Bijective recurrences concerning two Schr\"oder triangles

Abstract

Let $r(n,k)$ (resp. $s(n,k)$) be the number of Schr\"oder paths (resp. little Schr\"oder paths) of length $2n$ with $k$ hills, and set $r(0,0)=s(0,0)=1$. We bijectively establish the following recurrence relations: \begin{align*} r(n,0)&=\sum\limits_{j=0}^{n-1}2^{j}r(n-1,j), r(n,k)&=r(n-1,k-1)+\sum\limits_{j=k}^{n-1}2^{j-k}r(n-1,j),\quad 1\le k\le n, s(n,0) &=\sum\limits_{j=1}^{n-1}2\cdot3^{j-1}s(n-1,j), s(n,k) &=s(n-1,k-1)+\sum\limits_{j=k+1}^{n-1}2\cdot3^{j-k-1}s(n-1,j),\quad 1\le k\le n. \end{align*} The infinite lower triangular matrices $[r(n,k)]_{n,k\ge 0}$ and $[s(n,k)]_{n,k\ge 0}$, whose row sums produce the large and little Schr\"oder numbers respectively, are two Riordan arrays of Bell type. Hence the above recurrences can also be deduced from their $A$- and $Z$-sequences characterizations. On the other hand, it is well-known that the large Schr\"oder numbers also enumerate separable permutations. This propelled us to reveal the connection with a lesser-known permutation statistic, called initial ascending run, whose distribution on separable permutations is shown to be given by $[r(n,k)]_{n,k\ge 0}$ as well.