Pattern avoidance in binary trees

Abstract

This paper considers the enumeration of trees avoiding a contiguous pattern. We provide an algorithm for computing the generating function that counts n-leaf binary trees avoiding a given binary tree pattern t. Equipped with this counting mechanism, we study the analogue of Wilf equivalence in which two tree patterns are equivalent if the respective n-leaf trees that avoid them are equinumerous. We investigate the equivalence classes combinatorially. Toward establishing bijective proofs of tree pattern equivalence, we develop a general method of restructuring trees that conjecturally succeeds to produce an explicit bijection for each pair of equivalent tree patterns.