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 extension of pattern avoidance from ordinary permutations to those on multisets gave birth to several interesting enumerative results. We study permutations on regular multisets, i.e., multisets in which each element occurs the same number of times. For this case, we close a gap in the work of Heubach and Mansour (2006) and complete the study of permutations avoiding a pair of patterns of length three. In all studied cases, closed enumeration formulae are given and well-known sequences appear. We conclude this paper by some remarks on a generalization of the Stanley-Wilf conjecture to perm…
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.
We prove that the enumerative polynomials of quasi-Stirling permutations of multisets with respect to the statistics of plateaux, descents and ascents are partial $γ$-positive, thereby confirming a recent conjecture posed by Lin, Ma and Zhang. This is accomplished by proving the partial $γ$-positivity of the enumerative polynomials of certain ordered labeled trees, which are in bijection with quasi-Stirling permutations of multisets. As an application, we provide an alternative proof of the partial $γ$-positivity of the enumerative polynomials on Stirling permutations of multisets.
A permutation $σ$ of a multiset is called Stirling permutation if $σ(s)\ge σ(i)$ as soon as $σ(i)=σ(j)$ and $i<s<j.$ In our paper we study Stirling polynomials that arise in the generating function for descent statistics on Stirling permutations of any multiset. We develop generalizations of the classical Stirling numbers and present their combinatorial interpretations. Particularly, we apply the theory of $P$-partitions. Using certain specifications we also introduce the Stirling numbers of odd type and generalizations of the central factorial numbers.
We study pattern avoidance by combinatorial objects other than permutations, namely by ordered partitions of an integer and by permutations of a multiset. In the former case we determine the generating function explicitly, for integer compositions of n that avoid a given pattern of length 3 and we show that the answer is the same for all such patterns. We also show that the number of multiset permutations that avoid a given three-letter pattern is the same for all such patterns, thereby extending and refining earlier results of Albert, Aldred et al., and by Atkinson, Walker and Linton. Further…
A permutation $π$ of a multiset is said to be a {\em quasi-Stirling } permutation if there does not exist four indices $i<j<k<\ell$ such that $π_i=π_k$ and $π_j=π_{\ell}$. Define $$ \overline{Q}_{\mathcal{M}}(t,u,v)=\sum_{π\in \overline{\mathcal{Q}}_{\mathcal{M}}}t^{des(π)}u^{asc(π)}v^{plat(π)},$$ where $\overline{\mathcal{Q}}_{\mathcal{M}}$ denotes the set of quasi-Stirling permutations on the multiset $\mathcal{M}$, and $asc(π)$ (resp. $des(π)$, $plat(π)$) denotes the number of ascents (resp. descents, plateaux) of $π$. Denote by $\mathcal{M}^σ$ the multiset $\{1^{σ_1}, 2^{σ_2}, \ldots, n^{σ…
In this paper, we give a new bijective proof of a multiset analogue of even-odd permutations identity. This multiset version is equivalent to the original coin arrangements lemma which is a key combinatorial lemma in the Sherman's Proof of a conjecture of Feynman about an identity on paths in planar graphs related to combinatorial solution of two dimensional Ising model in statistical physics.
The following long-standing problem in combinatorics was first posed in 1993 by Gessel and Reutenauer. For which multisubsets $B$ of the symmetric group $\fS_n$ is the quasisymmetric function $$Q(B) = \sum_{π\in B}F_{\Des(π), n}$$ a symmetric function? Here $\Des(π)$ is the descent set of $π$ and $F_{\Des(π), n}$ is Gessel's fundamental basis for the vector space of quasisymmetric functions. The purpose of this paper is to provide a useful characterization of these multisets. Using this characterization we prove a conjecture of Elizalde and Roichman. Two other corollaries are also given. The f…
We offer a new proof that a certain q-analogue of multinomial coeffi- cients furnishes a q-counting of the set of permutations of an associated multiset of positive integers, according to the number of inversions in such arrangements. Our proof uses the fact that such q-multinomial coefficients enumerate certain classes of chains of subspaces of a fnite dimensional vector space over a fnite field of cardinality q. Additionally, we investigate the function that counts the number of permutations of a multiset having a fixed number of inversions.
