Pattern avoidance in circular permutations

Abstract

Circular permutations on {1,2,...,n} that avoid a given pattern correspond to ordinary (linear) permutations that end with n and avoid all cyclic rotations of the pattern. Three letter patterns are all but unavoidable in circular permutations and here we give explicit formulas for the number of circular permutations that avoid one four letter pattern. In the three essentially distinct cases, the counts are as follows: the Fibonacci number F_{2n-3} for the pattern 1324, 2^{n-1}-(n-1) for 1342, and 2^{n}+1-2n-{n}choose{3} for 1234.