Moments of permutation statistics by cycle type

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hamaker, Zachary, Rhoades, Brendon
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866916659514572800
author Hamaker, Zachary
Rhoades, Brendon
author_facet Hamaker, Zachary
Rhoades, Brendon
contents Beginning with work of Zeilberger on classical pattern counts, there are a variety of structural results for moments of permutation statistics applied to random permutations. Using tools from representation theory, Gaetz and Ryba generalized Zeilberger's results to uniformly random permutations of a given cycle type. We introduce regular statistics and characterize their moments for all cycle types, generalizing all results in this literature that we are aware of. Our approach splits into two steps: first characterize such statistics as linear combinations of indicator functions for partial permutations, then identifying the moments of such indicators. As an application, we show that many regular statistics exhibit a law of large numbers depending only on fixed point counts and a similar variance property that depends also on two--cycle counts. These results first appeared in arXiv:2206.06567, which is no longer intended for publication. Our original proof of the moment result for indicators of partial permutations relied on representation theory and symmetric functions. A referee generously shared a combinatorial argument, allowing us to give a self-contained treatment of these results that does not rely on representation theory.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_17556
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Moments of permutation statistics by cycle type
Hamaker, Zachary
Rhoades, Brendon
Combinatorics
Probability
05A15, 05A16, 60C05, 60F05
Beginning with work of Zeilberger on classical pattern counts, there are a variety of structural results for moments of permutation statistics applied to random permutations. Using tools from representation theory, Gaetz and Ryba generalized Zeilberger's results to uniformly random permutations of a given cycle type. We introduce regular statistics and characterize their moments for all cycle types, generalizing all results in this literature that we are aware of. Our approach splits into two steps: first characterize such statistics as linear combinations of indicator functions for partial permutations, then identifying the moments of such indicators. As an application, we show that many regular statistics exhibit a law of large numbers depending only on fixed point counts and a similar variance property that depends also on two--cycle counts. These results first appeared in arXiv:2206.06567, which is no longer intended for publication. Our original proof of the moment result for indicators of partial permutations relied on representation theory and symmetric functions. A referee generously shared a combinatorial argument, allowing us to give a self-contained treatment of these results that does not rely on representation theory.
title Moments of permutation statistics by cycle type
topic Combinatorics
Probability
05A15, 05A16, 60C05, 60F05
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.17556