A bijection to count (1-23-4)-avoiding permutations

Abstract

A permutation is (1-23-4)-avoiding if it contains no four entries, increasing left to right, with the middle two adjacent in the permutation. Here we give a 2-variable recurrence for the number of such permutations, improving on the previously known 4-variable recurrence. At the heart of the proof is a bijection from (1-23-4)-avoiding permutations to increasing ordered trees whose leaves, taken in preorder, are also increasing.