This paper initiates the study of shortening universal cycles (u-cycles) and universal words (u-words) for permutations either by using incomparable elements, or by using non-deterministic symbols. The latter approach is similar in nature to the recent relevant studies for the de Bruijn sequences. A particular result we obtain in this paper is that u-words for $n$-permutations exist of lengths $n!+(1-k)(n-1)$ for $k=0,1,\ldots,(n-2)!$.
We use stack words to find a new, simple proof for the best known upper bound for the number of 3-stack sortable permutations of a given length. This is the first time that stack words are used to obtain such a result.
We extend classical theorems of Renyi by finding the distributions of the numbers of both weak and strong left-to-right maxima (a.k.a. outstanding elements) in words over a given alphabet and in permutations of a given multiset.
The class of Parikh word representable graphs were recently introduced. In this work, we further develop its general theory beyond the binary alphabet. Our main result shows that this class is equivalent to the class of bipartite permutation graphs. Furthermore, we study certain graph theoretic properties of these graphs in terms of the arity of the representing word.
Motivated by study of Mahonian statistics, in 2000, Babson and Steingrimsson introduced the notion of a "generalized permutation pattern" (GP) which generalizes the concept of "classical" permutation pattern introduced by Knuth in 1969. The invention of GPs led to a large number of publications related to properties of these patterns in permutations and words. Since the work of Babson and Steingrimsson, several further generalizations of permutation patterns have appeared in the literature, each bringing a new set of permutation or word pattern problems and often new connections with other com…
Given a countable set X (usually taken to be the natural numbers or the integers), an infinite permutation πof X is a linear ordering of X. This paper investigates the combinatorial complexity of the infinite permutation on the natural numbers associated with the well-known and well-studied Thue-Morse word. A formula for the complexity is established by studying patterns in subpermutations and the action of the Thue-Morse morphism on the subpermutations.
A large family of words must contain two words that are similar. We investigate several problems where the measure of similarity is the length of a common subsequence. We construct a family of n^{1/3} permutations on n letters, such that LCS of any two of them is only cn^{1/3}, improving a construction of Beame, Blais, and Huynh-Ngoc. We relate the problem of constructing many permutations with small LCS to the twin word problem of Axenovich, Person and Puzynina. In particular, we show that every word of length n over a k-letter alphabet contains two disjoint equal subsequences of length cnk^{…
Given a countable set X (usually taken to be N or Z), an infinite permutation $π$ of X is a linear ordering $<_π$ of X. This paper investigates the combinatorial complexity of infinite permutations on N associated with the image of uniformly recurrent aperiodic binary words under the letter doubling map. An upper bound for the complexity is found for general words, and a formula for the complexity is established for the Sturmian words and the Thue-Morse word.
We introduce some new classes of words and permutations characterized by the second difference condition $π(i-1) + π(i+1) - 2π(i) \leq k$, which we call the $k$-convexity condition. We demonstrate that for any sized alphabet and convexity parameter $k$, we may find a generating function which counts $k$-convex words of length $n$. We also determine a formula for the number of 0-convex words on any fixed-size alphabet for sufficiently large $n$ by exhibiting a connection to integer partitions. For permutations, we give an explicit solution in the case $k = 0$ and show that the number of 1-conve…
The notion of a $p$-Riordan graph generalizes that of a Riordan graph, which, in turn, generalizes the notions of a Pascal graph and a Toeplitz graph. In this paper we introduce the notion of a $p$-Riordan word, and show how to encode $p$-Riordan graphs by $p$-Riordan words. For special important cases of Riordan graphs (the case $p=2$) and oriented Riordan graphs (the case $p=3$) we provide alternative encodings in terms of pattern-avoiding permutations and certain balanced words, respectively. As a bi-product of our studies, we provide an alternative proof of a known enumerative result on cl…
Algorithmic decidability is established for two order-theoretic properties of downward closed subsets defined by finitely many obstructions in two infinite posets. The properties under consideration are: (a) being atomic, i.e. not being decomposable as a union of two downward closed proper subsets, or, equivalently, satisfying the joint embedding property; and (b) being well quasi-ordered. The two posets are: (1) words over a finite alphabet under the consecutive subword ordering; and (2) finite permutations under the consecutive subpermutation ordering. Underpinning the four results are chara…
The flag-major index "fmaj" and the classical length function "$\ell$" are used to construct two $q$-analogs of the generating polynomial for the hyperoctahedral group~$B_n$ by number of positive and negative fixed points (resp. pixed points). Specializations of those $q$-analogs are also derived dealing with signed derangements and desarrangements, as well as several classical results that were previously proved for the symmetric group.
