English

The largest and the smallest fixed points of permutations

Combinatorics 2009-04-21 v1

Abstract

We give a new interpretation of the derangement numbers d_n as the sum of the values of the largest fixed points of all non-derangements of length n-1. We also show that the analogous sum for the smallest fixed points equals the number of permutations of length n with at least two fixed points. We provide analytic and bijective proofs of both results, as well as a new recurrence for the derangement numbers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0904.2792,
  title  = {The largest and the smallest fixed points of permutations},
  author = {Emeric Deutsch and Sergi Elizalde},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0904.2792},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

7 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:52:41.444Z