Ordinal and disjoint sums of partially ordered patterns

TL;DR

This work extends the shape-Wilf-equivalence framework to partially ordered patterns (POPs) by developing ordinal sums $p\oplus q$ and disjoint sums $p+q$ for labeled posets and proving Wilf- and shape-Wilf-equivalence results that accommodate isolated vertices. It introduces a Ferrers-board transversal encoding and West-style bijections to establish the key equivalences, applies these to prove the shape-Wilf-equivalence $\{123,213,312\} \sim_s \{132,231,321\}$, and classifies all POPs of sizes $3$–$5$ whose connected components are chains. The results generalize Backelin–West–Xin-type phenomena to POPs and provide a practical encoding-based approach for determining Wilf-equivalences in poset-pattern avoidance, including complete classifications for small sizes and a resolution of Dimitrov’s conjecture in several families.

Abstract

Partially ordered patterns (POPs) generalize the classical notion of permutation patterns within the framework of pattern avoidance. Building on recent work by Burstein, Han, Kitaev, and Zhang, which introduced the concept of shape-Wilf-equivalence of sets of patterns, we develop the notions of \emph{ordinal} and \emph{disjoint sums} of labeled posets. This framework enables us to reinterpret their main result as an ordinal sum analogue of the classical theorem by Backelin, West, and Xin. We establish analogous results for disjoint sums of POPs and further extend their results to prove Wilf-equivalence for classes of POPs that include isolated vertices. In particular, we prove the shape-Wilf-equivalence of the sets of patterns $\{123, 213, 312\}$ and $\{132, 231, 321\}$. Our proof strategy involves a bijection that filters through an encoding scheme for the transversals avoiding these patterns. We use these results to completely classify the partially ordered patterns of size $3,4,5$ whose connected components are all chains. This classification also confirms a conjecture posed by Dimitrov at the problem session of the British Combinatorics Conference 2024 (BCC30).

Theorems & Definitions (33)

• Theorem 1
• Theorem 2
• Theorem 3
• Theorem 4
• Theorem 5
• Theorem 6
• Lemma 7
• proof
• proof : Proof of Theorem \ref{['thm: main1-shape']}
• Lemma 8