English

Counting up-up-or-down-down permutations

Combinatorics 2024-11-26 v1

Abstract

Answering a question of Donald Knuth, we find the bivariate exponential generating function for "up-up-or-down-down'' permutations of odd length according to their last entry. An up-up-or-down-down permutation is a permutation a1a2ana_1a_2\cdots a_n satisfying a2i1<a2ia_{2i-1}<a_{2i} if and only if a2i<a2i+1a_{2i}<a_{2i+1} for 1i<n/21\le i <n/2. Equivalently, an up-up-or-down-down permutation is one in which every peak and every valley is odd.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2411.16113,
  title  = {Counting up-up-or-down-down permutations},
  author = {Ira M. Gessel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.16113},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:10:54.599Z