Sorting permutations using a pop stack with a bypass

Abstract

We introduce a new sorting device for permutations which makes use of a pop stack augmented with a bypass operation. This results in a sorting machine, which is more powerful than the usual Popstacksort algorithm and seems to have never been investigated previously. In the present paper, we give a characterization of sortable permutations in terms of forbidden patterns and reinterpret the resulting enumerating sequence using a class of restricted Motzkin paths. Moreover, we describe an algorithm to compute the set of all preimages of a given permutation, thanks to which we characterize permutations having a small number of preimages. Finally, we provide a full description of the preimages of principal classes of permutations, and we discuss the device consisting of two pop stacks in parallel, again with a bypass operation.