Permutations
Permutations are basic elements in algebra. They have a natural non-commutative product (as matrices do as well), and hence can encode highly nontrivial structures in a compact way. Permutations provide a way of representing any finite group, which makes them key tools in many applications in mathematics, science, engineering, or even art. In particular, permutations play a central role in the description of discrete symmetries.
Permutations are, roughly speaking, reorderings of a set of elements, or more precisely, bijections from the set onto itself. Only sets with a finite number of elements will be considered. The number of possible permutations of a set of 
elements is 
, and therefore for a moderate number 
there are already 
permutations, which is almost 
.
This tutorial discusses how to manipulate permutations in cyclic notation in Mathematica, and "Permutation Lists" describes the relation to permutation list notation. Other tutorials, "Permutation Groups" and "Named Groups", describe how to work with groups of permutations, and "Group Theory Algorithms" shows how to extract information from them without listing all elements of the group.
Representation of a Permutation
Representation of a permutation.
The disjoint cyclic representation of a permutation has the form Cycles[{cyc1, cyc2, ...}] in Mathematica, where the cycles 
are disjoint lists of positive integers. Integers are mapped under the permutation to their right neighbors, and the last integer of a cycle is mapped to the first member of that cycle. Integers not present in the cycles are mapped onto themselves, though they could also appear in cycles of length 1, which are called singletons or fixed points. The ordering of cycles is immaterial, and individual cycles can be rotated without changing the permutation. Permutations are automatically canonicalized so that the smallest integer of each cycle comes first, and then cycles are sorted by their first integer.
This is a permutation with two cycles
and
.
| Out[1]= |  |
This represents the same permutation. Singletons and empty cycles are removed.
| Out[2]= |  |
Any permutation with only singletons represents the identity.
| Out[3]= |  |
With permutations containing explicit lists of numbers, there is automatic syntax checking. In other cases, you can use the function PermutationCyclesQ to check the syntax.
The cycles must be disjoint.
| Out[4]= |  |
Integers must be positive.
| Out[5]= |  |
Numbers other than integers are not accepted.
| Out[6]= |  |
This is a valid permutation in cyclic form.
| Out[7]= |  |
These are invalid permutations, for obvious reasons.
| Out[8]= |  |
| Out[9]= |  |
| Out[10]= |  |
Permutation Action and Support
If a permutation perm maps the integer 
to the integer 
, then 
is called the image of 
under the permutation perm. Images are computed with the function PermutationReplace.
Standard action of permutations on other expressions.
| Out[11]= |  |
These are the images of the first 6 integers.
| Out[12]= |  |
The standard action of permutations can be extended to other objects, like other permutations or arrays of integers or permutations.
Map integers of the first permutation under the second permutation (conjugation).
| Out[13]= |  |
Permutations are not assumed to belong to any particular finite group, not even a particular symmetric group of some degree. However, there is the concept of support, defined as the set of integers moved by the permutation, which better describes where a permutation acts naturally.
Permutation support functions.
The following permutation moves only five points.
| Out[14]= |  |
| Out[15]= |  |
| Out[16]= |  |
The largest moved point is 55.
| Out[17]= |  |
The smallest moved point is 4.
| Out[18]= |  |
Random generation of permutations.
Generate a random permutation moving (perhaps not all) integers
.
| Out[19]= |  |
Generate several random permutations in a given group.
| Out[20]= |  |
Permute Parts of an Expression
Permutations can be used to permute the parts of other expressions with the function Permute. Integer 
being mapped to integer 
is interpreted as part 
being moved to part 
. Permute never changes the number of elements of an expression, it simply reorders them.
| Permute | permute parts of an expression |
| FindPermutation | return permutation linking two expressions with the same elements |
Reordering under a permutation.
