An Order on Circular Permutations

Abstract

Motivated by the study of affine Weyl groups, a ranked poset structure is defined on the set of circular permutations in $S_n$ (that is, $n$-cycles). It is isomorphic to the poset of so-called admitted vectors, and to an interval in the affine symmetric group $\tilde S_n$ with the weak order. The poset is a semidistributive lattice, and the rank function, whose range is cubic in $n$, is computed by some special formula involving inversions. We prove also some links with Eulerian numbers, triangulations of an $n$-gon, and Young's lattice.