[τ]_a$-avoiding signed permutations in $E_n^r$ is given by the formula $\sum\limits_{j=0}^n j!(r-1)^j{n\choose j}^2$. Also we prove that there are only one Wilf class for r=1, four Wilf classes for r=2, and six Wilf classes for $r\geq 3$.
Recently, it has been determined that there are 242 Wilf classes of triples of 4-letter permutation patterns by showing that there are 32 non-singleton Wilf classes. Moreover, the generating function for each triple lying in a non-singleton Wilf class has been explicitly determined. In this paper, toward the goal of enumerating avoiders for the singleton Wilf classes, we obtain the generating function for all but one of the triples containing 1324. (The exceptional triple is conjectured to be intractable.) Our methods are both combinatorial and analytic, including generating trees, recurrence …
