Monotone triangles and 312 pattern avoidance (Q648420)

The authors demonstrate a bijection between a subclass of alternating sign matrices (ASMs) defined by the so-called ``gapless'' condition on the corresponding monotone triangle and a subclass of totally symmetric self-complementary plane partitions defined by a similar condition on the corresponding fundamental domains or Magog triangles. It is shown that, when restricted to permutations, this class of ASMs reduces to a set of 312-avoiding permutations. This leads the authors to extend pattern avoidance on permutations to a family of words associated to ASMs.