Stability of Kronecker products of irreducible characters of the symmetric group (Q1307017)

\textit{F. D. Murnaghan} [Am. J. Math. 60, 761-784 (1938; Zbl 0018.29701)] showed that the decomposition of the Kronecker product \(\chi^{(n-a,\lambda_2,\dots)}\otimes \chi^{(n-b,\mu_2,\dots)}\) of two irreducible characters of the symmetric group depends only on \(\overline\lambda=(\lambda_2,\dots)\) and \(\overline\mu=(\mu_2,\dots)\) but not on \(n\). However, this result is only valid for arbitrary \(n\) if one applies modification rules (sometimes called ``slinky rules'') to disordered ``partitions'' appearing as indices of characters in the decomposition. Hence, if one denotes by \(c(\lambda,\mu,\nu)\) the coefficient of \(\chi^\nu\) in the expansion of \(\chi^{\lambda}\otimes \chi^{\mu}\), then \(c((n-a,\lambda_2,\dots),(n-b,\mu_2,\dots),(n-c,\nu_2,\dots))\) will be independent of \(n\) only for large \(n\), but may vary for small \(n\). The author provides a precise bound for this phenomenon, i.e., he gives an integer \(m\) so that \(c((n-a,\lambda_2,\dots),(n-b,\mu_2,\dots),(n-c,\nu_2,\dots))\) is independent of \(n\) for all \(n\geq m\). His bound is not optimal, though. The author's proof is completely combinatorial. It is based on manipulating Littlewood--Richardson multitableaux and rim hook tabloids, by means of which the coefficients \(c\) can be expressed. In particular, the proof does not require the truth of Murnaghan's result.