Lattice congruences, fans and Hopf algebras

We give a unified explanation of the geometric and algebraic properties of two well-known maps, one from permutations to triangulations, and another from permutations to subsets. Furthermore we give a broad generalization of the maps. Specifically, for any lattice congruence of the weak order on a Coxeter group we construct a complete fan of convex cones with strong properties relative to the corresponding lattice quotient of the weak order. We show that if a family of lattice congruences on the symmetric groups satisfies certain compatibility conditions then the family defines a sub Hopf algebra of the Malvenuto-Reutenauer Hopf algebra of permutations. Such a sub Hopf algebra has a basis which is described by a type of pattern-avoidance. Applying these results, we build the Malvenuto-Reutenauer algebra as the limit of an infinite sequence of smaller algebras, where the second algebra in the sequence is the Hopf algebra of non-commutative symmetric functions. We also associate both a fan and a Hopf algebra to a set of permutations which appears to be equinumerous with the Baxter permutations.Comment: 34 pages, 1 figur

Sylow pp-groups of polynomial permutations on the integers mod pnp^n

We describe the Sylow $p$-groups of the group of polynomial permutations of the integers mod $p^n$

Lower bounds for Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials from patterns

We give a lower bound for the value at q=1 of a Kazhdan-Lustig polynomial in a Weyl group W in terms of "patterns''. This is expressed by a "pattern map" from W to W' for any parabloic subgroup W'. This notion generalizes the concept of patterns and pattern avoidance for permutations to all Weyl groups. The main tool of the proof is a "hyperbolic localization" on intersection cohomology; see the related paper http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/math.AG/0202251Comment: 14 pages; updated references. Final version; will appear in Transformation Groups vol.8, no.

Combinatorial specification of permutation classes

This article presents a methodology that automatically derives a combinatorial specification for the permutation class C = Av(B), given its basis B of excluded patterns and the set of simple permutations in C, when these sets are both finite. This is achieved considering both pattern avoidance and pattern containment constraints in permutations.The obtained specification yields a system of equations satisfied by the generating function of C, this system being always positiveand algebraic. It also yields a uniform random sampler of permutations in C. The method presentedis fully algorithmic