Two combinatorial statistics on Dyck paths (Q1343781)

A Dyck path is a path in the first quadrant which begins at the origin, ends at \((2n,0)\), and consists of steps \((+1, +1)\) and \((+1,-1)\). The number of Dyck paths with length \(\ell\) is \(C_ \ell= (1/ (\ell+1)) \left( \begin{smallmatrix} 2\ell\\ \ell \end{smallmatrix} \right)\), the \(\ell\)th Catalan number. The authors investigate two related combinatorial statistics---the pyramid weight and the number of exterior pairs on the set of Dyck paths, and provide explicit formulae for the joint distributions of the path length and each of these two statistics. The proofs are combinatorial and rely on the method of \(q\)-grammars as well as on two new \(q\)-analogues of the Catalan numbers derived from statistics on non-crossing partitions. Connections with the combinatorics of Motzkin paths are pointed out.