English

Counting permutations by congruence class of major index

Combinatorics 2007-05-23 v1 Number Theory

Abstract

Consider S_n, the symmetric group on n letters, and let maj pi denote the major index of a permutation pi in S_n. Given positive integers k,l and nonnegative integers i,j, define m_n^{k,l}(i,j) := number of pi in S_n such that maj pi = i (mod k) and maj pi^{-1} = j (mod l). We prove bijectively that if k,l are relatively prime and at most n then m_n^{k,l}(i,j) = n!/(kl) which, surprisingly, does not depend on i and j. Equivalently, if m_n^{k,l}(i,j) is interpreted as the (i,j)-entry of a matrix m_n^{k,l}, then this is a constant matrix under the stated conditions. This bijection is extended to show the more general result that for d at least 1 and k,l relatively prime, the matrix m_n^{kd,ld} admits a block decompostion where each block is the matrix m_n^{d,d}/(kl). We also give an explicit formula for m_n^{n,n} and show that if p is prime then m_{np}^{p,p} has a simple block decomposition. To prove these results, we use the representation theory of the symmetric group and certain restricted shuffles.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0512650,
  title  = {Counting permutations by congruence class of major index},
  author = {Helene Barcelo and Bruce Sagan and Sheila Sundaram},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0512650},
  year   = {2007}
}

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15 pages