Given an essential semilattice congruence $\equiv$ on the left weak order of a Coxeter group $W$, we define the Coxeter stack-sorting operator ${\bf S}_\equiv:W\to W$ by ${\bf S}_\equiv(w)=w\left(π_\downarrow^\equiv(w)\right)^{-1}$, where $π_\downarrow^\equiv(w)$ is the unique minimal element of the congruence class of $\equiv$ containing $w$. When $\equiv$ is the sylvester congruence on the symmetric group $S_n$, the operator ${\bf S}_\equiv$ is West's stack-sorting map. When $\equiv$ is the descent congruence on $S_n$, the operator ${\bf S}_\equiv$ is the pop-stack-sorting map. We establish several general results about Coxeter stack-sorting operators, especially those acting on symmetric groups. For example, we prove that if $\equiv$ is an essential lattice congruence on $S_n$, then every permutation in the image of ${\bf S}_\equiv$ has at most $\left\lfloor\frac{2(n-1)}{3}\right\rfloor$ right descents; we also show that this bound is tight.
We then introduce analogues of permutree congruences in types $B$ and $\widetilde A$ and use them to isolate Coxeter stack-sorting operators $\mathtt{s}_B$ and $\widetilde{\hspace{.05cm}\mathtt{s}}$ that serve as canonical type-$B$ and type-$\widetilde A$ counterparts of West's stack-sorting map. We prove analogues of many known results about West's stack-sorting map for the new operators $\mathtt{s}_B$ and $\widetilde{\hspace{.05cm}\mathtt{s}}$. For example, in type $\widetilde A$, we obtain an analogue of Zeilberger's classical formula for the number of $2$-stack-sortable permutations in $S_n$.
In their work on `Coxeter-like complexes', Babson and Reiner introduced a simplicial complex $Δ_T$ associated to each tree $T$ on $n$ nodes, generalizing chessboard complexes and type A Coxeter complexes. They conjectured that $Δ_T$ is $(n-b-1)$-connected when the tree has $b$ leaves. We provide a shelling for the $(n-b)$-skeleton of $Δ_T$, thereby proving this conjecture. In the process, we introduce notions of weak order and inversion functions on the labellings of a tree $T$ which imply shellability of $Δ_T$, and we construct such inversion functions for a large enough class of trees to ded…
Let $W$ be an irreducible Coxeter group. We define the Coxeter pop-stack-sorting operator $\mathsf{Pop}:W\to W$ to be the map that fixes the identity element and sends each nonidentity element $w$ to the meet of the elements covered by $w$ in the right weak order. When $W$ is the symmetric group $S_n$, $\mathsf{Pop}$ coincides with the pop-stack-sorting map. Generalizing a theorem about the pop-stack-sorting map due to Ungar, we prove that \[\sup\limits_{w\in W}\left|O_{\mathsf{Pop}}(w)\right|=h,\] where $h$ is the Coxeter number of $W$ (with $h=\infty$ if $W$ is infinite) and $O_f(w)$ denotes…
Let $(W,S)$ be an arbitrary Coxeter system. For each word $ω$ in the generators we define a partial order--called the {\sf $ω$-sorting order}--on the set of group elements $W_ω\subseteq W$ that occur as subwords of $ω$. We show that the $ω$-sorting order is a supersolvable join-distributive lattice and that it is strictly between the weak and Bruhat orders on the group. Moreover, the $ω$-sorting order is a "maximal lattice" in the sense that the addition of any collection of Bruhat covers results in a nonlattice. Along the way we define a class of structures called {\sf supersolvable antimatro…
We introduce consecutive-pattern-avoiding stack-sorting maps $\text{SC}_σ$, which are natural generalizations of West's stack-sorting map $s$ and natural analogues of the classical-pattern-avoiding stack-sorting maps $s_σ$ recently introduced by Cerbai, Claesson, and Ferrari. We characterize the patterns $σ$ such that $\text{Sort}(\text{SC}_σ)$, the set of permutations that are sortable via the map $s\circ\text{SC}_σ$, is a permutation class, and we enumerate the sets $\text{Sort}(\text{SC}_σ)$ for $σ\in\{123,132,321\}$. We also study the maps $\text{SC}_σ$ from a dynamical point of view, char…
