Another involution principle-free bijective proof of Stanley's hook-content formula (Q1806214)

The Stanley hook-content formula [\textit{R. P. Stanley}, Stud. Appl. Math. 50, 259-279 (1971; Zbl 0225.05012)] presents the generating function \(\sum q^{n(T)}\), where the sum is over all semistandard tableaux \(T\) of a fixed shape \(\lambda=(\lambda_1,\ldots,\lambda_r)\) with entries between \(1\) and \(b\geq r\) (and the norm \(n(T)\) is the sum of all entries of \(T\)) as \[ q^{\sum_{i=1}^ri\lambda_i}\prod_{\rho\in\lambda} {1-q^{b+c_\rho}\over 1-q^{h_\rho}}, \] where \(\rho=(i,j)\) is a cell of \(\lambda\), \(h_{\rho}\) is the hook length and \(c_{\rho}=j-i\) is the content of \(\rho\). The main purpose of the paper under review is to give a new bijective proof of the Stanley formula which does not involve the involution principle of \textit{A. M. Garsia} and \textit{S. C. Milne} [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 78, 2026-2028 (1981; Zbl 0464.05007)]. The proof combines recent ideas of the modified jeu de taquin from the previous bijective proof of the author [\textit{C. Krattenthaler}, Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci. 3, No. 1, 11-32 (1998)] and the direct proof of the celebrated Frame-Robinson-Thrall hook formula for the standard Young tableaux of a given shape given by \textit{J.-C. Novelli, I. Pak} and \textit{A. V. Stoyanovskii} [Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci. 1, No. 1, 53-67, electronic only (1997)]. The new bijection can also be used as an algorithm for the random generation of semistandard tableaux of a given shape with bounded entries. A simple deformation of this algorithm yields an algorithm for the random generation of plane partitions inside a given box.