Finitely labeled generating trees and restricted permutations

Generating trees are a useful technique in the enumeration of various combinatorial objects, particularly restricted permutations. Quite often the generating tree for the set of permutations avoiding a set of patterns requires infinitely many labels. Sometimes, however, this generating tree needs only finitely many labels. We characterize the finite sets of patterns for which this phenomenon occurs. We also present an algorithm - in fact, a special case of an algorithm of Zeilberger - that is guaranteed to find such a generating tree if it exists.Comment: Accepted by J. Symb. Comp.; 12 page

Combinatorics of patience sorting piles

Despite having been introduced in 1962 by C.L. Mallows, the combinatorial algorithm Patience Sorting is only now beginning to receive significant attention due to such recent deep results as the Baik-Deift-Johansson Theorem that connect it to fields including Probabilistic Combinatorics and Random Matrix Theory. The aim of this work is to develop some of the more basic combinatorics of the Patience Sorting Algorithm. In particular, we exploit the similarities between Patience Sorting and the Schensted Insertion Algorithm in order to do things that include defining an analog of the Knuth relations and extending Patience Sorting to a bijection between permutations and certain pairs of set partitions. As an application of these constructions we characterize and enumerate the set S_n(3-\bar{1}-42) of permutations that avoid the generalized permutation pattern 2-31 unless it is part of the generalized pattern 3-1-42.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX; uses pstricks; view PS, not DVI; use dvips + ps2pdf, not dvi2pdf; part of FPSAC'05 proceedings; v3: final journal version, revised Section 3.

Exact enumeration of 1342-avoiding permutations: A close link with labeled trees and planar maps

Solving the first nonmonotonic, longer-than-three instance of a classic enumeration problem, we obtain the generating function $H(x)$ of all 1342-avoiding permutations of length $n$ as well as an {\em exact} formula for their number $S_n(1342)$. While achieving this, we bijectively prove that the number of indecomposable 1342-avoiding permutations of length $n$ equals that of labeled plane trees of a certain type on $n$ vertices recently enumerated by Cori, Jacquard and Schaeffer, which is in turn known to be equal to the number of rooted bicubic maps enumerated by Tutte in 1963. Moreover, $H(x)$ turns out to be algebraic, proving the first nonmonotonic, longer-than-three instance of a conjecture of Zeilberger and Noonan. We also prove that $\sqrt[n]{S_n(1342)}$ converges to 8, so in particular, $lim_{n\rightarrow \infty}(S_n(1342)/S_n(1234))=0$

The enumeration of permutations avoiding 2143 and 4231

We enumerate the pattern class Av(2143, 4231) and completely describe its permutations. The main tools are simple permutations and monotone grid classes

On the diagram of 132-avoiding permutations

The diagram of a 132-avoiding permutation can easily be characterized: it is simply the diagram of a partition. Based on this fact, we present a new bijection between 132-avoiding and 321-avoiding permutations. We will show that this bijection translates the correspondences between these permutations and Dyck paths given by Krattenthaler and by Billey-Jockusch-Stanley, respectively, to each other. Moreover, the diagram approach yields simple proofs for some enumerative results concerning forbidden patterns in 132-avoiding permutations.Comment: 20 pages; additional reference is adde