Zassenhaus Lie idempotents, \(q\)-bracketing and a new exponential/logarithm correspondence (Q1840658)

The Hopf algebra Sym of noncommutative symmetric functions was introduced by \textit{I. M. Gelfand} et al. [Adv. Math. 112, 218-348 (1995; Zbl 0831.05063)] as, among other things, a noncommutative analog of the algebra of symmetric functions. Sym is the free associative algebra on countably many generators \(S_k\), for \(k\geq 0\) with \(\deg(S_i)=i\) and \(S_0=1\), and cocommutative coproduct \(\Delta(S_k)=\sum_{i+j=k}S_i\otimes S_j\). (There is a typographic error in the definition of the coproduct on page 253: the summand with \(i=0\) is missing.) Despite the transparency of its algebraic structures, Sym has intricate and important algebraic-combinatorial properties. This paper uncovers some further properties related to a \(q\)-deformation \(\text{Sym}_q\) of Sym and Lie projections onto the free Lie algebra (a sub Lie algebra of \(\text{Sym}_q\), where \([a,b]:=ab-qba\)). Homogeneous Lie projections commuting with substitutions correspond to certain idempotents in the group algebras of the symmetric groups, and when the idempotents lie in Solomon's descent algebra \(D\) (a subalgebra of the group algebras), a natural identification of \(D\) with Sym gives elements in Sym, and such elements of Sym were previously classified. The main result of this paper is a new exponential/logarithm correspondence in the completion of \(\text{Sym}_q\), specifically, a pair of formal series \(E_q\) and \(L_q\) that satisfy \(E_q\circ L_q =1 +\sum_i S_i\) under a notion of composition, and where \(E_q\) (considered as a function of the \(S_i\)) satisfies some formal properties of the exponential function so that it is a noncommutative analog of the exponential. Moreover, the homogeneous components of the series \(L_q\) are certain Lie projectors of Sym associated to a \(q\)-bracketing operator that are \(q\)-analogs of the Zassenhaus idempotents of Sym. These Zassenhaus idempotents are one of three noncommutative analogs of the power sum symmetric functions, and the results here settle a conjecture about the relation between the Zassenhaus idempotents and the \(q\)-bracketing operator from an earlier paper on Sym; see \textit{D. Krob, B. Leclerc} and \textit{J.-Y. Thibon} [Int. J. Algebra Comput. 7, 181-264 (1997; Zbl 0907.05055)]. These results also complete a nice picture: the three different types of noncommutative power sum functions are each related to the series \(\sum_i S_i\) through a different noncommutative analog of the exponential function.