Related papers: Necklaces, subset sums, and cyclic permutations
A subset of an abelian group is {\em sequenceable} if there is an ordering $(x_1, \ldots, x_k)$ of its elements such that the partial sums $(y_0, y_1, \ldots, y_k)$, given by $y_0 = 0$ and $y_i = \sum_{j=1}^i x_i$ for $1 \leq i \leq k$, are…
The well-known "splitting necklace theorem" of Noga Alon says that each "necklace" having beads of n different colors can be fairly divided between k "thieves" by at most n(k-1) cuts. We demonstrate that Alon's result is a special case of a…
We are interested in ordering the elements of a subset A of the non-zero integers modulo n in such a way that all the partial sums are distinct. We conjecture that this can always be done and we prove various partial results about this…
We study the problem of indexing irreducible polynomials over finite fields, and give the first efficient algorithm for this problem. Specifically, we show the existence of poly(n, log q)-size circuits that compute a bijection between {1,…
We find exact and asymptotic formulas for the number of pairs $(p,q)$ of $N$-cycles such that the all cycles of the product $p\cdot q$ have lengths from a given integer set. We then apply these results to prove a surprisingly high lower…
A necklace can be considered as a cyclic list of $n$ red and $n$ blue beads in an arbitrary order, and the goal is to fold it into two and find a large cross-free matching of pairs of beads of different colors. We give a counterexample for…
A bound resembling Pascal's identity is presented for binary necklaces with fixed density using Lyndon words with fixed density. The result is generalized to k-ary necklaces and Lyndon words with fixed content. The bound arises in the study…
The cyclic sieving phenomenon provides a link between a polynomial analogue of Gauss congruence known as $q$-Gauss congruence, and a combinatorial analogue of Gauss congruence based on sequences of cyclic group actions. We strengthen this…
A given subset $A$ of natural numbers is said to be complete if every element of $\mathbb{N}$ is the sum of distinct terms taken from $A$. This topic is strongly connected to the knapsack problem which is known to be NP complete.…
In the first part of this note we further the study of the interactions between Reedy and monoidal structures on a small category, building upon the work of Barwick. We define a Reedy monoidal category as a Reedy category $\mathcal{R}$…
We prove an interesting fact describing the location of the roots of the generating polynomials of the numbers of derangements of length $n$, counted by their number of cycles. We then use this result to prove that if $k$ is the number of…
We study the mixing properties of permutations obtained as a product of two uniformly random permutations of fixed cycle types. For instance, we give an exact formula for the probability that elements $1,2,...,k$ are in distinct cycles of…
A (continuous) necklace is simply an interval of the real line colored measurably with some number of colors. A well-known application of the Borsuk-Ulam theorem asserts that every $k$-colored necklace can be fairly split by at most $k$…
Two subsets of $\mathbb{Z}_n$ are said to be homometric if they have the same multiset of pairwise cyclic (i.e., Lee) distances. Homometric subsets necessarily have the same cardinality, say $k$. In this paper, for all positive integers…
A general explicit upper bound is obtained for the proportion $P(n,m)$ of elements of order dividing $m$, where $n-1 \le m \le cn$ for some constant $c$, in the finite symmetric group $S_n$. This is used to find lower bounds for the…
A decomposition of a natural number n is a sequence of consecutive natural numbers that sums to n. We construct a one-to-one correspondence between the odd factors of a natural number and its decompositions. We study the decompositions by…
We present various results on multiplying cycles in the symmetric group. Our first result is a generalisation of the following theorem of Boccara (1980): the number of ways of writing an odd permutation in the symmetric group on $n$ symbols…
Denote by p_k the k-th power sum symmetric polynomial n variables. The interpretation of the q-analogue of the binomial coefficient as Hilbert function leads us to discover that n consecutive power sums in n variables form a regular…
We introduce a group naturally acting on aperiodic necklaces of length $n$ with two colours using the 1--1 correspondences between aperiodic necklaces and irreducible polynomials over the field $\F_2$ of two elements. We notice that this…
Let $A$ and $B$ be subsets of a finite group $G$ and $r$ a positive integer. If for every $g\in G$, there are precisely $r$ pairs $(a,b)\in A\times B$ such that $g=ab$, then $B$ is called a code in $G$ with respect to $A$ and we write $r…