English

Number of orbits of $k$-subsets of permutations

Combinatorics 2025-08-12 v1 Probability

Abstract

Let SnS_n denote the symmetric group of order nn. Say that two subsets x,ySnx, y\subseteq S_n are \emph{equivalent} if there exist permutations g1,g2Sng_1, g_2\in S_n such that g1xg2=yg_1xg_2=y, where multiplication is understood elementwise. Recently, [Tripathi, 2024] and [Kushwaha and Triathi, 2025] asked for the asymptotics of T(n,k)T(n,k), the number of subsets of SnS_n of size kk up to this equivalence. It is easy to see that T(n,0)=T(n,1)=1T(n,0)=T(n, 1)=1 and T(n,2)=p(n)1T(n, 2)=p(n)-1, where p(n)p(n) is the number of integer partitions of nn. In this work, we show that T(n,k)=Λn(k)(1+on(1))T(n,k) = \Lambda_n(k)(1+o_n(1)) for 3kn!33\leq k\leq n!-3, where Λn(k)=1n!2(n!k)\Lambda_n(k)=\frac{1}{n!^2}\binom{n!}{k}. Furthermore, we prove that 1Λn(n!/2)T ⁣(n,[n!4x+n!2]) n exp ⁣(x22),\frac{1}{\Lambda_n(n!/2)}T\!\left(n,\left[\sqrt{\tfrac{n!}{4}}x+\tfrac{n!}{2}\right]\right) ~\xrightarrow{n\to\infty}~ \exp\!\left(-\tfrac{x^2}{2}\right), uniformly over R\mathbb{R}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.07463,
  title  = {Number of orbits of $k$-subsets of permutations},
  author = {Ludovick Bouthat and Raghavendra Tripathi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.07463},
  year   = {2025}
}