I am fascinated by 3-symmetric permutations, that is, permutations that contain all possible patterns of of size three with the same frequency. As I mentioned in my recent post 3-Symmetric Permutations, the smallest non-trivial examples are in size 9.
When I presented these examples at a combinatorics pre-seminar, Sasha Postnikov suggested to draw the permutations as a graph or a matrix. Why didn’t I think of that?
Below are the drawings of the only two 3-symmetric permutations of size 9: 349852167 and 761258943.
As I already mentioned in the aforementioned essay the set of 3-symmetric permutations is invariant under the reversal and subtraction of each number from the size of the permutation plus 1. In geometrical terms it means reflection along the vertical midline and central symmetry. But as you can see the pictures are invariant under 90 degree rotation. Why?
What I forgot to mention was that the set of k-symmetric permutations doesn’t change after the inversion. In geometrical terms it means the reflection with respect to the main diagonal. If you combine a reflection with respect to a diagonal with a reflection with respect to a vertical line you get a 90 degree rotation. Overall, the symmetries of the k-symmetric permutations are the same as all the symmetries of a square. Which means we can only look at the shapes of the k-symmetric permutations.
There are six 2-symmetric permutations: 1432, 2341, 2413, 3142, 3214, 4123. As we can see in the picture below they have two different shapes.
Here is the list of all 22 2-symmetric permutations of size 5: 14532, 15342, 15423, 23541, 24351, 24513, 25143, 25314, 31542, 32451, 32514, 34152, 34215, 35124, 41352, 41523, 42153, 42315, 43125, 51243, 51324, 52134. The list was posted by Drake Thomas in the comments to my essay. Up to symmetries the permutations form four groups. Group 1: 14532, 15423, 23541, 32451, 34215, 43125, 51243, 52134. Group 2: 15342, 24351, 42315, 51324. Group 3: 24513, 25143, 31542, 32514, 34152, 35124, 41523, 42153. Group 4: 25314, 41352. The picture shows the first permutation in each group.
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