An infinite permutation is a linear ordering of the set of non-negative integers. Generally, the properties of infinite permutations analogous to those of infinite words show some resemblances and some differences between permutations and words. In this paper, we define maximal pattern complexity for infinite permutations and show that this complexity function is ultimately constant if and only if the permutation is ultimately periodic. Then we characterize the non-periodic permutations of minimal complexity (equal to n) and find that they all are constructed with the use of Sturmian words.
In this paper, we introduce the notion of a $(a,b)$-rectangle pattern on permutations that not only generalizes the notion of successive elements (bonds) in permutations, but is also related to mesh patterns introduced recently by Brändén and Claesson. We call the $(k,k)$-rectangle pattern the $k$-box pattern. To provide an enumeration result on the maximum number of occurrences of the 1-box pattern, we establish an enumerative result on pattern-avoiding signed permutations. Further, we extend the notion of $(k,\ell)$-rectangle patterns to words and binary matrices, and provide distribution of…
Goulden and Jackson introduced a very powerful method to study the distributions of certain consecutive patterns in permutations, words, and other combinatorial objects which is now called the cluster method. There are a number of natural classes of combinatorial objects which start with either permutations or words and add additional restrictions. These include up-down permutations, generalized Euler permutations, words with no consecutive repeated letters, Young tableaux, and non-backtracking random walks. We develop an extension of the cluster method which we call the {\em generalized clust…
We develop the technique of reduced word manipulation to give a range of results concerning reduced words and permutations more generally. We prove a broad connection between pattern containment and reduced words, which specializes to our previous work for vexillary permutations. We also analyze general tilings of Elnitsky's polygon, and demonstrate that these are closely related to the patterns in a permutation. Building on previous work for commutation classes, we show that reduced word enumeration is monotonically increasing with respect to pattern containment. Finally, we give several appl…
A universal cycle for permutations is a word of length n! such that each of the n! possible relative orders of n distinct integers occurs as a cyclic interval of the word. We show how to construct such a universal cycle in which only n+1 distinct integers are used. This is best possible and proves a conjecture of Chung, Diaconis and Graham.
Motivated by recent work with Mazorchuk, we characterize the conditions under which the intersection of two principal order ideals in the Bruhat order is boolean. That characterization is presented in three versions: in terms of reduced words, in terms of permutation patterns, and in terms of permutation support. The equivalence of these properties follows from an analysis of what it means to have a specific letter repeated in a permutation's reduced words; namely, that a specific 321-pattern appears.
The method we have applied in "A. Bernini, L. Ferrari, R. Pinzani, Enumerating permutations avoiding three Babson-Steingrimsson patterns, Ann. Comb. 9 (2005), 137--162" to count pattern avoiding permutations is adapted to words. As an application, we enumerate several classes of words simultaneously avoiding two generalized patterns of length 3.
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.
We answer a question of Harju: An infinite square-free ternary word with an $n$-stem factorization exists for any $n\ge 13$. We show that there are uniform ternary morphisms of length $k$ for every $k\ge 23$. This resolves almost completely a problem of the author and Rampersad.
Every word has a shape determined by its image under the Robinson-Schensted-Knuth correspondence. We show that when a word w contains a separable (i.e., 3142- and 2413-avoiding) permutation σ as a pattern, the shape of w contains the shape of σ. As an application, we exhibit lower bounds for the lengths of supersequences of sets containing separable permutations.
