Classical Length-5 Pattern-Avoiding Permutations

Abstract

We have made a systematic numerical study of the 16 Wilf classes of length-5 classical pattern-avoiding permutations from their generating function coefficients. We have extended the number of known coefficients in fourteen of the sixteen classes. Careful analysis, including sequence extension, has allowed us to estimate the growth constant of all classes, and in some cases to estimate the sub-dominant power-law term associated with the exponential growth.

In six of the sixteen classes we find the familiar power-law behaviour, so that the coefficients behave like $s_n \sim C \cdot \mu^n \cdot n^g,$ while in the remaining ten cases we find a stretched exponential as the most likely sub-dominant term, so that the coefficients behave like $s_n \sim C \cdot \mu^n \cdot \mu_1^{n^\sigma} \cdot n^g,$ where $0 < \sigma < 1.$ We have also classified the 120 possible permutations into the 16 distinct classes.

We give compelling numerical evidence, and in one case a proof, that all 16 Wilf-class generating function coefficients can be represented as moments of a non-negative measure on $[0,\infty)$. Such sequences are known as Stieltjes moment sequences. They have a number of nice properties, such as log-convexity, which can be used to provide quite strong rigorous lower bounds.

Stronger bounds still can be established under plausible monotonicity assumptions about the terms in the continued-fraction expansion of the generating functions implied by the Stieltjes property. In this way we provide strong (non-rigorous) lower bounds to the growth constants, which are sometimes within a few percent of the exact value.