Spherically Symmetric Random Permutations

Abstract

We consider random permutations which are spherically symmetric with respect to a metric on the symmetric group $S_n$ and are consistent as $n$ varies. The extreme infinitely spherically symmetric permutation-valued processes are identified for the Hamming, Kendall-tau and Caley metrics. The proofs in all three cases are based on a unified approach through stochastic monotonicity.