Chains in the lattice of noncrossing partitions (Q1318847)

Consider partitions of \(\{0,1, \dots, n\}\), \(\pi\), where \(\pi=B_ 1/B_ 2/ \dots/ B_ m\), the blocks \(B_ i\) listed in increasing order of their minimum element. If \(x,y\) lie in the same block, one says that \(x \sim y\) and a partition is noncrossing when for every \(0 \leq a<b<c<d \leq n\), if \(a \sim c\) and \(b \sim d\), then \(a \sim b \sim c \sim d\). The noncrossing partitions are ordered by refinement form a lattice. These admit to an \(R\)-labelling [\textit{A. Bjoerner}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 260, 159-183 (1980; Zbl 0441.06002)]. With this labelling, maximal chains give rise to permutations. The authors discuss various properties of the lattice which pertain to a new permutation statistic, \(m(\sigma)\), the number of maximal chains labelled by \(\sigma\). They obtain various results about the lattice as well as various Möbius inversion formulas.