Extremal Families for Matchings in Permutations

Abstract

Two permutations $σ,τ\in S_n$ are called disjoint if the composition $στ^{-1}$ has no fixed point. If a family $\mathcal F\subseteq S_n$ contains no $s$ pairwise disjoint permutations, then a simple averaging argument gives $|\mathcal F|\leq(s-1)(n-1)!$. Inozemtsev, Kolupaev and Kupavskii characterized the equality cases in the range $s\leq n/(2^{17}\log n).$ We characterize all equality cases throughout the range $2\le s\le n$: equality holds if and only if $\mathcal F$ is a union of $(s-1)$ pairwise disjoint $1$-cosets. We also prove the linear statement underlying this classification: a real-valued function on $S_n$ has constant sum on every one-factorization if and only if it lies in the span of the indicators of the $1$-cosets. The proof is combinatorial and applies to every order, with a few small orders handled separately.