Given a finite irreducible Coxeter group $W$ with a fixed Coxeter element $c$, we define the Coxeter pop-tsack torsing operator $\mathsf{Pop}_T:W\to W$ by $\mathsf{Pop}_T(w)=w\cdotπ_T(w)^{-1}$, where $π_T(w)$ is the join in the noncrossing partition lattice $\mathrm{NC}(w,c)$ of the set of reflections lying weakly below $w$ in the absolute order. This definition serves as a "Bessis dual" version of the first author's notion of a Coxeter pop-stack sorting operator, which, in turn, generalizes the pop-stack-sorting map on symmetric groups. We show that if $W$ is coincidental or of type $D$, then…
We use a method for determining the number of preimages of any permutation under the stack-sorting map in order to obtain recursive upper bounds for the numbers $W_t(n)$ and $W_t(n,k)$ of $t$-stack sortable permutations of length $n$ and $t$-stack sortable permutations of length $n$ with exactly $k$ descents. From these bounds, we are able to significantly improve the best known upper bounds for $\displaystyle{\lim_{n\to\infty}\sqrt[n]{W_t(n)}}$ when $t=3$ and $t=4$.
We consider the set of permutations that are sorted after two passes through a pop stack. We characterize these permutations in terms of forbidden patterns (classical and barred) and enumerate them according to the ascent statistic. Then we show these permutations to be in bijection with a special family of polyominoes. As a consequence, the permutations sortable by this machine are shown to have the same enumeration as three classical permutation classes.
We show that the left-greedy algorithm is a better algorithm than the right-greedy algorithm for sorting permutations using t stacks in series when t>1. We also supply a method for constructing some permutations that can be sorted by t stacks in series and from this get a lower bound on the number of permutations of length n that are sortable by t stacks in series. Finally we show that the left-greedy algorithm is neither optimal nor defines a closed class of permutations for t>2.
In this work of thesis we introduce and study a new family of sorting devices, which we call pattern-avoiding machines. They consist of two stacks in series, equipped with a greedy procedure. On both stacks we impose a static constraint in terms of pattern containment: reading the content from top to bottom, the first stack is not allowed to contain occurrences of a given pattern $σ$, whereas the second one is not allowed to contain occurrences of $21$. By analyzing the behavior of pattern-avoiding machines, we aim to gain a better understanding of the problem of sorting permutations with two …
Let $\mathcal D_n$ denote the average number of iterations of West's stack-sorting map $s$ that are needed to sort a permutation in $S_n$ into the identity permutation $123\cdots n$. We prove that \[0.62433\approxλ\leq\liminf_{n\to\infty}\frac{\mathcal D_n}{n}\leq\limsup_{n\to\infty}\frac{\mathcal D_n}{n}\leq \frac{3}{5}(7-8\log 2)\approx 0.87289,\] where $λ$ is the Golomb-Dickman constant. Our lower bound improves upon West's lower bound of $0.23$, and our upper bound is the first improvement upon the trivial upper bound of $1$. We then show that fertilities of permutations increase monotonic…
