Locally restricted compositions. III: Adjacent-part periodic inequalities (Q612926)

Summary: We study compositions \(c_1,\dots,c_k\) of the integer \(n\) in which adjacent parts may be constrained to satisfy some periodic inequalities, for example \[ c_{2i}> c_{2i+1}< c_{2i+2} \quad\text{(alternating compositions)}. \] The types of inequalities considered are \(<\), \(\leqslant\), \(>\), \(\geqslant\) and \(\neq\). We show how to obtain generating functions from which various pieces of asymptotic information can be computed. There are asymptotically \(Ar^{-n}\) compositions of \(n\). In a random uniformly selected composition of \(n\), the largest part and number of distinct parts are almost surely asymptotic to \(\log_{1/r}(n)\). The length of the longest run is almost surely asymptotic to \(C\log_{1/r}(n)\) where \(C\) is an easily determined rational number. Many other counts are asymptotically normally distributed. We present some numerical results for the various types of alternating compositions.