A uniformly distributed statistic on a class of lattice paths (Q1773166)

Summary: Let \({\mathcal G}_n\) denote the set of lattice paths from \((0,0)\) to \((n,n)\) with steps of the form \((i,j)\) where \(i\) and \(j\) are nonnegative integers, not both zero. Let \({\mathcal D}_n\) denote the set of paths in \({\mathcal G}_n\) with steps restricted to \((1,0),(0,1),(1,1)\), the so-called Delannoy paths. Stanley has shown that \(| {\mathcal G}_n |=2^{n-1}|{\mathcal D}_n|\) and Sulanke has given a bijective proof. Here we give a simple statistic on \({\mathcal G}_n\) that is uniformly distributed over the \(2^{n-1}\) subsets of \([n-1]=\{1,2,\ldots,n\}\) and takes the value \([n-1]\) precisely on the Delannoy paths.