Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science |
The total number of noncrossing partitions of type $\Psi$ is the $n$th Catalan number $\frac{1}{ n+1} \binom{2n}{n}$ when $\Psi =A_{n-1}$, and the binomial coefficient $\binom{2n}{n}$ when $\Psi =B_n$, and these numbers coincide with the correspondent number of nonnesting partitions. For type $A$, there are several bijective proofs of this equality; in particular, the intuitive map, which locally converts each crossing to a nesting, is one of them. In this paper we present a bijection between nonnesting and noncrossing partitions of types $A$ and $B$ that generalizes the type $A$ bijection that locally converts each crossing to a nesting.