On the centrosymmetric permutations in a class

Abstract

A permutation is centrosymmetric if it is fixed by a half-turn rotation of its diagram. Initially motivated by a question by Alexander Woo, we investigate the question of whether the growth rate of a permutation class equals the growth rate of its even-size centrosymmetric elements. We present various examples where the latter growth rate is strictly less, but we conjecture that the reverse inequality cannot occur. We conjecture that equality holds if the class is sum closed, and we prove this conjecture in the special case where the growth rate is at most $\xi \approx 2.30522$, using results from Pantone and Vatter on growth rates less than $\xi$. We prove one direction of inequality for sum closed classes and for some geometric grid classes. We end with preliminary findings on new kinds of growth-rate thresholds that are a little bit larger than $\xi$.