We consider the problem of enumerating the permutations containing exactly $k$ occurrences of a pattern of length 3. This enumeration has received a lot of interest recently, and there are a lot of known results. This paper presents an alternative approach to the problem, which yields a proof for a formula which so far only was conjectured (by Noonan and Zeilberger). This approach is based on bijections from permutations to certain lattice paths with ``jumps'', which were first considered by Krattenthaler.
We initiate a general approach for the fast enumeration of permutations with a prescribed number of occurrences of `forbidden' patterns, that seems to indicate that the enumerating sequence is always P-recursive. We illustrate the method completely in terms of the patterns `abc',`cab' and `abcd'.
Successive ranks of a partition, which were introduced by Atkin, are the difference of the $i$th row and the $i$th column in the Ferrers graph. Recently, in the study of singular overpartitions, Andrews revisited successive ranks and parity blocks. Motivated by his work, we investigate partitions with prescribed successive rank parity blocks. The main result of this paper is the generating function of partitions with exactly $d$ successive ranks and $m$ parity blocks.
A polynomial is called self-reciprocal (or palindromic) if the sequence of its coefficients is palindromic. In this paper we enumerate self-reciprocal irreducible monic polynomials over a finite field with prescribed leading coefficients. Asymptotic expression with explicit error bound is derived, which is used to show that such polynomials with degree $2n$ always exist provided that the number of prescribed leading coefficients is slightly less than $n/4$. Exact expressions are also obtained for fields with two or three elements and up to two prescribed leading coefficients.
In this paper, we focus on the enumeration of permutations by number of cyclic occurrence of peaks and valleys. We find several recurrence relations involving the number of permutations with a prescribed number of cyclic peaks, cyclic valleys, fixed points and cycles. Several associated permutation statistics and the corresponding generating functions are also studied. In particular, we establish a connection between cyclic valleys and Pell numbers as well as cyclic peaks and alternating runs.
We enumerate derangements with descents in prescribed positions. A generating function was given by Guo-Niu Han and Guoce Xin in 2007. We give a combinatorial proof of this result, and derive several explicit formulas. To this end, we consider fixed point $λ$-coloured permutations, which are easily enumerated. Several formulae regarding these numbers are given, as well as a generalisation of Euler's difference tables. We also prove that except in a trivial special case, if a permutation $π$ is chosen uniformly among all permutations on $n$ elements, the events that $π$ has descents in a set $S…
We give a simple formula for the number of hypertrees with $k$ hyperedges of given sizes and $n+1$ labelled vertices with prescribed degrees. A slight generalization of this formula counts labelled bipartite trees with prescribed degrees in each class of vertices.
Let $F_q$ be a finite field of characteristic $p=2,3$. We give the number of irreducible polynomials $x^m+a_{m-1}x^{m-1}+...+a_0\in\F_q[x]$ with $a_{m-1}$ and $a_{m-3}$ prescribed for any given $m$ if $p=2$, and with $a_{m-1}$ and $a_1$ prescribed for $m=1,...,10$ if $p=2,3$.
We give a generating function for the number of graphs with given numerical properties and prescribed weighted number of connected components. As an application, we give a generating function for the number of bipartite graphs of given order, size and number of connected components.