This paper continues the analysis of the pattern-avoiding sorting machines recently introduced by Cerbai, Claesson and Ferrari [CCF]. These devices consist of two stacks, through which a permutation is passed in order to sort it, where the content of each stack must at all times avoid a certain pattern. Here we characterize and enumerate the set of permutations that can be sorted when the first stack is $132$-avoiding, solving one of the open problems proposed in [CCF]. To that end we present several connections with other well known combinatorial objects, such as lattice paths and restricted …
We exhibit a bijection between recently-introduced combinatorial objects known as valid hook configurations and certain weighted set partitions. When restricting our attention to set partitions that are matchings, we obtain three new combinatorial interpretations of Lassalle's sequence. One of these interpretations involves permutations that have exactly one preimage under the (West) stack-sorting map. We prove that the sequences obtained by counting these permutations according to their first entries are symmetric, and we conjecture that they are log-concave. We also obtain new recurrence rel…
Given a complex simple Lie algebra $\mathfrak g$ and a dominant weight $λ$, let $\mathcal B_λ$ be the crystal poset associated to the irreducible representation of $\mathfrak g$ with highest weight $λ$. In the first part of the article, we introduce the \emph{crystal pop-stack sorting operator} $\mathsf{Pop}_{\lozenge}\colon\mathcal B_λ\to\mathcal B_λ$, a noninvertible operator whose definition extends that of the pop-stack sorting map and the recently-introduced Coxeter pop-stack sorting operators. Every forward orbit of $\mathsf{Pop}_{\lozenge}$ contains the minimal element of $\mathcal B_λ$…
For a finite irreducible Coxeter group $(W,S)$ with a fixed Coxeter element $c$ and set of reflections $T$, Defant and Williams define a pop-tsack torsing operation $\mathrm{Popt}\colon W \to W$ given by $\mathrm{Popt}(w) = w \cdot π_T(w)^{-1}$ where $π_T(w) = \bigvee_{t \leq_{T}w, \ t \in T}^{NC(w,c)}t$ is the join of all reflections lying below $w$ in the absolute order in the non-crossing partition lattice $NC(w,c)$. This is a "dual" notion of the pop-stack sorting operator $\mathrm{Pops}$ introduced by Defant as a way to generalize the pop-stack sorting operator on $\mathfrak{S}_n$ to gene…
Pattern avoiding machines were recently introduced by Claesson, Ferrari and the current author to gain a better understanding of the classical $2$-stacksort problem. In this paper we generalize these devices by allowing permutations with repeated elements, also known as Cayley permutations. The main result is a description of those patterns such that the corresponding set of sortable permutations is a class. We also show a new involution on the set of Cayley permutations, obtained by regarding a pattern-avoiding stack as an operator. Finally, we analyze two generalizations of pop-stack sorting…
We extend and generalize many of the enumerative results concerning West's stack-sorting map $s$. First, we prove a useful theorem that allows one to efficiently compute $|s^{-1}(π)|$ for any permutation $π$, answering a question of Bousquet-Mélou. We then enumerate permutations in various sets of the form $s^{-1}(\text{Av}(τ^{(1)},\ldots,τ^{(r)}))$, where $\text{Av}(τ^{(1)},\ldots,τ^{(r)})$ is the set of permutations avoiding the patterns $τ^{(1)},\ldots,τ^{(r)}$. These preimage sets often turn out to be permutation classes themselves, so the current paper represents a new approach, based on …
We consider the problem of sorting elements on a series of stacks, introduced by Tarjan and Knuth. We improve the asymptotic lower bound for the number of stacks necessary to sort $n$ elements to $0.561 \log_2 n + O(1)$. This is the first significant improvement since the previous lower bound, $1/2 \log_2 n + O(1)$, was established by Knuth in 1972.
