According to Wikipedia, the number of permutations in SnSn with exactly kk inversions is the coefficient of XkXk in
1(1+X)(1+X+X2)⋯(1+X+⋯+Xn−1).
1(1+X)(1+X+X2)⋯(1+X+⋯+Xn−1).
Denote this by
c(n,k)c(n,k). This shows that
c(n+1,k)=k∑l=0c(n,k−l).c(n+1,k)=∑l=0kc(n,k−l).
So the number of permutations in
SnSn with at most
kk inversions is equal to the number of permutations in
Sn+1Sn+1 with exactly
kk inversions. This has a neat combinatorial proof as well (hint: take
π∈Sn+1π∈Sn+1 and remove
n+1n+1).
If we are interested only in the coefficient of XkXk, then factors XmXm for m>km>k don't make any difference. So for n>kn>k, c(n,k)c(n,k) is the coefficient of XkXk in
1(1+X)⋯(1+X+⋯+Xk−1)(1+X+⋯+Xk+⋯)n−k=1(1+X)⋯(1+X+⋯+Xk−1)1(1−X)n−k=1(1+X)⋯(1+X+⋯+Xk−1)∞∑t=0(t+n−k−1t)Xt.
==1(1+X)⋯(1+X+⋯+Xk−1)(1+X+⋯+Xk+⋯)n−k1(1+X)⋯(1+X+⋯+Xk−1)1(1−X)n−k1(1+X)⋯(1+X+⋯+Xk−1)∑t=0∞(t+n−k−1t)Xt.
This implies the formula
c(n,k)=k∑t=0(n+t−k−1t)c(k,k−t),n>k.c(n,k)=∑t=0k(n+t−k−1t)c(k,k−t),n>k.
When kk is constant, the asymptotically most important term is the one corresponding to t=kt=k, and we have
c(n,k)=(n−1k)+Ok(nk−1)=1k!nk+Ok(nk−1).
c(n,k)=(n−1k)+Ok(nk−1)=1k!nk+Ok(nk−1).
The same asymptotics work for
c(n+1,k)c(n+1,k), which is what you were after.
For non-constant kk, using the fact that (n+t−k−1t)=(n+t−k−1n−k−1)(n+t−k−1t)=(n+t−k−1n−k−1) is increasing in tt and ∑kt=0c(k,t)≤k!∑kt=0c(k,t)≤k!, we get the bounds
(n−1k)≤c(n,k)≤k!(n−1k).
(n−1k)≤c(n,k)≤k!(n−1k).
Better bounds are surely possible, but I'll leave that to you.