It is a classical result that any permutation in the symmetric group can be generated by a sequence of adjacent transpositions. The sequences of minimal length are called reduced words, and in this paper we study the graphs of these reduced words, with edges determined by relations in the underlying Coxeter group. Recently, the diameter has been calculated for the longest permutation $n\ldots 21$ by Reiner and Roichman as well as Assaf. In this paper we find inductive formulas for the diameter of the graphs of 12-inflations and many 21-inflations. These results extend to the associated graphs …
We find the winning strategy for a class of truncation games played on words. As a consequence of the present author's recent results on some of these games we obtain new formulas for Bernoulli numbers and polynomials of the second kind and a new combinatorial model for the number of connected permutations of given rank. For connected permutations, the decomposition used to find the winning strategy is shown to be bijectively equivalent to King's decomposition, used to recursively generate a transposition Gray code of the connected permutations.
This paper is a contribution to the study of hereditary classes of finite graphs. We classify these classes according to the number of prime structures they contain. We consider such classes that are \emph{minimal prime}: classes that contain infinitely many primes but every proper hereditary subclass contains only finitely many primes. We give a complete characterization of such classes. In fact, each one of these classes is a well quasi ordered age and there are uncountably many of them. Eleven of these ages remain well quasi ordered when labels in a well quasi ordering are added. Among the …
We prove that if a uniformly recurrent infinite word contains as a factor any finite permutation of words from an infinite family, then either this word is periodic, or its complexity (that is, the number of factors) grows faster than linearly. This result generalizes one of the lemmas of a recent paper by de Luca and Zamboni, where it was proved that such an infinite word cannot be Sturmian.
We study the graph on reduced words with edges given by the Coxeter relations for the symmetric group. We define a metric on reduced words for a given permutation, analogous to Coxeter length for permutations, for which the graph becomes ranked with unique maximal element. We show this metric extends naturally to balanced tableaux, and use it to recover enumerative results of Edelman and Greene and of Reiner and Roichman.
Two same length words are $d$-equivalent if they have same descent set and same underlying alphabet. In particular, two same length permutations are $d$-equivalent if they have same descent set. The popularity of a pattern in a set of words is the overall number of copies of the pattern within the words of the set. We show the far-from-trivial fact that two patterns are $d$-equivalent if and only if they are equipopular over any $d$-equivalence class, and this equipopularity does not follow obviously from a trivial equidistribution.
In this paper, we study the pattern occurrence in $k$-ary words. We prove an explicit upper bound on the number of $k$-ary words avoiding any given pattern using a random walk argument. Additionally, we reproduce several already known results and establish a simple connection among pattern occurrences in permutations and $k$-ary words. A simple consequence of this connection is that Wilf-equivalence of two patterns in words implies their Wilf-equivalence in permutations.
Edelman and Greene constructed a correspondence between reduced words of the reverse permutation and standard Young tableaux. We prove that for any reduced word the shape of the region of the insertion tableau containing the smallest possible entries evolves exactly as the upper-left component of the permutation's (Rothe) diagram. Properties of the Edelman-Greene bijection restricted to 132-avoiding and 2143-avoiding permutations are presented. We also consider the Edelman-Greene bijection applied to non-reduced words.
