We give a compact expression for the number of factorizations of any permutation into a minimal number of transpositions of the form $(1 i)$. Our result generalizes earlier work of Pak in which substantial restrictions were placed on the permutation being factored.
An algorithm is presented for unranking permutations in transposition order: Given a seed s\in N, the algorithm produces a permutation P(s) that differs from the permutation P(s+1) by the transposition of two elements.
We give some results about a bijection associating each permutation with a subexcedant function. This function is related to a particular decomposition of the permutation as a product of transpositions and therefore it has been called transposition array in the literature. In particular, we identify anti-exceedance positions of the permutation through its transposition array and we give an expression of the bijection in terms of the cycle structure of the permutation. We give a characterization of a family of permutations having a non-decreasing transposition array and study length 3 pattern a…
We compute the number of ways a given permutation can be written as a product of exactly $k$ transpositions. We express this number as a linear combination of explicit geometric sequences, with coefficients which can be computed in many particular cases. Along the way we prove several symmetry properties for matrices associated with bipartite graphs, as well as some general (likely known) properties of Young diagrams. The methods involve linear algebra, enumeration of border strip tableau, and a differential operator on symmetric polynomials.
We consider the problem of factoring permutations as a product of special types of transpositions, namely, those transpositions involving two positions with bounded distances. In particular, we investigate the minimum number, $δ$, such that every permutation can be factored into no more than $δ$ special transpositions. This study is related to sorting algorithms, Cayley graphs, and genomics.
The reconstruction problem for permutations on $n$ elements from their erroneous patterns which are distorted by transpositions is presented in this paper. It is shown that for any $n \geq 3$ an unknown permutation is uniquely reconstructible from 4 distinct permutations at transposition distance at most one from the unknown permutation. The {\it transposition distance} between two permutations is defined as the least number of transpositions needed to transform one into the other. The proposed approach is based on the investigation of structural properties of a corresponding Cayley graph. In …
We consider the problem of upper bounding the number of circular transpositions needed to sort a permutation. It is well known that any permutation can be sorted using at most $n(n-1)/2$ adjacent transpositions. We show that, if we allow all adjacent transpositions, as well as the transposition that interchanges the element in position 1 with the element in the last position, then the number of transpositions needed is at most $n^2/4$. This answers an open question posed by Feng, Chitturi and Sudborough (2010).
We consider a large family of equivalence relations on permutations in Sn that generalise those discovered by Knuth in his study of the Robinson-Schensted correspondence. In our most general setting, two permutations are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by a sequence of pattern-replacing moves of prescribed form; however, we limit our focus to patterns where two elements are transposed, subject to the constraint that a third element of a suitable type be in a suitable position. For various instances of the problem, we compute the number of equivalence classes, determine how man…
A Genome rearrangement problem studies large-scale mutations on a set of DNAs in living organisms. Various rearrangements like reversals, transpositions, translocations, fissions, fusions, and combinations and different variations have been studied extensively by computational biologists and computer scientists over the past four decades. From a mathematical point of view, a genome is represented by a permutation. The genome rearrangement problem is interpreted as a problem that transforms one permutation into another in a minimum number of moves under certain constraints depending on the chos…
We study random typical minimal factorizations of the $n$-cycle, which are factorizations of $(1, \ldots,n)$ as a product of $n-1$ transpositions, chosen uniformly at random. Our main result is, roughly speaking, a local convergence theorem for the trajectories of finitely many points in the factorization. The main tool is an encoding of the factorization by an edge and vertex-labelled tree, which is shown to converge to Kesten's infinite Bienaymé-Galton-Watson tree with Poisson offspring distribution, uniform i.i.d. edge labels and vertex labels obtained by a local exploration algorithm.
