Related papers: The Order of the (123, 132)-Avoiding Stack Sort

A sorting network is a shortest path from 12...n to n...21 in the Cayley graph of S_n generated by nearest-neighbour swaps. We prove that for a uniform random sorting network, as n->infinity the space-time process of swaps converges to the…

We study sorting by queues that can rearrange their content by applying permutations from a predefined set. These new sorting devices are called shuffle queues and we investigate those of them corresponding to sets of permutations defining…

Recall that an excedance of a permutation $\pi$ is any position $i$ such that $\pi_i > i$. Inspired by the work of Hopkins, McConville and Propp (Elec. J. Comb., 2017) on sorting using toppling, we say that a permutation is toppleable if it…

The pop-stack-sorting process is a variation of the stack-sort process. We consider a deterministic version of this process, and provide a new lower bound of $\frac{3}{5}n$ for the number of sorts to fully sort a uniformly randomly chosen…

We consider a stack sorting algorithm where only the appropriate output values are popped from the stack and then any remaining entries in the stack are run through the stack in reverse order. We identify the basis for the $2$-reverse pass…

We consider the problem of sorting elements on a series of stacks, introduced by Tarjan and Knuth. We improve the asymptotic lower bound for the number of stacks necessary to sort $n$ elements to $0.561 \log_2 n + O(1)$. This is the first…

A permutation whose any prefix has no more descents than ascents is called a ballot permutation. In this paper, we present a decomposition of ballot permutations that enables us to construct a bijection between ballot permutations and odd…

In a recent paper, Backelin, West and Xin describe a map $\phi ^*$ that recursively replaces all occurrences of the pattern $k... 21$ in a permutation $\sigma$ by occurrences of the pattern $(k-1)... 21 k$. The resulting permutation…

We characterise and enumerate permutations that are sortable by n-4 passes through a stack. We conjecture the number of permutations sortable by n-5 passes, and also the form of a formula for the general case n-k, which involves a…

We consider permutations sortable by $k$ passes through a deterministic pop stack. We show that for any $k\in\mathbb N$ the set is characterised by finitely many patterns, answering a question of Claesson and Gu{\dh}mundsson. Our…

Let I_n(\pi) denote the number of involutions in the symmetric group S_n which avoid the permutation \pi. We say that two permutations \alpha,\beta\in\S{j} may be exchanged if for every n, k, and ordering \tau of j+1,...,k, we have…

A permutation $\pi$ contains a pattern $\sigma$ if and only if there is a subsequence in $\pi$ with its letters are in the same relative order as those in $\sigma$. Partially ordered patterns (POPs) provide a convenient way to denote…

We exhibit a bijection between recently-introduced combinatorial objects known as valid hook configurations and certain weighted set partitions. When restricting our attention to set partitions that are matchings, we obtain three new…

In this note we present a simplified and slightly generalized version of a lemma the authors published in 1987. The lemma as stated here asserts that if the order of a permutation of $n$ elements is greater than $n^{\alpha}$ then some…

We continue the study of Adin, Alon and Roichman [arXiv:2502.14398, 2025] on the number of steps required to sort $n$ labelled points on a circle by transpositions. Imagine that the vertices of a cycle of length $n$ are labelled by the…

The set of all permutations with $n$ symbols is a symmetric group denoted by $S_n$. A transposition tree, $T$, is a spanning tree over its $n$ vertices $V_T=${$1, 2, 3, \ldots n$} where the vertices are the positions of a permutation $\pi$…

Consider the following partial "sorting algorithm" on permutations: take the first entry of the permutation in one-line notation and insert it into the position of its own value. Continue until the first entry is 1. This process imposes a…

Recently, Xia introduced a deterministic variation $\phi_{\sigma}$ of Defant and Kravitz's stack-sorting maps for set partitions and showed that any set partition $p$ is sorted by $\phi^{N(p)}_{aba}$, where $N(p)$ is the number of distinct…

We study permutations in $S_n$ that simultaneously avoid the pattern $132$ and satisfy the adjacency bound $|\pi_{i+1} - \pi_i| \leq m$ for all $i$, denoting their number by $A_n^{(m)}$. This combination of a global pattern restriction and…

Motivation coming from the study of affine Weyl groups, a structure of ranked poset is defined on the set of circular permutations in $S_n$ (that is, $n$-cycles). It is isomorphic to the poset of so-called admitted vectors, and to an…