We prove that it is decidable if a finitely based permutation class contains infinitely many simple permutations, and establish an unavoidable substructure result for simple permutations: every sufficiently long simple permutation contains an alternation or oscillation of length k.
A simple permutation is one that never maps a nontrivial contiguous set of indices contiguously. Given a set of permutations that is closed under taking subpermutations and contains only finitely many simple permutations, we provide a framework for enumerating subsets that are restricted by properties belonging to a finite "query-complete set." Such properties include being even, being an alternating permutation, and avoiding a given generalised (blocked or barred) pattern. We show that the generating functions for these subsets are always algebraic, thereby generalising recent results of Albert and Atkinson. We also apply these techniques to the enumeration of involutions and cyclic closures.
We survey the known results about simple permutations. In particular, we present a number of recent enumerative and structural results pertaining to simple permutations, and show how simple permutations play an important role in the study of permutation classes. We demonstrate how classes containing only finitely many simple permutations satisfy a number of special properties relating to enumeration, partial well-order and the property of being finitely based. 2 In the past, permutation classes have also been called closed classes or pattern classes.
We prove that every sufficiently long simple permutation contains two long almost disjoint simple subsequences. This result has applications to the enumeration of restricted permutations. For example, it immediately implies a result of Bóna and (independently) Mansour and Vainshtein that for any r, the number of permutations with at most r copies of 132 has an algebraic generating function.
Korpelainen, Lozin, and Razgon conjectured that a hereditary property of graphs which is well-quasi-ordered by the induced subgraph order and defined by only finitely many minimal forbidden induced subgraphs is labelled well-quasi-ordered, a notion stronger than that of n-well-quasiorder introduced by Pouzet in the 1970s. We present a counterexample to this conjecture. In fact, we exhibit a hereditary property of graphs which is well-quasi-ordered by the induced subgraph order and defined by finitely many minimal forbidden induced subgraphs yet is not 2-wellquasi-ordered. This counterexample is based on the widdershins spiral, which has received some study in the area of permutation patterns.
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