In this paper, we introduce plane permutations, i.e. pairs $\mathfrak{p}=(s,π)$ where $s$ is an $n$-cycle and $π$ is an arbitrary permutation, represented as a two-row array. Accordingly a plane permutation gives rise to three distinct permutations: the permutation induced by the upper horizontal ($s$), the vertical $π$) and the diagonal ($D_{\mathfrak{p}}$) of the array. The latter can also be viewed as the three permutations of a hypermap. In particular, a map corresponds to a plane permutation, in which the diagonal is a fixed point-free involution. We study the transposition action on plan…
A major problem in the study of combinatorial aspects of permutation groups is to determine the distances in the symmetric group $\Sym_n$ with respect to a generator set. One well-known such a case is when the generator set $S_n$ consists of block transpositions. It should be noted that "the block transposition distance of a permutation" is the distance of the permutation from the identity permutation in the Cayley graph $\Cay$, and "sorting a permutation by block transpositions" is equivalent to finding shortest paths in $\Cay$. The original results in our thesis concern the lower and upper b…
In genome rearrangements, the mutational event transposition swaps two adjacent blocks of genes in one chromosome. The Transposition Distance Problem (TDP) aims to find the minimum number of transpositions required to transform one chromosome into another, both represented as permutations. The TDP can be reduced to the problem of Sorting by Transpositions (SBT). SBT is $\mathcal{NP}$-hard and the best approximation algorithm with a $1.375$ ratio was proposed by Elias and Hartman. Their algorithm employs simplification, a technique used to transform an input permutation $π$ into a simple permut…
We study the asymptotic behaviour of random factorizations of the $n$-cycle into transpositions of fixed genus $g>0$. They have a geometric interpretation as branched covers of the sphere and their enumeration as Hurwitz numbers was extensively studied in algebraic combinatorics and enumerative geometry. On the probabilistic side, several models and properties of permutation factorizations were studied in previous works, in particular minimal factorizations of cycles into transpositions (which corresponds to the case $g=0$ of this work). Using the representation of factorizations via unicellul…
We provide a bijection between the set of factorizations, that is, ordered (n-1)-tuples of transpositions in ${\mathcal S}_{n}$ whose product is (12...n), and labelled trees on $n$ vertices. We prove a refinement of a theorem of Dénes that establishes new tree-like properties of factorizations. In particular, we show that a certain class of transpositions of a factorization correspond naturally under our bijection to leaf edges of a tree. Moreover, we give a generalization of this fact.
We show that any smooth permutation $σ\in S_n$ is characterized by the set ${\mathbf{C}}(σ)$ of transpositions and $3$-cycles in the Bruhat interval $(S_n)_{\leqσ}$, and that $σ$ is the product (in a certain order) of the transpositions in ${\mathbf{C}}(σ)$. We also characterize the image of the map $σ\mapsto{\mathbf{C}}(σ)$. As an application, we show that $σ$ is smooth if and only if the intersection of $(S_n)_{\leqσ}$ with every conjugate of a parabolic subgroup of $S_n$ admits a maximum. This also gives another approach for enumerating smooth permutations and subclasses thereof. Finally, w…
We prove a lower and an upper bound on the number of block moves necessary to sort a permutation. We put our results in contrast with existing results on sorting by block transpositions, and raise some open questions.
Given integers $k\geq 2$ and $a_1,\ldots,a_k\geq 1$, let $\boldsymbol{a}:=(a_1,\ldots,a_k)$ and $n:=a_1+\cdots+a_k$. An $\boldsymbol{a}$-multiset permutation is a string of length $n$ that contains exactly $a_i$ symbols $i$ for each $i=1,\ldots,k$. In this work we consider the problem of exhaustively generating all $\boldsymbol{a}$-multiset permutations by star transpositions, i.e., in each step, the first entry of the string is transposed with any other entry distinct from the first one. This is a far-ranging generalization of several known results. For example, it is known that permutations …
In this paper we generalize permutations to plane permutations. We employ this framework to derive a combinatorial proof of a result of Zagier and Stanley, that enumerates the number of $n$-cycles $ω$, for which $ω(12\cdots n)$ has exactly $k$ cycles. This quantity is $0$, if $n-k$ is odd and $\frac{2C(n+1,k)}{n(n+1)}$, otherwise, where $C(n,k)$ is the unsigned Stirling number of the first kind. The proof is facilitated by a natural transposition action on plane permutations which gives rise to various recurrences. Furthermore we study several distance problems of permutations. It turns out th…
Given a generator set $S$ of the symmetric group ${\rm{Sym}}_n$, every permutation $π\in {\rm{Sym}_n}$ is a word (product of elements) of $S$. A positive integer $d(π)$ is associated with each $π\in{\rm{Sym}_n}$ taking the length of the shortest such word, and the $S$-diameter $d(S)$ is the maximum value of $d(π)$ with $π$ ranging over ${\rm{Sym_n}}$. The distance $d(π,ν)$ of two permutations $π,ν$ defined by $d(ν^{-1}\circπ)$ satisfies the axioms of a metric space. In this paper we consider the case where $S$ consists of all block transpositions of ${\rm{Sym_n}}$ and call $d(π)$ the block tra…
Consider factorizations into transpositions of an n-cycle in the symmetric group S_n. To every such factorization we assign a monomial in variables w_{ij} that retains the transpositions used, but forgets their order. Summing over all possible factorizations of n-cycles we obtain a polynomial that happens to admit a closed expression. From this expression we deduce a formula for the number of 1-faced embeddings of a given graph.
We describe an algorithm, implemented in Python, which can enumerate any permutation class with polynomial enumeration from a structural description of the class. In particular, this allows us to find formulas for the number of permutations of length n which can be obtained by a finite number of block sorting operations (e.g., reversals, block transpositions, cut-and-paste moves).
