Pattern avoidance in compositions and powers of permutations

Abstract

A permutation $π$ is said to avoid a chain $(σ:τ)$ of patterns if $π$ avoids $σ$ and $π^2$ avoids $τ.$ In this paper, we define a notion of pattern avoidance for compositions of positive integers and use that idea to enumerate permutations of length $n$ that avoid the chain $(312,321:σ)$ for any pattern $σ\in \bigcup_{m\geq 1} S_m$. We also enumerate those permutations that avoid the chain $(312,4321:σ)$ for any $σ\in S_3.$