Motivated by the pop-stack-sorting map on the symmetric groups, Defant defined an operator $\mathsf{Pop}_M : M \to M$ for each complete meet-semilattice $M$ by $$\mathsf{Pop}_M(x)=\bigwedge(\{y\in M: y\lessdot x\}\cup \{x\}).$$ This paper concerns the dynamics of $\mathsf{Pop}_{\mathrm{Tam}_n}$, where $\mathrm{Tam}_n$ is the $n$-th Tamari lattice. We say an element $x\in \mathrm{Tam}_n$ is $t$-$\mathsf{Pop}$-sortable if $\mathsf{Pop}_M^t (x)$ is the minimal element and we let $h_t(n)$ denote the number of $t$-$\mathsf{Pop}$-sortable elements in $\mathrm{Tam}_n$. We find an explicit formula for…
We introduce operators $\mathsf{hare}$ and $\mathsf{tortoise}$, which act on words as natural generalizations of West's stack-sorting map. We show that the heuristically slower algorithm $\mathsf{tortoise}$ can sort words arbitrarily faster than its counterpart $\mathsf{hare}$. We then generalize the combinatorial objects known as valid hook configurations in order to find a method for computing the number of preimages of any word under these two operators. We relate the question of determining which words are sortable by $\mathsf{hare}$ and $\mathsf{tortoise}$ to more classical problems in pa…
We derive some new signed Mahonian polynomials over the complex reflection group $G(r,1,n)=C_r\wr\mathfrak{S}_n$, where the "sign" is taken to be any of the $2r$ $1$-dim characters and the "Mahonian" statistics are the $\mathsf{lmaj}$ defined by Bagno and the $\mathsf{sor}$ defined by Eu et al. Various new signed Mahonian polynomials over Coxeter groups of types $B_n$ and $D_n$ are derived as well. We also investigate the signed counting polynomials on $G(r,1,n)$ for those statistics with the distribution $[r]_q[2r]_q\cdots [nr]_q$.
In this article, we give a polynomial algorithm to decide whether a given permutation $σ$ is sortable with two stacks in series. This is indeed a longstanding open problem which was first introduced by Knuth. He introduced the stack sorting problem as well as permutation patterns which arises naturally when characterizing permutations that can be sorted with one stack. When several stacks in series are considered, few results are known. There are two main different problems. The first one is the complexity of deciding if a permutation is sortable or not, the second one being the characterizati…
We introduce a sorting machine consisting of $k+1$ stacks in series: the first $k$ stacks can only contain elements in decreasing order from top to bottom, while the last one has the opposite restriction. This device generalizes \cite{SM}, which studies the case $k=1$. Here we show that, for $k=2$, the set of sortable permutations is a class with infinite basis, by explicitly finding an antichain of minimal nonsortable permutations. This construction can easily be adapted to each $k \ge 3$. Next we describe an optimal sorting algorithm, again for the case $k=2$. We then analyze two types of le…
Several sequences of free cumulants that count binary plane trees correspond to sequences of classical cumulants that count the decreasing versions of the same trees. Using two new operations on colored binary plane trees that we call insertion and decomposition, we prove that this surprising phenomenon holds for families of trees that we call troupes. We give a simple characterization of troupes, which provide a broad framework for generalizing several of the results known about West's stack-sorting map $s$. Indeed, we give new proofs of some of the main techniques that have been developed fo…
We introduce an algorithm to determine when a sorting operation, such as stack-sort or bubble-sort, outputs a given pattern. The algorithm provides a new proof of the description of West-2-stack-sortable permutations, that is permutations that are completely sorted when passed twice through a stack, in terms of patterns. We also solve the long-standing problem of describing West-3-stack-sortable permutations. This requires a new type of generalized permutation pattern we call a decorated pattern.
Pop-Stack Sorting is an algorithm that takes a permutation as an input and sorts its elements. It consists of several steps. At one step, the algorithm reads the permutation it has to process from left to right and reverses each of its maximal decreasing subsequences of consecutive elements. It terminates at the first step that outputs the identity permutation. In this note, we answer a question of Defant on the running time of Pop-Stack Sorting on the uniform random permutation $σ_n$. More precisely, we show that there is a constant $c > 0.5$ such that asymptotically almost surely, the algori…
The (classical) problem of characterizing and enumerating permutations that can be sorted using two stacks connected in series is still largely open. In the present paper we address a related problem, in which we impose restrictions both on the procedure and on the stacks. More precisely, we consider a greedy algorithm where we perform the rightmost legal operation (here "rightmost" refers to the usual representation of stack sorting problems). Moreover, the first stack is required to be $σ$-avoiding, for some permutation $σ$, meaning that, at each step, the elements maintained in the stack av…
We study a sorting machine consisting of two stacks in series where the first stack has the added restriction such that entries in the stack must be in decreasing order from top to bottom. We give the basis of the class of permutations that are sortable by this machine which shows that it is enumerated by the Schröder numbers.