Pondering upon the grammatical labeling of 0-1-2 increasing plane trees, we come to the realization that the grammatical labels play a role as records of chopped off leaves of the original increasing binary trees. While such an understanding is purely psychological, it does give rise to an efficient apparatus to tackle the partial $γ$-positivity of the Eulearian polynomials on multiset Stirling permutations, as long as we bear in mind the combinatorial meanings of the labels $x$ and $y$ in the Gessel representation of a $k$-Stirling permutation by means of an increasing $(k+1)$-ary tree. More …
We use the recently developed method of weighted dependency graphs to prove central limit theorems for the number of occurrences of any fixed pattern in multiset permutations and in set partitions. This generalizes results for patterns of size 2 in both settings, obtained by Canfield, Janson and Zeilberger and Chern, Diaconis, Kane and Rhoades, respectively.
Normal approximations for descents and inversions of permutations of the set $\{1,2,...,n\}$ are well known. A number of sequences that occur in practice, such as the human genome and other genomes, contain many repeated elements. Motivated by such examples, we consider the number of inversions of a permutation $π(1), π(2),...,π(n)$ of a multiset with $n$ elements, which is the number of pairs $(i,j)$ with $1\leq i < j \leq n$ and $π(i)>π(j)$. The number of descents is the number of $i$ in the range $1\leq i < n$ such that $π(i) > π(i+1)$. We prove that, appropriately normalized, the distribut…
We apply ideas from the cluster method to q-count the permutations of a multiset according to the number of occurrences of certain generalized patterns, as defined by Babson and Steingrimsson. In particular, we consider those patterns with three letters and one internal dash, as well as permutation statistics composed of counting the number of occurrences of multisets of such patterns. Counting is done via recurrences which simplify in the case of permutations. A collection of Maple procedures implementing these recurrences accompanies the article.
We study Dirichlet series enumerating orbits of Cartesian products of maps whose orbit distributions are modelled on the distributions of finite index subgroups of free abelian groups of finite rank. We interpret Euler factors of such orbit Dirichlet series in terms of generating polynomials for statistics on multiset permutations, viz. descent and major index, generalizing Carlitz's $q$-Eulerian polynomials. We give two main applications of this combinatorial interpretation. Firstly, we establish local functional equations for the Euler factors of the orbit Dirichlet series under consideratio…
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 …
A classical result of MacMahon states that inversion number and major index have the same distribution over permutations of a given multiset. In this work we prove a strengthening of this theorem originally conjectured by Haglund. Our result can be seen as an equidistribution theorem over the ordered partitions of a multiset into sets, which we call ordered multiset partitions. Our proof is bijective and involves a new generalization of Carlitz's insertion method. This generalization leads to a new extension of Macdonald polynomials for hook shapes. We use our main theorem to show that these p…
We present a method, illustrated by several examples, to find explicit counts of permutations containing a given multiset of three letter patterns. The method is recursive, depending on bijections to reduce to the case of a smaller multiset, and involves a consideration of separate cases according to how the patterns overlap. Specifically, we use the method (i) to provide combinatorial proofs of Bona's formula {2n-3}choose{n-3} for the number of n-permutations containing one 132 pattern and Noonan's formula 3/n {2n}choose{n+3} for one 123 pattern, (ii) to express the number of n-permutations c…
We prove that the pair of statistics (des,maj) on multiset permutations is equidistributed with the pair (stc,inv) on certain quotients of the symmetric group. We define the analogue of the statistic stc on multiset permutations, whose joint distribution with the inversions equals that of (des,maj). We extend the definition of the statistic stc to hyperoctahedral and even hyperoctahedral groups. Such functions, together with the Coxeter length, are equidistributed, respectively, with (ndes,nmaj) and (ddes,dmaj).
