Equivalence Classes of Permutations under Various Relations Generated by Constrained Transpositions

Steven Linton, James Propp, Tom Roby, Julian West

Published 2011-11-16Version 1

We consider a large family of equivalence relations on permutations in Sn that generalise those discovered by Knuth in his study of the Robinson-Schensted correspondence. In our most general setting, two permutations are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by a sequence of pattern-replacing moves of prescribed form; however, we limit our focus to patterns where two elements are transposed, subject to the constraint that a third element of a suitable type be in a suitable position. For various instances of the problem, we compute the number of equivalence classes, determine how many n-permutations are equivalent to the identity permutation, or characterise this equivalence class. Although our results feature familiar integer sequences (e.g., Catalan, Fibonacci, and Tribonacci numbers) and special classes of permutations (layered, connected, and 123-avoiding), some of the sequences that arise appear to be new.