Related papers: On the frequency of permutations containing a long…

It is known that the number of permutations in the symmetric group $S_{2n}$ with cycles of odd lengths only is equal to the number of permutations with cycles of even lengths only. We prove a refinement of this equality, involving descent…

In symmetric groups, studies of permutation factorizations or triples of permutations satisfying certain conditions have a long history. One particular interesting case is when two of the involved permutations are long cycles, for which…

Let $S_n$ denote a symmetric group, $\chi$ an irreducible character of $S_n$, and $g\in S_n$ an element which decomposes into $k$ disjoint cycles, where $1$-cycles are included. Then $|\chi(g)|\le k!$, and this upper bound is sharp for…

The sequence a_1,...,a_m is a common subsequence in the set of permutations S = {p_1,...,p_k} on [n] if it is a subsequence of p_i(1),...,p_i(n) and p_j(1),...,p_j(n) for some distinct p_i, p_j in S. Recently, Beame and Huynh-Ngoc (2008)…

In the first paper in this series we estimated the probability that a random permutation $\pi\in\mathcal{S}_n$ has a fixed set of a given size. In this paper, we elaborate on the same method to estimate the probability that $\pi$ has $m$…

Several cycle lexicographical orders are found to describe the relative likelihood of elements of the random walks on the symmetric group generated by the conjugacy classes of transpositions, 3-cycles, and n-cycles. Spectral analysis finds…

Let $g$, $h$ be a random pair of generators of $G=Sym(n)$ or $G=Alt(n)$. We show that, with probability tending to $1$ as $n\to \infty$, (a) the diameter of $G$ with respect to $S = \{g,h,g^{-1},h^{-1}\}$ is at most $O(n^2 (\log n)^c)$, and…

Consider n unit intervals, say [1,2], [3,4], ..., [2n-1,2n]. Identify their endpoints in pairs at random, with all (2n-1)!! = (2n-1) (2n-3) ... 3 1 pairings being equally likely. The result is a collection of cycles of various lengths, and…

We consider the periods of the linear congruential and the power generators modulo $n$ and, for fixed choices of initial parameters, give lower bounds that hold for ``most'' $n$ when $n$ ranges over three different sets: the set of primes,…

Given a subset $S\subseteq\mathbb{P}$, let $\Pa(S;n)$ be the number of permutations in the symmetric group of ${1,2,...,n}$ that have peak set $S$. We prove a recent conjecture due to Billey, Burdzy and Sagan, which determines the sets that…

By using the structure and some properties of extraspecial and generalized/almost extraspecial $p$-groups, we explicitly determine the number of elements of specific orders in such groups. As a consequence, one may find the number of cyclic…

We study the number of random permutations needed to invariably generate the symmetric group, $S_n$, when the distribution of cycle counts has the strong $\alpha$-logarithmic property. The canonical example is the Ewens sampling formula,…

Let Sym_n denote the symmetric group of all permutations pi = a_1...a_n of {1,...,n}. An index i is a peak of pi if a_{i-1} < a_i > a_{i+1} and we let P(pi) be the set of peaks of pi. Given any set S of positive integers we define P(S;n) to…

Let $S_n$ be the set of all permutations of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ and let $\sigma=(\sigma_1,\sigma_2,\ldots,\sigma_n)\in S_n$. The {\it initial longest increasing sequence} (ILIS) in $\sigma$ has length $m$ if, for $1\le m\le n-1$,…

We prove some general results about the asymptotics of the distribution of the number of cycles of given length of a random permutation whose distribution is invariant under conjugation. These results were first established to be applied in…

We consider the problem of upper bounding the number of circular transpositions needed to sort a permutation. It is well known that any permutation can be sorted using at most $n(n-1)/2$ adjacent transpositions. We show that, if we allow…

Suppose $\pi$ and $\pi'$ are two random elements of $S_n$ with constrained cycle types such that $\pi$ has $x n^{1/2}$ fixed points and $yn/2$ two-cycles, and likewise $\pi'$ has $x' n^{1/2}$ fixed points and $y'n/2$ two-cycles. We show…

We obtain upper bounds on the composition length of a finite permutation group in terms of the degree and the number of orbits, and analogous bounds for primitive, quasiprimitive and semiprimitive groups. Similarly, we obtain upper bounds…

Suppose $c_n(\sigma)$ denotes the number of cyclic permutations in $\mathcal{S}_n$ that avoid a pattern $\sigma$. In this paper, we define partial groupoid structures on cyclic pattern-avoiding permutations that allow us to build larger…

Each connected component of a mapping $\{1,2,...,n\}\rightarrow\{1,2,...,n\}$ contains a unique cycle. The largest such component can be studied probabilistically via either a delay differential equation or an inverse Laplace transform. The…