Enumerating Parking Completions Using Join and Split


Abstract in English

Given a strictly increasing sequence $mathbf{t}$ with entries from $[n]:={1,ldots,n}$, a parking completion is a sequence $mathbf{c}$ with $|mathbf{t}|+|mathbf{c}|=n$ and $|{tin mathbf{t}mid tle i}|+|{cin mathbf{c}mid cle i}|ge i$ for all $i$ in $[n]$. We can think of $mathbf{t}$ as a list of spots already taken in a street with $n$ parking spots and $mathbf{c}$ as a list of parking preferences where the $i$-th car attempts to park in the $c_i$-th spot and if not available then proceeds up the street to find the next available spot, if any. A parking completion corresponds to a set of preferences $mathbf{c}$ where all cars park. We relate parking completions to enumerating restricted lattice paths and give formulas for both the ordered and unordered variations of the problem by use of a pair of operations termed textbf{Join} and textbf{Split}. Our results give a new volume formula for most Pitman-Stanley polytopes, and enumerate the signature parking functions of Ceballos and Gonzalez DLeon.

Download