Swap the first and last letters of the alphabet.
| Out[21]= |  |
Permute three parts of an expression, leaving the rest invariant.
| Out[24]= |  |
The same result can be obtained using a permutation list representation and the function
Part.
| Out[25]= |  |
| Out[26]= |  |
| Out[27]= |  |
However, the length of the permutation list must match that of the expression.
| Out[29]= |  |
| Out[30]= |  |
Permutation lists can also be used with the function
Permute.
| Out[31]= |  |
Vice versa, given two expressions with the same elements, a permutation linking them can be computed.
| Out[34]= |  |
| Out[35]= |  |
Reversing the two arguments gives the inverse permutation.
| Out[36]= |  |
With a single argument,
FindPermutation returns the permutation that generates an expression from its canonical order.
| Out[37]= |  |
| Out[38]= |  |
Product of Permutations
Product of permutations.
There are two possible conventions for the product of two permutations 
and 
, depending on whether PermutationProduct[perm1, perm2] means that you first use 
and then 
(this is called a left-to-right product) or you first use 
and then 
(right-to-left product). With the convention of writing images as right neighbors in cycles, Mathematica's PermutationProduct effectively is a left-to-right product.
The product of permutations is not commutative.
| Out[41]= |  |
| Out[42]= |  |
PermutationReplace acts from the right, consistent with the left-to-right character of the product.
| Out[43]= |  |
| Out[44]= |  |
| Out[45]= |  |
| Out[46]= |  |
After the permutation product law has been given, the associated concepts of inversion, power, and order can be immediately defined. For permutations of finite support, the order is always finite.
You can compute inverses of permutations.
| Out[47]= |  |
| Out[48]= |  |
And you can compute powers of them. Negative powers are powers of the inverse.
| Out[49]= |  |
| Out[50]= |  |
| Out[51]= |  |
| Out[52]= |  |
The order of a permutation is the lowest positive power such that the identity permutation is obtained.
| Out[53]= |  |
| Out[54]= |  |
| Out[56]= |  |
| Out[57]= |  |
This means that (for permutations of finite support) the inverse is always a positive power of the permutation.
| Out[58]= |  |
Equality and Sorting of Permutations
As is standard in Mathematica, there are two types of equality tests: structural equality (SameQ) and mathematical equality (Equal). The former can compare any two expressions, but the latter will only return True or False when comparing mathematical expressions with the same type of value. The same happens when ordering expressions: there is structural (canonical) order, implemented through Order and OrderedQ, and there is mathematical order, given by Less and related functions.
Any two permutations of any degree can always be tested for equality and ordering. This is done by comparing sequentially the images of the integers 1, 2, 3, ... . The smaller permutation corresponds to smaller images, such that the identity permutation always comes first. This defines mathematical order. Canonical order follows standard rules, and may differ from mathematical order.
These are the images of the first 7 integers under them.
| Out[61]= |  |
| Out[62]= |  |
Permutation
must be sorted before
because its second image is smaller.
| Out[63]= |  |
The standard canonical order will sort smaller expressions first.
| Out[64]= |  |
You can sort permutations using mathematical order by using an "ordering function".
| Out[65]= |  |
You can check whether a list of permutations is sorted.
| Out[66]= |  |
Special Types of Permutations
There are special types of permutations. In many cases the cyclic notation allows simple constructions to detect them.
Involutions contain only cycles of maximal length 2.
| Out[68]= |  |
| Out[69]= |  |
A permutation is a derangement of degree
if all integers
are moved.
| Out[71]= |  |
| Out[72]= |  |
A permutation is said to be circular of degree
if it consists of a single cycle of length
.
| Out[74]= |  |
| Out[75]= |  |
From the cyclic notation of a permutation it is also simple to construct a decomposition into transpositions, that is, permutations with a single cycle of length 2.
These functions construct a list of transpositions whose product is the original permutation.
| Out[79]= |  |
| Out[80]= |  |
Such decomposition into transpositions is not unique, but the parity (even or odd) of the number of transpositions is invariant. This is called the
signature of the permutation.
| Out[82]= |  |
| Out[83]= |  |
The previous example permutation
perm was decomposed into five transpositions, an odd number. Hence it has signature
.
| Out[84]= |  |
