Wilf Equivalence for Length-Three Patterns and Flat POPs, and a Conjecture of Qiu and Remmel

Abstract

It is well known that, for each classical pattern $\tau$ of length 3, the number of $\tau$-avoiding permutations of length $n$ is the $n$th Catalan number, and numerous bijections between different length-three avoidance classes have been constructed and studied. In this paper, we refine this classical problem by studying Wilf equivalence among permutations that simultaneously avoid a classical pattern of length three and a flat partially ordered pattern. Partially ordered patterns (POPs) provide a flexible framework for encoding families of classical permutation patterns. For $\ell\geq 3$ and $1\leq x\leq\ell$, let $P_{\ell,x}$ be the length-$\ell$ POP in which the entry at position $x$ is required to be smaller than all the other entries, while no relations are imposed among the remaining entries. Such POPs are called flat POPs. We classify the Wilf equivalences among all pairs $(\tau,P_{\ell,x})$, where $\tau$ is a classical pattern of length three. For every $\ell\geq4$, the resulting $6\ell$ pairs form exactly $2\ell-1$ Wilf equivalence classes, while the exceptional case $\ell=3$ gives four classes. Our proofs combine the derivation of explicit formulas and recurrence relations with the construction of bijections. Moreover, we introduce novel prime-divisor arguments to distinguish the remaining candidate classes, reducing the problem to showing that a certain Diophantine equation has no solutions for $\ell\ge 3{,}274$, where the bound $3{,}274$ is not claimed to be sharp. Finally, by extending our work on POPs, we resolve a conjecture of Qiu and Remmel concerning the distribution of quadrant marked mesh patterns on 132-avoiding permutations and correct an error in their paper that is crucial to the proof.