Largest Minimal Inversion-Complete and Pair-Complete Sets of Permutations

Abstract

We solve two related extremal problems in the theory of permutations. A set 𝑄 of permutations of the integers 1 to 𝑛 is inversion-complete (resp., pair-complete) if for every inversion (𝑗, 𝑖), where 1 ≤ 𝑖 < 𝑗 ≤ 𝑛, (resp., for every pair (𝑖, 𝑗), where 𝑖 ≠ 𝑗) there exists a permutation in 𝑄 where 𝑗 is before 𝑖. It is minimally inversion-complete if in addition no proper subset of 𝑄 is inversion-complete; and similarly for pair completeness. The problems we consider are to determine the maximum cardinality of a minimal inversion-complete set of permutations, and that of a minimal pair-complete set of permutations. The latter problem arises in the determination of the Caratheodory numbers for certain abstract convexity structures on the (𝑛 − 1)-dimensional real and integer vector spaces. Using Mantel's Theorem on the maximum number of edges in a triangle-free graph, we determine these two maximum cardinalities and we present a complete description of the optimal sets of permutations for each problem. Perhaps surprisingly (since there are twice as many pairs to cover as inversions), these two maximum cardinalities coincide whenever 𝑛 ≥ 4.