Stack-Sorting Preimages of Permutation Classes

We extend and generalize many of the enumerative results concerning West's stack-sorting map $s$. First, we prove a useful theorem that allows one to efficiently compute $|s^{-1}(\pi)|$ for any permutation $\pi$, answering a question of Bousquet-M\'elou. We then enumerate permutations in various sets of the form $s^{-1}(\text{Av}(\tau^{(1)},\ldots,\tau^{(r)}))$, where $\text{Av}(\tau^{(1)},\ldots,\tau^{(r)})$ is the set of permutations avoiding the patterns $\tau^{(1)},\ldots,\tau^{(r)}$. These preimage sets often turn out to be permutation classes themselves, so the current paper represents a new approach, based on the theory of valid hook configurations, for solving classical enumerative problems. In one case, we solve a problem previously posed by Bruner. We are often able to refine our counts by enumerating these permutations according to their number of descents or peaks. Our investigation not only provides several new combinatorial interpretations and identities involving known sequences, but also paves the way for several new enumerative problems.