Counting permutations by congruence class of major index (Q2370833)

For a permutation \(\pi\in S_n\), the major index is defined to be the sum of all \(i\in\{1,\ldots,n-1\}\) satisfying \(\pi_i>\pi_{i+1}\). For two positive integers \(k\) and \(l\), let \(m_{n}^{k,l}\) be the matrix whose entries are defined by \[ m_{n}^{k,l}(i,j)=\#\{\pi\in S_n:\text{ maj} \pi\equiv i\bmod k,\;\text{ maj} \pi^{-1}\equiv j\bmod l\}. \] (By a result of Foata and Schützenberger, the first congruence can be replaced with \(\text{ inv} \pi\equiv i\bmod k\) where \(\text{ inv}\) denotes the inversion number.) In a previous paper, \textit{H. Barcelo}, \textit{R. Maule} and \textit{S. Sundaram} [Electron. J. Comb. 9, Research paper R21, 10 p. (2002; Zbl 1007.05005)] use algebraic methods to show that \[ m_{n}^{k,l}(i,j)=\frac{n!}{kl}\quad\text{for all }i,j \] if \(k\) and \(l\) are relatively prime and at most \(n\). In this paper, the authors give a bijection proof which can be generalized to show the more general result: \[ m_{n}^{kd,ld}(i,j)=\frac{m_n^{d,d}(i,j)}{kl}\quad\text{for all }i,j \] for any positive integer \(d\) and relatively prime \(k\) and \(l\). In the second part, the authors focus on the case \(k=l\). They give an explicit formula for \(m_{n}^{n,n}\) and show that if \(p\) is prime then \(m_{np}^{p,p}\) has a simple block decomposition.