Omitting parentheses from the cyclic notation

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Abstract: The purpose of this article is to initiate a combinatorial study of the Bruhat-Chevalley ordering on certain sets of permutations obtained by omitting the parentheses from their standard cyclic notation. In particular, we show that these sets form a bounded, graded, unimodal, rank-symmetric and EL-shellable posets. Moreover, we determine the homotopy types of the associated order complexes.


Write a permutation \(\pi\) in cyclic notation, \((a_{1,1}, \dots, a_{k_1,1}) (a_{1,2}, \dots, a_{k_2,2})\cdots\) \((a_{1,m}, \dots, a_{k_m,m})\) (fixed-points being written as ``cycles with one element). Denote by \(\lambda\) the \(m\)-tuple \((k_1, \ldots, k_m)\). Obtain a new permutation by omitting the parentheses and viewing the resulting list as the one-line notation of the permutation that takes \(j\) to the \(j\)-th item of the list. The paper considers the image \(C_{\lambda}\) under this function of the set of permutations having given \(\lambda\), as a poset under the Bruhat-Chevalley order. Each poset \(C_{\lambda}\) has a greatest and a least element. All maximal chains are of the same length \(l\), which is determined. If \(c_i\) denotes the number of elements at height \(i\), then the sequence \((c_0, \dots, c_l)\) is symmetric and unimodal, and \(\sum c_iq^i\) is a polynomial that factors as a product of polynomials of the form \(1 + q + q^2 + \dots + q^j\). The poset is lexicographically shellable.











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