An avoidance pattern where the letters within an occurrence of which are required to be adjacent is referred to as a subword. In this paper, we enumerate members of the set NC_n of non-crossing partitions of length n according to the number of occurrences of several infinite families of subword patterns each containing repeated letters. As a consequence of our results, we obtain explicit generating function formulas counting the members of NC_n for n >= 0 according to all subword patterns of length three containing a repeated letter. Further, simple expressions are deduced for the total number…
Monotone triangles are plane integer arrays of triangular shape with certain monotonicity conditions along rows and diagonals. Their significance is mainly due to the fact that they correspond to $n \times n$ alternating sign matrices when prescribing $(1,2,...,n)$ as bottom row of the array. We define monotone $(d,m)$--trapezoids as monotone triangles with $m$ rows where the $d-1$ top rows are removed. (These objects are also equivalent to certain partial alternating sign matrices.) It is known that the number of monotone triangles with bottom row $(k_1,...,k_n)$ is given by a polynomial $α(n…
In recent work, Zeilberger and the author used a functional equations approach for enumerating permutations with r occurrences of the pattern 12...k. In particular, the approach yielded a polynomial-time enumeration algorithm for any fixed nonnegative r. We extend that approach to patterns of the form 12...(k-2)(k)(k-1) by deriving analogous functional equations and using them to develop similar algorithms that enumerate permutations with r occurrences of the pattern. We also generalize those techniques to handle patterns of the form 23...k1 and derive analogous functional equations and enumer…
For any pattern $α$ of length at most two, we enumerate equivalence classes of Łukasiewicz paths of length $n\geq 0$ where two paths are equivalent whenever the occurrence positions of $α$ are identical on these paths. As a byproduct, we give a constructive bijection between Motzkin paths and some equivalence classes of Łukasiewicz paths.
Let A be any set of positive integers and n a positive integer. A composition of n with parts in A is an ordered collection of one or more elements in A whose sum is n. We derive generating functions for the number of compositions of n with m parts in A that have r occurrences of 3-letter patterns formed by two (adjacent) instances of levels, rises and drops. We also derive asymptotics for the number of compositions of n that avoid a given pattern. Finally, we obtain the generating function for the number of k-ary words of length m which contain a prescribed number of occurrences of a given pa…
A redundant generating function is a generating function having terms which are not part of the solution of the original problem. We use redundant generating functions to study two path problems. In the first application we explain a surprising occurrence of Catalan numbers in counting paths that stay below the line y = 2x. In the second application we prove a conjecture of Niederhausen and Sullivan.
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…
The main theme of this paper is the enumeration of the occurrence of a pattern in words and permutations. We mainly focus on asymptotic properties of the sequence $f_r^v(k,n),$ the number of $n$-array $k$-ary words that contain a given pattern $v$ exactly $r$ times. In addition, we study the asymptotic behavior of the random variable $X_n,$ the number of pattern occurrences in a random $n$-array word. The two topics are closely related through the identity $P(X_n=r) = $ $\frac{1}{k^n}f_r^v(k,n).$ In particular, we show that for any $r\geq 0,$ the Stanley-Wilf sequence $\bigl(f_r^v(k,n)\bigr)^{…
We deal with the asymptotic enumeration of combinatorial structures on planar maps. Prominent instances of such problems are the enumeration of spanning trees, bipartite perfect matchings, and ice models. The notion of orientations with out-degrees prescribed by a function $å:V\to \NN$ unifies many different combinatorial structures, including the afore mentioned. We call these orientations $å$-orientations. The main focus of this paper are bounds for the maximum number of $å$-orientations that a planar map with $n$ vertices can have, for different instances of $å$. We give examples of triangu…
Following a question of J. Cooper, we study the expected number of occurrences of a given permutation pattern $q$ in permutations that avoid another given pattern $r$. In some cases, we find the pattern that occurs least often, (resp. most often) in all $r$-avoiding permutations. We also prove a few exact enumeration formulae, some of which are surprising.
We consider $m$-divisible non-crossing partitions of $\{1,2,\ldots,mn\}$ with the property that for some $t\leq n$ no block contains more than one of the first $t$ integers. We give a closed formula for the number of multi-chains of such non-crossing partitions with prescribed number of blocks. Building on this result, we compute Chapoton's $M$-triangle in this setting and conjecture a combinatorial interpretation for the $H$-triangle. This conjecture is proved for $m=1$.