We study random typical minimal factorizations of the $n$-cycle into transpositions, which are factorizations of $(1, \ldots,n)$ as a product of $n-1$ transpositions. By viewing transpositions as chords of the unit disk and by reading them one after the other, one obtains a sequence of increasing laminations of the unit disk (i.e. compact subsets of the unit disk made of non-intersecting chords). When an order of $\sqrt{n}$ consecutive transpositions have been read, we establish, roughly speaking, that a phase transition occurs and that the associated laminations converge to a new one-paramete…
A factorization of a permutation into transpositions is called "primitive" if its factors are weakly ordered. We discuss the problem of enumerating primitive factorizations of permutations, and its place in the hierarchy of previously studied factorization problems. Several formulas enumerating minimal primitive and possibly non-minimal primitive factorizations are presented, and interesting connections with Jucys-Murphy elements, symmetric group characters, and matrix models are described.
An episode of Futurama features a two-body mind-switching machine which will not work more than once on the same pair of bodies. After the Futurama community engages in a mind-switching spree, the question is asked, "Can the switching be undone so as to restore all minds to their original bodies?" Ken Keeler found an algorithm that undoes any mind-scrambling permutation with the aid of two "outsiders." We refine Keeler's result by providing a more efficient algorithm that uses the smallest possible number of switches. We also present best possible algorithms for undoing two natural sequences o…
In the context of the genome rearrangement problem, we analyze two well known models, namely the block transposition and the prefix block transposition models, by exploiting the connection with the notion of permutation pattern. More specifically, for any $k$, we provide a characterization of the set of permutations having distance $\leq k$ from the identity (which is known to be a permutation class) in terms of what we call generating permutations and we describe some properties of its basis, which allow to compute such a basis for small values of $k$.
Two factorizations of a permutation into products of cycles are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by repeatedly interchanging adjacent disjoint factors. This paper studies the enumeration of equivalence classes under this relation. We obtain closed form expressions for generating series of inequivalent minimal transitive factorizations of permutations having up to three cycles, and also of permutations with four cycles when factors are restricted to be transpositions. Our derivations rely on a new correspondence between inequivalent factorizations and acyclic alternating digraph…
A single permutation, seen as union of disjoint cycles, represents a regular graph of degree two. Consider $d$ many independent random permutations and superimpose their graph structures. It is a common model of a random regular (multi-) graph of degree $2d$. We consider the following dynamics. The dimension (i.e. size) of each permutation grows by coupled Chinese Restaurant Processes, while in time each permutation evolves according to the random transposition chain. Asymptotically in the size of the graph one observes a remarkable evolution of short cycles and linear eigenvalue statistics in…
We give two combinatorial proofs of Goulden and Jackson's formula for the number of minimal transitive factorizations of a permutation when the permutation has two cycles. We use the recent result of Goulden, Nica, and Oancea on the number of maximal chains of annular noncrossing partitions of type $B$.
We characterize the minimum-length sequences of independent lazy simple transpositions whose composition is a uniformly random permutation. For every reduced word of the reverse permutation there is exactly one valid way to assign probabilities to the transpositions. It is an open problem to determine the minimum length of such a sequence when the simplicity condition is dropped.
Let $Γ$ be a Cayley graph of the permutation group generated by a transposition tree $T$ on $n$ vertices. In an oft-cited paper \cite{Akers:Krishnamurthy:1989} (see also \cite{Hahn:Sabidussi:1997}), it is shown that the diameter of the Cayley graph $Γ$ is bounded as $$\diam(Γ) \le \max_{π\in S_n}{c(π)-n+\sum_{i=1}^n \dist_T(i,π(i))},$$ where the maximization is over all permutations $π$, $c(π)$ denotes the number of cycles in $π$, and $\dist_T$ is the distance function in $T$. In this work, we first assess the performance (the sharpness and strictness) of this upper bound. We show that the upp…
We prove that the combinatorial distance between any two reduced expressions of a given permutation of {1, ..., n} in terms of transpositions lies in O(n^4), a sharp bound. Using a connection with the intersection numbers of certain curves in van Kampen diagrams, we prove that this bound is sharp, and give a practical criterion for proving that the derivations provided by the reversing algorithm of [Dehornoy, JPAA 116 (1997) 115-197] are optimal. We also show the existence of length l expressions whose reversing requires C l^4 elementary steps.
We introduce a new approach to an enumerative problem closely linked with the geometry of branched coverings; that is, we study the number of ways a permutation can be decomposed into a product of a given number of 2-cycles, 3-cycles, etc. with certain minimality and transitivity conditions imposed on the factors. The method is to encode such factorizations as planar maps with certain "descent structure" and apply a new combinatorial decomposition to make their enumeration more manageable. We apply our technique to count factorizations of permutations with one or two parts, extending earlier w…
The number of minimal transitive star factorizations of a permutation was shown by Irving and Rattan to depend only on the conjugacy class of the permutation, a surprising result given that the pivot plays a very particular role in such factorizations. Here, we explain this symmetry and provide a bijection between minimal transitive star factorizations of a permutation πhaving pivot k and those having pivot k'.
