Decomposing random permutations

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Alex Scott, University of Oxford

Two permutations 蟽 and 蟺 are k-similar if they can be decomposed into subpermutations 蟽(1), . . . , 蟽(k) and 蟺(1), . . . , 蟺(k) such that 蟽(i) is order-isomorphic to 蟺(i) for all i. Recently, Dudek, Grytczuk and Rucin虂ski posed the problem of determining the minimum k for which two permutations chosen independently and uniformly at random are k-similar.听We show that two such permutations are O(n^{1/3} log^{11/6}n)-similar with high probability, which is tight up to a polylogarithmic factor. Our result also generalises to simultaneous decompositions of multiple permutations.

Joint work with Carla Groenland, Tom Johnston, D谩niel Kor谩ndi, Alexander Roberts and Jane Tan.