We study sorting machines consisting of a stack and a pop stack in series, with or without a queue between them. While there are, a priori, four such machines, only two are essentially different: a pop stack followed directly by a stack, and a pop stack followed by a queue and then by a stack. In the former case, we obtain complete answers for the basis and enumeration of the sortable permutations. In the latter case, we present several conjectures.
A fork stack is a generalised stack which allows pushes and pops of several items at a time. We consider the problem of determining which input streams can be sorted using a single forkstack, or dually, which permutations of a fixed input stream can be produced using a single forkstack. An algorithm is given to solve the sorting problem and the minimal unsortable sequences are found. The results are extended to fork stacks where there are bounds on how many items can be pushed and popped at one time. In this context we also establish how to enumerate the collection of sortable sequences.
In this paper we examine the sorting operator $T(LnR)=T(R)T(L)n$. Applying this operator to a permutation is equivalent to passing the permutation reversed through a stack. We prove theorems that characterise $t$-revstack sortability in terms of patterns in a permutation that we call $zigzag$ patterns. Using these theorems we characterise those permutations of length $n$ which are sorted by $t$ applications of $T$ for $t=0,1,2,n-3,n-2,n-1$. We derive expressions for the descent polynomials of these six classes of permutations and use this information to prove Steingrímsson's sorting conjecture…
Let W be a finite Coxeter group. We define its Hecke-group algebra by gluing together appropriately its group algebra and its 0-Hecke algebra. We describe in detail this algebra (dimension, several bases, conjectural presentation, combinatorial construction of simple and indecomposable projective modules, Cartan map) and give several alternative equivalent definitions (as symmetry preserving operator algebra, as poset algebra, as commutant algebra, ...). In type A, the Hecke-group algebra can be described as the algebra generated simultaneously by the elementary transpositions and the elementa…
We consider the involutions known as "toggles," which have been used to give simplified proofs of the fundamental properties of the promotion and evacuation maps. We transfer these involutions so that they generate a group $\mathscr P_n$ that acts on the set $S_n$ of permutations of $\{1,\ldots,n\}$. After characterizing its orbits in terms of permutation skeletons, we apply the action in order to understand West's stack-sorting map. We obtain a very simple proof of a result that clarifies and extensively generalizes a theorem of Bouvel and Guibert and also generalizes a theorem of Bousquet-Mé…
Extending the classical pop-stack sorting map on the lattice given by the right weak order on $S_n$, Defant defined, for any lattice $M$, a map $\mathsf{Pop}_{M}: M \to M$ that sends an element $x\in M$ to the meet of $x$ and the elements covered by $x$. In parallel with the line of studies on the image of the classical pop-stack sorting map, we study $\mathsf{Pop}_{M}(M)$ when $M$ is the weak order of type $B_n$, the Tamari lattice of type $B_n$, the lattice of order ideals of the root poset of type $A_n$, and the lattice of order ideals of the root poset of type $B_n$. In particular, we sett…
Pancake flipping, a famous open problem in computer science, can be formalised as the problem of sorting a permutation of positive integers using as few prefix reversals as possible. In that context, a prefix reversal of length k reverses the order of the first k elements of the permutation. The burnt variant of pancake flipping involves permutations of signed integers, and reversals in that case not only reverse the order of elements but also invert their signs. Although three decades have now passed since the first works on these problems, neither their computational complexity nor the maxim…