In the evolution of a genome, the gene sequence is sometimes rearranged, for example by transposition of two adjacent gene blocks. In biocombinatorics, one tries to reconstruct these rearrangement incidents from the resulting permutation. It seems that the algorithms used are too effective and find a shorter path than the real one. For the simplified case of adjacent transpositions, we give expressions for the expected number of inversions after t random moves. This average can be much smaller than t, a fact that has largely been neglected so far.
Let $k$ be a nonnegative integer, and let $α$ and $β$ be two permutations of $n$ symbols. We say that $α$ and $β$ $k$-commute if $H(αβ, βα)=k$, where $H$ denotes the Hamming metric between permutations. In this paper, we consider the problem of finding the permutations that $k$-commute with a given permutation. Our main result is a characterization of permutations that $k$-commute with a given permutation $β$ in terms of blocks in cycles in the decomposition of $β$ as a product of disjoint cycles. Using this characterization, we provide formulas for the number of permutations that $k$-commute …
In this paper we study random induced subgraphs of Cayley graphs of the symmetric group induced by an arbitrary minimal generating set of transpositions. A random induced subgraph of this Cayley graph is obtained by selecting permutations with independent probability, $λ_n$. Our main result is that for any minimal generating set of transpositions, for probabilities $λ_n=\frac{1+ε_n}{n-1}$ where $n^{-{1/3}+δ}\le ε_n<1$ and $δ>0$, a random induced subgraph has a.s. a unique largest component of size $\wp(ε_n)\frac{1+ε_n}{n-1}n!$, where $\wp(ε_n)$ is the survival probability of a specific branchi…
Our work is motivated by Bourque and Pevzner's (2002) simulation study of the effectiveness of the parsimony method in studying genome rearrangement, and leads to a surprising result about the random transposition walk on the group of permutations on $n$ elements. Consider this walk in continuous time starting at the identity and let $D_t$ be the minimum number of transpositions needed to go back to the identity from the location at time $t$. $D_t$ undergoes a phase transition: the distance $D_{cn/2} \sim u(c)n$, where $u$ is an explicit function satisfying $u(c)=c/2$ for $c \le 1$ and $u(c)1$…
We present a simple formula for the expected number of inversions in a permutation of size $n$ obtained by applying $t$ random (not necessarily adjacent) transpositions to the identity permutation. More general, for any finite irreducible Coxeter group belonging to one of the infinite families (type A, B, D, and I), an exact expression is obtained for the expected length of a product of $t$ random reflections.
We are interested in random uniform minimal factorizations of the $n$-cycle which are factorizations of $(1~2\dots n)$ into a product of $n-1$ transpositions. Our main result is an explicit formula for the joint probability that 1 and 2 appear a given number of times in a uniform minimal factorization. For this purpose, we combine bijections with Cayley trees together with explicit computations of multivariate generating functions.
We prove that the polynomial invariants of a permutation group are Cohen-Macaulay for any choice of coefficient field if and only if the group is generated by transpositions, double transpositions, and 3-cycles. This unites and generalizes several previously known results. The "if" direction of the argument uses Stanley-Reisner theory and a recent result of Christian Lange in orbifold theory. The "only-if" direction uses a local-global result based on a theorem of Raynaud to reduce the problem to an analysis of inertia groups, and a combinatorial argument to identify inertia groups that obstru…
It is known that the number of minimal factorizations of the long cycle in the symmetric group into a product of $k$ cycles of given lengths has a very simple formula: it is $n^{k-1}$ where $n$ is the rank of the underlying symmetric group and $k$ is the number of factors. In particular, this is $n^{n-2}$ for transposition factorizations. The goal of this work is to prove a multivariate generalization of this result. As a byproduct, we get a multivariate analog of Postnikov's hook length formula for trees, and a refined enumeration of final chains of noncrossing partitions.
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.
In this paper we present a simple framework to study various distance problems of permutations, including the transposition and block-interchange distance of permutations as well as the reversal distance of signed permutations. These problems are very important in the study of the evolution of genomes. We give a general formulation for lower bounds of the transposition and block-interchange distance from which the existing lower bounds obtained by Bafna and Pevzner, and Christie can be easily derived. As to the reversal distance of signed permutations, we translate it into a block-interchange …
A permutation may be represented by a collection of paths in the plane. We consider a natural class of such representations, which we call tangles, in which the paths consist of straight segments at 45 degree angles, and the permutation is decomposed into nearest-neighbour transpositions. We address the problem of minimizing the number of crossings together with the number of corners of the paths, focusing on classes of permutations in which both can be minimized simultaneously. We give algorithms for computing such tangles for several classes of permutations.