Related papers: How often is a permutation an n'th power?

Let m be a fixed positive integer. It is well-known that a permutation $\sigma$ may have one, many, or no mth roots. In this note we provide an explicit expression and a generating function for the number of mth roots of \sigma. Let p_m(n)…

Given positive integers $n$ and $m$, let $p_n(m)$ be the probability that a uniform random permutation of $[n]$ has order exactly $m$. We show that, as $n \to \infty$, the maximum of $p_n(m)$ over all $m$ is asymptotic to $1/n$, the…

Let $m$ be a positive integer and let $\rho(m,n)$ be the proportion of permutations of the symmetric group ${\rm Sym}(n)$ whose order is coprime to $m$. In 2002, Pouyanne proved that $\rho(n,m)n^{1-\frac{\phi(m)}{m}}\sim \kappa_m$ where…

We show that the probability that two permutations of $n$ letters have the same number of cycles is \[\sim \frac{1}{2\sqrt{\pi\log{n}}}.\]

Denote by $p(k)$ the limit, as $n \rightarrow \infty$, of the probability that a random permutation on a set of size $n$ has an invariant set of size $k$. We give an asymptotic formula for $p(k)$, showing that it is asymptotically…

In this paper, we study permutations $\pi \in S_n$ with exactly $m$ transpositions. In particular, we are interested in the expected value of $\pi(1)$ when such permutations are chosen uniformly at random. When $n$ is even, this expected…

A permutation of n letters is k-prolific if each (n-k)-subset of the letters in its one-line notation forms a unique pattern. We present a complete characterization of k-prolific permutations for each k, proving that k-prolific permutations…

We prove that most permutations of degree $n$ have some power which is a cycle of prime length approximately $\log n$. Explicitly, we show that for $n$ sufficiently large, the proportion of such elements is at least $1-5/\log\log n$ with…

A celebrated analogy between prime factorizations of integers and cycle decompositions of permutations is explored here. Asymptotic formulas characterizing semismooth numbers (possessing at most several large factors) carry over to random…

Let a(n,k) be the kth coefficient of the nth cyclotomic polynomial. The first two authors showed in part I that if m is a prime power and n and k range over the non-negative integers, then a(mn,k) assumes every integer value. Here this…

Let m>=1 be an arbitrary fixed integer and let N_m(x) count the number of odd integers u<=x such that the order of 2 modulo u is not divisible by m. In case m is prime estimates for N_m(x) were given by H. Mueller that were subsequently…

We prove that it is always possible to find a permutation $p$ on the set $\{1,...,n\}$ such that $c+p(c)$ is prime for all $c \in \{1,...,n\}.$

Let $n$ be a large integer and $M_n$ be a random $n$ by $n$ matrix whose entries are i.i.d. Bernoulli random variables (each entry is $\pm 1$ with probability 1/2). We show that the probability that $M_n$ is singular is at most $(3/4…

A permutation of [n] induces a graph on [n] such that the edges of the graph correspond to inversion pairs of the permutation. This graph is connected if and only if the corresponding permutation is indecomposable. Let s(n,m) denote a…

Let f(m,n) denote the number of relatively prime subsets of {m+1,m+2,...,n}, and let Phi(m,n) denote the number of subsets A of {m+1,m+2,...,n} such that gcd(A) is relatively prime to n. Let f_k(m,n) and Phi_k(m,n) be the analogous counting…

An infinite permutation is a linear order on the set N. We study the properties of infinite permutations generated by fixed points of some uniform binary morphisms, and find the formula for their complexity.

A permutation p is realized by the shift on N symbols if there is an infinite word on an N-letter alphabet whose successive left shifts by one position are lexicographically in the same relative order as p. The set of realized permutations…

Different ways to describe a permutation, as a sequence of integers, or a product of Coxeter generators, or a tree, give different choices to define a simple permutation. We recollect few of them, define new types of simple permutations,…

Let $(X, d)$ be a semimetric space. A permutation $\Phi$ of the set $X$ is a combinatorial self similarity of $(X, d)$ if there is a bijective function $f \colon d(X^2) \to d(X^2)$ such that $$ d(x, y) = f(d(\Phi(x), \Phi(y))) $$ for all…

Consider the $m$-th roots of unity in {\bf C}, where $m>0$ is an integer. We address the following question: For what values of $n$ can one find $n$ such $m$-th roots of unity (with repetitions allowed) adding up to zero? We prove that the…