For a word $π$ and integer $i$, we define $L^i(π)$ to be the length of the longest subsequence of the form $i(i+1)\cdots j$, and we let $L(π):=\max_i L^i(π)$. In this paper we estimate the expected values of $L^1(π)$ and $L(π)$ when $π$ is chosen uniformly at random from all words which use each of the first $n$ integers exactly $m$ times. We show that $\mathbb{E}[L^1(π)]\sim m$ if $n$ is sufficiently larger in terms of $m$ as $m$ tends towards infinity, confirming a conjecture of Diaconis, Graham, He, and Spiro. We also show that $\mathbb{E}[L(π)]$ is asymptotic to the inverse gamma function …
Let $G$ be a permutation group acting on a finite set $Ω$ of cardinality $n$. The number of orbits of the induced action of $G$ on the set $Ω_m$ of all size $m$ subsets of $Ω$ satisfies the trivial inequalities $|Ω_m|/|G|\leq |Ω_m/G|\leq |Ω_m|$. The paper offers improvements of the upper bound in terms of the minimal degree of $G$ or the minimal degree of some its subset with a small complement. Applications include asymptotic enumeration of point configurations in an affine space over a finite field, unlabeled graphs and hypergraphs. Finally, with references to known results of permutation gr…
Given a general multiset $\mathcal{M}=\{1^{m_1},2^{m_2},\ldots,n^{m_n}\}$, where $i$ appears $m_i$ times, a multipermutation $π$ of $\mathcal{M}$ is called {\em quasi-Stirling}, if it contains no subword of the form $abab$ with $a\neq b$. We designate exactly one entry of $π$, say $k\in \mathcal{M}$, which is not the leftmost entry among all entries with the same value, by underlining it in $π$, and we refer to the pair $(π,k)$ as a quasi-Stirling multipermutation of $\mathcal{M}$ rooted at $k$. By introducing certain vertex and edge labeled trees, we give a new bijective proof of an identity …
For a finite subset $A$ of $\mathbb{Z}_{>0}$, Lazar and Wachs (2019) conjectured that the number of cycles on $A$ with only even-odd drops is equal to the number of D-cycles on $A$. In this note, we introduce cycles on a multiset with only even-odd drops and prove bijectively a multiset version of their conjecture. As a consequence, the number of cycles on $[2n]$ with only even-odd drops equals the Genocchi number $g_n$. With Laguerre histories as an intermediate structure, we also construct a bijection between a class of permutations of length $2n-1$ known to be counted by $g_n$ invented by D…
Motivated by a conjecture of Savage and Visontai about the equidistribution of the descent statistic on signed permutations of the multiset $\{1,1,2,2,\ldots,n,n\}$ and the ascent statistic on $(1,4,3,8,\ldots,2n-1,4n)$-inversion sequences, we investigate the descent polynomial of the signed permutations of a general multiset. We obtain a factorial generating function formula for a $q$-analog of these descent polynomials and apply it to show that they have only real roots. Two different proofs of the conjecture of Savage and Visontai are provided.
Define $S_n(R;T)$ to be the number of permutations on $n$ letters which avoid all patterns in the set $R$ and contain each pattern in the multiset $T$ exactly once. In this paper we enumerate $S_n(\{α\};\{β\})$ and $S_n(\emptyset;\{α,β\})$ for all $α\neq β\in S_3$. The results for $S_n(\{α\};\{β\})$ follow from two papers by Mansour and Vainshtein.
We consider a number of generalizations of the $β$-extended MacMahon Master Theorem for a matrix. The generalizations are based on replacing permutations on multisets formed from matrix indices by partial permutations or derangements over matrix or submatrix indices.
In this paper, we study Eulerian polynomials for permutations and signed permutations of the multiset $\{1,1,2,2,\ldots,n,n\}$. Properties of these polynomials, including recurrence relations and unimodality are discussed. In particular, we give a unified proof of the fact that these polynomials are unimodal with modes in the middle.
We use the theory of symmetric functions to enumerate various classes of alternating permutations w of {1,2,...,n}. These classes include the following: (1) both w and w^{-1} are alternating, (2) w has certain special shapes, such as (m-1,m-2,...,1), under the RSK algorithm, (3) w has a specified cycle type, and (4) w has a specified number of fixed points. We also enumerate alternating permutations of a multiset. Most of our formulas are umbral expressions where after expanding the expression in powers of a variable E, E^k is interpreted as the Euler number E_k. As a small corollary, we obtai…
A conjecture by R. Stanley on a class of alternating permutations, which is proved by R. Chapman and L. Williams states that alternating permutations with the maximal number of fixed points is equidistributed with derangements. We extend this (type $A$) result to type $B$: We prove that various classes of alternating signed permutations with the maximal number of fixed points is equidistributed with certain types of derangements (of type $B$), respectively.
Let $F$ be a finite field. A multiset $S$ of integers is projection-forcing if for every linear function $ϕ: F^n \to F^m$ whose multiset of weight changes is $S$, $ϕ$ is a coordinate projection up to permutation and scaling of entries. The MacWilliams Extension Theorem from coding theory says that $S = \{0, 0, ..., 0\}$ is projection-forcing. We give a (super-polynomial) algorithm to determine whether or not a given $S$ is projection-forcing. We also give a condition that can be checked in polynomial time that implies that $S$ is projection-forcing. This result is a generalization of the MacWi…
In this paper, we bound the number of edges of a maximal permutation graph with n vertices. We propose a new method to compute the lower bound by splitting the set of labellings of the edges into six parts, considering one separate problem for each part, explicitly determining the cardinality of four parts and summing up the corresponding values. We finish with an upper bound of the number of edges of a maximal permutation graph.
