Permutations sortable by two stacks in series

Abstract

We address the problem of the number of permutations that can be sorted by two stacks in series. We do this by first counting all such permutations of length less than 20 exactly, then using a numerical technique to obtain nineteen further coefficients approximately. Analysing these coefficients by a variety of methods we conclude that the OGF behaves as $$S(z) \sim A (1 - \mu \cdot z)^\gamma,$$ where $\mu =12.45 \pm 0.15,$ $\gamma= 1.5 \pm 0.3,$ and $A \approx 0.02$.