The integral tree representation of the symmetric group (Q5939551)

The space of fully-grown \(n\)-trees \(T_n\) is a topological space with an action of the symmetric group \(\Sigma_{n+1}\) which arises naturally in [\textit{A. Robinson} and \textit{S. Whitehouse}, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 111, No. 1-3, 245-253 (1996; Zbl 0865.55010)]. It has the homotopy type of a bouquet of spheres and its only non-trivial reduced homology group affords a representation of \(\Sigma_{n+1}\), the tree representation. The same representation of \(\Sigma_{n+1}\) has appeared in several other contexts. The purpose of the paper under review is to study the integral representation of \(\Sigma_{n+1}\) on \(T_n\). The author gives an explicit combinatorial description (involving shuffles) of the representations \(V_n\) and \(V_n'\) of \(\Sigma_n\) and \(\Sigma_{n+1}\), respectively, on the unique non-trivial reduced integral homology group of the tree space \(T_n\). Then she establishes relations between the integral representation \(V_n\) of \(\Sigma_n\) and the natural representation of \(\Sigma_n\) on the multilinear component \(\text{ Lie}_n\) of the free Lie algebra on \(n\) generators. As a consequence, the author recovers the fact that \(\text{Lie}_n\) carries an action of \(\Sigma_{n+1}\) and obtains an explicit combinatorial description for this \({\mathbb Z}\Sigma_{n+1}\)-module.