A $k$-plane tree is a plane tree whose vertices are assigned labels between $1$ and $k$ in such a way that the sum of the labels along any edge is no greater than $k+1$. These trees are known to be related to $(k+1)$-ary trees, and they are counted by a generalised version of the Catalan numbers. We prove a surprisingly simple refined counting formula, where we count trees with a prescribed number of labels of each kind. Several corollaries are derived from this formula, and an analogous theorem is proven for $k$-noncrossing trees, a similarly defined family of labelled noncrossing trees that …
Vincular and covincular patterns are generalizations of classical patterns allowing restrictions on the indices and values of the occurrences in a permutation. In this paper we study the integer sequences arising as the enumerations of permutations simultaneously avoiding a vincular and a covincular pattern, both of length 3, with at most one restriction. We see familiar sequences, such as the Catalan and Motzkin numbers, but also some previously unknown sequences which have close links to other combinatorial objects such as lattice paths and integer partitions. Where possible we include a gen…
The Goulden-Jackson cluster method is a powerful tool for obtaining generating functions for counting words in a free monoid by occurrences of a set of subwords. We introduce a generalization of the cluster method for monoid networks, which generalize the combinatorial framework of free monoids. As a sample application of the generalized cluster method, we compute bivariate and multivariate generating functions counting Motzkin paths---both with height bounded and unbounded---by statistics corresponding to the number of occurrences of various subwords, yielding both closed-form and continued f…
We provide a simplified proof of our operator formula for the number of monotone triangles with prescribed bottom row, which enables us to deduce three generalizations of the formula. One of the generalizations concerns a certain weighted enumeration of monotone triangles which specializes to the weighted enumeration of alternating sign matrices with respect to the number of -1s in the matrix when prescribing $(1,2,...,n)$ as the bottom row of the monotone triangle.
Motivated by the recent proof of the Stanley-Wilf conjecture, we study the asymptotic behavior of the number of permutations avoiding a generalized pattern. Generalized patterns allow the requirement that some pairs of letters must be adjacent in an occurrence of the pattern in the permutation, and consecutive patterns are a particular case of them. We determine the asymptotic behavior of the number of permutations avoiding a consecutive pattern, showing that they are an exponentially small proportion of the total number of permutations. For some other generalized patterns we give partial resu…
Recently, Bill Chen, together with his disciples Alvin Dai and Robin Zhou, discovered, and very elegantly proved, an algebraic equation satisfied by the generating function enumerating 123-avoiding words with two occurrences of each of 1, ..., n. Inspired by this result, we present an algorithm for finding such an algebraic equation for the ordinary generating function enumerating 123-avoiding words with exactly r occurrences of each of 1, ... n for any positive integer r, thereby proving that they are algebraic and not merely D-finite (a fact that is promised by WZ theory). Our algorithm cons…
This survey of alternating permutations and Euler numbers includes refinements of Euler numbers, other occurrences of Euler numbers, longest alternating subsequences, umbral enumeration of classes of alternating permutations, and the cd-index of the symmetric group.
Given two operators $\hat D$ and $\hat E$ subject to the relation $\hat D\hat E -q \hat E \hat D =p$, and a word $w$ in $M$ and $N$, the rewriting of $w$ in normal form is combinatorially described by rook placements in a Young diagram. We give enumerative results about these rook placements, particularly in the case where $p=(1-q)/q^2$. This case naturally arises in the context of the PASEP, a random process whose partition function and stationary distribution are expressed using two operators $D$ and $E$ subject to the relation $DE-qED=D+E$ (matrix Ansatz). Using the link obtained by Corteel…
The Goulden-Jackson cluster method is a powerful tool for counting words by occurrences of prescribed subwords, and was adapted by Elizalde and Noy for counting permutations by occurrences of prescribed consecutive patterns. In this paper, we lift the cluster method for permutations to the Malvenuto-Reutenauer algebra. Upon applying standard homomorphisms, our result specializes to both the cluster method for permutations as well as a q-analogue which keeps track of the inversion number statistic. We construct additional homomorphisms using the theory of shuffle-compatibility, leading to furth…
Recently, Kitaev and Remmel [Classifying descents according to parity, Annals of Combinatorics, to appear 2007] refined the well-known permutation statistic ``descent'' by fixing parity of one of the descent's numbers. Results in that paper were extended and generalized in several ways. In this paper, we shall fix a set partition of the natural numbers $N$, $(N_1, ..., N_t)$, and we study the distribution of descents, levels, and rises according to whether the first letter of the descent, rise, or level lies in $N_i$ over the set of words over the alphabet $[k]$. In particular, we refine and g…
In a multi-base representation of an integer (in contrast to, for example, the binary or decimal representation) the base (or radix) is replaced by products of powers of single bases. The resulting numeral system has desirable properties for fast arithmetic. It is usually redundant, which means that each integer can have multiple different digit expansions, so the natural question for the number of representations arises. In this paper, we provide a general asymptotic formula for the number of such multi-base representations of a positive integer $n$. Moreover, we prove central limit theorems …
