Exceedingly deranging! (Q1398295): Difference between revisions

The authors study the distribution of the excedance statistic on derangements. They show first that the numbers \(\alpha_{n,k}\) of derangements over \(n\) objects having \(k\) excedances are symmetric, like the Eulerian numbers, and they satisfy the recurrence \[ \alpha_{n,k}= (n-1) \alpha_{n-2,k-1}+ (n- k)\alpha_{n-1,k-1}+ k\alpha_{n-1,k}, \] for all integers \(n\geq 2\) and \(1\leq k\leq n-1\) with the initial conditions \(\alpha_{0,0}= 1\) and \(\alpha_{1,0}= 0\). Then they derive the generating function of the distribution and prove that the number of odd derangements having \(k\) excedances and the number of even derangements having \(k\) excedances differ by 1 for all \(n\) and \(k\).