Bubble lattices I: Structure

C. Greene introduced the shuffle lattice as an idealized model for DNA mutation and discovered remarkable combinatorial and enumerative properties of this structure. We attempt an explanation of these properties from a lattice-theoretic point of view. To that end, we introduce and study an order extension of the shuffle lattice, the bubble lattice. We characterize the bubble lattice both locally (via certain transformations of shuffle words) and globally (using a notion of inversion set). We then prove that the bubble lattice is extremal and constructable by interval doublings. Lastly, we prove that our bubble lattice is a generalization of the Hochschild lattice studied earlier by Chapoton, Combe and the second author.