We study the distribution and the popularity of some patterns in $k$-ary faro words, i.e. words over the alphabet $\{1, 2, \ldots, k\}$ obtained by interlacing the letters of two nondecreasing words of lengths differing by at most one. We present a bijection between these words and dispersed Dyck paths (i.e. Motzkin paths with all level steps on the $x$-axis) with a given number of peaks. We show how the bijection maps statistics of consecutive patterns of faro words into linear combinations of other pattern statistics on paths. Then, we deduce enumerative results by providing multivariate gen…
This paper considers a problem that relates to the theories of covering arrays, permutation patterns, Vapnik-Chervonenkis (VC) classes, and probability thresholds. Specifically, we want to find the number of subsets of [n]:={1,2,....,n} we need to randomly select, in a certain probability space, so as to respectively "shatter" all t-subsets of [n]. Moving from subsets to words, we ask for the number of n-letter words on a q-letter alphabet that are needed to shatter all t-subwords of the q^n words of length n. Finally, we explore the number of random permutations of [n] needed to shatter (spec…
We consider the enumeration of ordered set partitions avoiding a permutation pattern, as introduced by Godbole, Goyt, Herdan and Pudwell. Let $\op_{n,k}(p)$ be the number of ordered set partitions of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ into $k$ blocks that avoid a permutation pattern $p$. We establish an explicit identity between the number $\op_{n,k}(p)$ and the numbers of words avoiding the inverse of $p$. This identity allows us to easily translate results on pattern-avoiding words obtained in earlier works into equivalent results on pattern-avoiding ordered set partitions. In particular, \emph{(a)} we dete…
In this paper we introduce a new notion of a sequence of symmetry groups of an infinite word. Given a subgroup $G_n$ of the symmetric group $S_n$, it acts on the set of finite words of length $n$ by permutation. We associate to an infinite word $w$ a sequence $(G_n(w))_{n\geq 1}$ of its symmetry groups: For each $n$, a symmetry group of $w$ is a subgroup $G_n(w)$ of the symmetric group $S_n$ such that $g(v)$ is a factor of $w$ for each permutation $g \in G_n(w)$ and each factor $v$ of length $n$ of $w$. We study general properties of the symmetry groups of infinite words and characterize the s…
An infinite permutation $α$ is a linear ordering of $\mathbb N$. We study properties of infinite permutations analogous to those of infinite words, and show some resemblances and some differences between permutations and words. In this paper, we try to extend to permutations the notion of automaticity. As we shall show, the standard definitions which are equivalent in the case of words are not equivalent in the context of permutations. We investigate the relationships between these definitions and prove that they constitute a chain of inclusions. We also construct and study an automaton genera…
We define the excedence set and the excedance word on $G_{r,n}$, generalizing a work of Ehrenborg and Steingrimsson and use the inclusion-exclusion principle to calculate the number of colored permutations having a prescribed excedance word. We show some symmetric properties as Log concavity and unimodality of a specific sequence of excedance words.
An infinite permutation is a linear ordering of the set of natural numbers. An infinite permutation can be defined by a sequence of real numbers where only the order of elements is taken into account. In the paper we investigate a new class of {\it equidistributed} infinite permutations, that is, infinite permutations which can be defined by equidistributed sequences. Similarly to infinite words, a complexity $p(n)$ of an infinite permutation is defined as a function counting the number of its subpermutations of length $n$. For infinite words, a classical result of Morse and Hedlund, 1938, sta…
An infinite permutation can be defined as a linear ordering of the set of natural numbers. In particular, an infinite permutation can be constructed with an aperiodic infinite word over $\{0,\ldots,q-1\}$ as the lexicographic order of the shifts of the word. In this paper, we discuss the question if an infinite permutation defined this way admits a canonical representative, that is, can be defined by a sequence of numbers from [0, 1], such that the frequency of its elements in any interval is equal to the length of that interval. We show that a canonical representative exists if and only if th…
Descents in permutations or words are defined from the relative position of two consecutive letters. We investigate a statistic involving patterns of k consecutive letters, and show that it leads to Hopf algebras generalizing noncommutative symmetric functions and quasi-symmetric functions.
We investigate the dynamics of the well-known RSK bijection on permutations when iterated on various reading words of the recording tableau. In the setting of the ordinary (row) reading word, we show that there is exactly one fixed point per partition shape, and that it is always reached within two steps from any starting permutation. We also consider the modified dynamical systems formed by iterating RSK on the column reading word and the reversed reading word of the recording tableau. We show that the column reading word gives similar dynamics to the row reading word. On the other hand, for …
Enumeration problems related to words avoiding patterns as well as permutations that contain the pattern $123$ exactly once have been studied in great detail. However, the problem of enumerating words that contain the pattern $123$ exactly once is new and will be the focus of this paper. Previously, Doron Zeilberger provided a shortened version of Alexander Burstein's combinatorial proof of John Noonan's theorem that the number of permutations with exactly one $321$ pattern is equal to $\frac{3}{n} \binom{2n}{n+3}$. Surprisingly, a similar method can be directly adapted to words. We are able t…
In this article we generalize packing density problems from permutations to patterns with repeated letters and generalized patterns. We are able to find the packing density for some classes of patterns and several other short patterns.
