The range of repetition in reduced decompositions (Q2221777)

A reduced decomposition of a permutation is a way to write it as a product of a minimum number of adjacent transpositions. The starting point of this paper is a result by the author [Adv. Appl. Math. 49, No. 1, 1--14 (2012; Zbl 1244.05010)] stating that the number of repeated letters in any reduced decomposition of a permutation is less than or equal to the total number of \(321\) and \(3412\) patterns contained in the permutation. The author also gave a list of ten patterns to be avoided for the two quantities to be equal. The present paper refines this earlier result by describing the range of repetition of a fixed letter \(\sigma_k\) in a reduced decomposition of a permutation. The exact minimum is found and a sharp upper bound on the maximum is given, in terms of the \(321\)- and \(3412\)-patterns in the permutation, specifically as they relate in value and position to \(k\). The paper also characterizes when that minimum and maximum are equal, refining a previous result that braid moves are equivalent to \(321\)-patterns.