Shuffling via Transpositions

Abstract: We consider a family of card shuffles of $n$ cards, where the allowed moves involve transpositions corresponding to the Jucys--Murphy elements of ${S_m}_{m \leq n}$. We diagonalize the transition matrix of these shuffles. As a special case, we consider the $k$-star transpositions shuffle, a natural interpolation between random transpositions and star transpositions. We proved that the $k$-star transpositions shuffle exhibits total variation cutoff at time $\frac{2n-(k+1)}{2(n-1)}n\log n$ with a window of $\frac{2n-(k+1)}{2(n-1)}n$. Furthermore, we prove that for the case where $k/n \rightarrow 0$ or $1$, this shuffle has the same limit profile as random transpositions, which has been fully determined by Teyssier.