Alternating sign triangles (ASTs) have recently been introduced by Ayyer, Behrend and the author, and it was proven that there is the same number of ASTs with n rows as there is of nxn alternating sign matrices (ASMs). We prove a conjecture by Behrend on a refined enumeration of ASTs with respect to a statistic that is shown to have the same distribution as the column of the unique 1 in the top row of an ASM. The proof of the conjecture is based on a certain multivariate generating function of ASTs that takes the positions of the columns with sum 1 (1-columns) into account. We also prove a cur…
We exhibit a bijection between 132-avoiding permutations and Dyck paths. Using this bijection, it is shown that all the recently discovered results on generating functions for 132-avoiding permutations with a given number of occurrences of the pattern $12... k$ follow directly from old results on the enumeration of Motzkin paths, among which is a continued fraction result due to Flajolet. As a bonus, we use these observations to derive further results and a precise asymptotic estimate for the number of 132-avoiding permutations of $\{1,2,...,n\}$ with exactly $r$ occurrences of the pattern $12…
An occurrence of a classical pattern p in a permutation πis a subsequence of πwhose letters are in the same relative order (of size) as those in p. In an occurrence of a generalized pattern, some letters of that subsequence may be required to be adjacent in the permutation. Subsets of permutations characterized by the avoidance--or the prescribed number of occurrences--of generalized patterns exhibit connections to an enormous variety of other combinatorial structures, some of them apparently deep. We give a short overview of the state of the art for generalized patterns.
A closed-form formula is derived for the number of occurrences of matches of a multiset of patterns among all ordered (plane-planted) trees with a given number of edges. A pattern looks like a tree, with internal nodes and leaves, but also contain components that match subtrees or sequences of subtrees. This result extends previous versatile tree-pattern enumeration formulae to incorporate components that are only allowed to match nonleaf subtrees and provides enumerations of trees by the number of protected (shortest outgoing path has two or more edges) or unprotected nodes.
In this document we achieve exact and asymptotic enumeration of words, compositions over a finite group, and/or integer compositions characterized by local restrictions and, separately, subsequence pattern avoidance. We also count cyclically restricted and circular objects. This either fills gaps in the current literature by e.g. considering particular new patterns, or involves general progress, notably with locally restricted compositions over a finite group. We associate these compositions to walks on a covering graph whose structure is exploited to simplify asymptotic expressions. Specifica…
By a famous result of Doyen, Hubaut and Vandensavel \cite{DHV}, the 2-rank of a Steiner triple system on $2^n-1$ points is at least $2^n -1 -n$, and equality holds only for the classical point-line design in the projective geometry $PG(n-1,2)$. It follows from results of Assmus \cite{A} that, given any integer $t$ with $1 \leq t \leq n-1$, there is a code $C_{n,t}$ containing representatives of all isomorphism classes of STS$(2^n-1)$ with 2-rank at most $2^n -1 -n + t$. Using a mixture of coding theoretic, geometric, design theoretic and combinatorial arguments, we prove a general formula for …
Gog and Magog trapezoids are certain arrays of positive integers that generalize alternating sign matrices (ASMs) and totally symmetric self-complementary plane partitions (TSSCPPs) respectively. Zeilberger used constant term formulas to prove that there is the same number of (n,k)-Gog trapezoids as there is of (n,k)-Magog trapezoids, thereby providing so far the only proof for a weak version of a conjecture by Mills, Robbins and Rumsey from 1986. About 20 years ago, Krattenthaler generalized Gog and Magog trapezoids and formulated an extension of their conjecture, and, recently, Biane and Che…
One of the most challenging problems in enumerative combinatorics is to count Wilf classes, where you are given a pattern, or set of patterns, and you are asked to find a "formula", or at least an efficient algorithm, that inputs a positive integer n and outputs the number of permutations avoiding that pattern. In 1996, John Noonan and Doron Zeilberger initiated the counting of permutations that have a prescribed, r, say, occurrences of a given pattern. They gave an ingenious method to generate Functional Equations, alas, with an unbounded number of "catalytic variables", but then described a …
Classical Hurwitz numbers count branched covers of the Riemann sphere with prescribed ramification data, or equivalently, factorisations in the symmetric group with prescribed cycle structure data. Monotone Hurwitz numbers restrict the enumeration by imposing a further monotonicity condition on such factorisations. In this paper, we prove that monotone Hurwitz numbers arise from the topological recursion of Eynard and Orantin applied to a particular spectral curve. We furthermore derive a quantum curve for monotone Hurwitz numbers. These results extend the collection of enumerative problems kn…
We consider the problem of enumeration of planar maps and revisit its one-matrix model solution in the light of recent combinatorial techniques involving conjugated trees. We adapt and generalize these techniques so as to give an alternative and purely combinatorial solution to the problem of counting arbitrary planar maps with prescribed vertex degrees.
