Multisets and the combinatorics of symmetric functions (Q1320269)

This article presents a theory of species (symmetric species) for the combinatorial interpretation of operations of symmetric functions. Though a similar theory has been recently developed through the concept of polynomial species, the present approach appears to be more natural and simple. The fundamental idea is that symmetric functions enumerate structures we call ``structures with repetitions''. These structures are ``built'' over multisets. Examples of such structures, long studied in the literature, are necklaces, primitive necklaces, words, multipartitions, and multipermutations. Operations between symmetric functions can be combinatorially defined using operations with multisets, in the same way that operations between formal power series are defined using operations between sets, in Joyal theory. The classical combinatorial interpretations of symmetric functions, in terms of distributions of ``balls in boxes'', can be viewed as a theory of operations with multisets. We define a symmetric species as a functor from the category of finite multisets to the category of finite sets. To every symmetric species we assign a generating function, which is a symmetric series (an infinite sum of homogeneous symmetric functions). Following Joyal's ideas, we define the operations of sum, product, and Littlewood's plethysm of symmetric species, which turn out to correspond to sum, product, and Littlewood's plethysm of their generating functions, respectively. In the theory of Joyal species a combinatorial differential calculus was developed, upon the notion of derivative of a species. Remarkably, the counterparts of the derivative of a species in the present theory are the Hammond operators, which were introduced in the nineteenth century. We prove some properties of these operators in a purely combinatorial way.