Combinatorics of exceptional sequences in type A

Exceptional sequences are certain ordered sequences of quiver representations. We introduce a class of objects called strand diagrams and use this model to classify exceptional sequences of representations of a quiver whose underlying graph is a type $A_n$ Dynkin diagram. We also use variations of this model to classify c-matrices of such quivers, to interpret exceptional sequences as linear extensions of posets, and to give a simple bijection between exceptional sequences and certain chains in the lattice of noncrossing partitions. This work extends a classification of exceptional sequences for the linearly-ordered quiver obtained in an earlier paper by the first and third authors.