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.
The block number of a permutation is the maximal number of components in its expression as a direct sum. We show that, for $321$-avoiding permutations, the set of left-to-right maxima has the same distribution when the block number is assumed to be $k$ as when the last descent of the inverse is assumed to be at position $n - k$. This result is analogous to the Foata-Schützenberger equi-distribution theorem, and implies that the quasi-symmetric generating function of descent set over $321$-avoiding permutations with a prescribed number of blocks is Schur-positive.
A special sorting operation called Context Directed Swap, and denoted \textbf{cds}, performs certain types of block interchanges on permutations. When a permutation is sortable by \textbf{cds}, then \textbf{cds} sorts it using the fewest possible block interchanges of any kind. This work introduces a classification of permutations based on their number of \textbf{cds}-eligible contexts. In prior work an object called the strategic pile of a permutation was discovered and shown to provide an efficient measure of the non-\textbf{cds}-sortability of a permutation. Focusing on the classification o…
We present (bi-)symmetric generating functions for the joint distributions of Euler-Stirling statistics on permutations, including the number of descents ($\mathsf{des}$), inverse descents ($\mathsf{ides}$), the number of left-to-right maxima ($\mathsf{lmax}$), the number of right-to-left maxima ($\mathsf{rmax}$) and the number of left-to-right minima ($\mathsf{lmin}$). We also show how they recover the classical symmetric generating function of permutations due to Carlitz, Roselle and Scoville (1966). Our proofs exploit three different recursive constructions of inversion sequences, bijection…
We study preimages of permutations under the bubblesort operator $\mathbf{B}$. We achieve a description of these preimages much more complete than what is known for the more complicated sorting operators $\mathbf{S}$ (stacksort) and $\mathbf{Q}$ (queuesort). We describe explicitly the set of preimages under $\mathbf{B}$ of any permutation $π$ from the left-to-right maxima of $π$, showing that there are $2^{k-1}$ such preimages if $k$ is the number of these left-to-right maxima. We further consider, for each $n$, the tree $T_n$ recording all permutations of size $n$ in its nodes, in which an ed…
Given a permutation P in Sn, let G(P) be the graph on n vertices {1,...,n}, where two vertices i<j are adjacent if i appears right of j in P and there are no integers k with i<k<j and k appearing between i and j in P. Let G'(P) be the graph obtained by dropping the condition that i appears right of j, i.e. two vertices are adjacent if the rectangle [i,P(i)] x [j,P(j)] is empty. In the study of the strong order on permutation, Adin and Roichman introduced these graphs and computed their maximum number of edges. We generalize these results to the Weyl group of signed permutations Bn, working wit…
The subdegrees of a transitive permutation group are the orbit lengths of a point stabilizer. For a finite primitive permutation group which is not cyclic of prime order, the largest subdegree shares a non-trivial common factor with each non-trivial subdegree. On the other hand it is possible for non-trivial subdegrees of primitive groups to be coprime, a famous example being the rank 5 action of the small Janko group on 266 points which has subdegrees of lengths 11 and 12. We prove that, for every finite primitive group, the maximal size of a set of pairwise coprime non-trivial subdegrees is …
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 extend Stanley's work on alternating permutations with extremal number of fixed points in two directions: first, alternating permutations are replaced by permutations with a prescribed descent set; second, instead of simply counting permutations we study their generating polynomials by number of excedances. Several techniques are used: Desarmenien's desarrangement combinatorics, Gessel's hook-factorization and the analytical properties of two new permutation statistics "DEZ" and "lec". Explicit formulas for the maximal case are derived by using symmetric function tools.
We show that, there exists a constant $a$ such that, for every subgroup $H$ of a finite group $G$, the number of maximal subgroups of $G$ containing $H$ is bounded above by $a|G:H|^{3/2}$. In particular, a transitive permutation group of degree $n$ has at most $an^{3/2}$ maximal systems of imprimitivity. When $G$ is soluble, generalizing a classic result of Tim Wall, we prove a much stroger bound, that is, the number of maximal subgroups of $G$ containing $H$ is at most $|G:H|-1$.