Recently, Babson and Steingrimsson (see \cite{BS}) introduced generalized permutations patterns that allow the requirement that two adjacent letters in a pattern must be adjacent in the permutation. In this paper we study the generating functions for the number of permutations on $n$ letters avoiding a generalized pattern $ab\mn c$ where $(a,b,c)\in S_3$, and containing a prescribed number of occurrences of generalized pattern $cd\mn e$ where $(c,d,e)\in S_3$. As a consequence, we derive all the previously known results for this kind of problems, as well as many new results.
We present a generating function and a closed counting formula in two variables that enumerate a family of classes of permutations that avoid or contain an increasing pattern of length three and have a prescribed number of occurrences of another pattern of length three. This gives a refinement of some previously studied statistics, most notably one by Noonan. The formula is also shown to enumerate a family of classes of Dyck paths and Standard Young Tableaux, and a bijection is given between the corresponding classes of these two families of objects. Finally, the results obtained are used to s…
In [GM] Guibert and Mansour studied involutions on n letters avoiding (or containing exactly once) 132 and avoiding (or containing exactly once) an arbitrary pattern on k letters. They also established a bijection between 132-avoiding involutions and Dyck word prefixes of same length. Extending this bijection to bilateral words allows to determine more parameters; in particular, we consider the number of inversions and rises of the involutions onto the words. This is the starting point for considering two different directions: even/odd involutions and statistics of some generalized patterns. T…
Tutte founded the theory of enumeration of planar maps in a series of papers in the 1960s. Rooted non-separable planar maps are in bijection with West-2-stack-sortable permutations, beta(1,0)-trees introduced by Cori, Jacquard and Schaeffer in 1997, as well as a family of permutations defined by the avoidance of two four letter patterns. In this paper we give upper and lower bounds on the number of multiple-edge-free rooted non-separable planar maps. We also use the bijection between rooted non-separable planar maps and a certain class of permutations, found by Claesson, Kitaev and Steingrimss…
A composition of a nonnegative integer (n) is a sequence of positive integers whose sum is (n). A composition is palindromic if it is unchanged when its terms are read in reverse order. We provide a generating function for the number of occurrences of arbitrary segmented partially ordered patterns among compositions of (n) with a prescribed number of parts. These patterns generalize the notions of rises, drops, and levels studied in the literature. We also obtain results enumerating parts with given sizes and locations among compositions and palindromic compositions with a given number of part…
We consider the system of equations $A_k(x)=p(x)A_{k-1}(x)(q(x)+\sum_{i=0}^k A_i(x))$ for $k\geq r+1$ where $A_i(x)$, $0\leq i \leq r$, are some given functions and show how to obtain a close form for $A(x)=\sum_{k\geq 0}A_k(x)$. We apply this general result to the enumeration of certain subsets of Dyck, Motzkin, skew Dyck, and skew Motzkin paths, defined recursively according to the first return decomposition with a monotonically non-increasing condition relative to the maximal ordinate reached by an occurrence of a given pattern $π$.
