The reflection representation in the homology of subword order (Q2065711)

The paper studies representations of the symmetric group given by the homology of certain subposets of the subword order. Given an alphabet \(A\) with \(n \geqslant 2\) letters, the free monoid on \(A\) is denoted \(A^{\ast}\). The subword order on \(A^{\ast}\) is the order such that \(u \leqslant v\) whenever \(u\) is a subword of \(v\). This is evidently a graded poset, with the rank function given by the length of the word. The subposets of particular concern in the paper are those consisting of elements with ranks lying in a certain set \(T\), known as rank-selected subposets. The cases studied are where \(T\) is one of the following sets of ranks: \par 1.) \([r, k]\), \(1 \leqslant r \leqslant k\); \par 2.) \([1, k] \setminus r\), \(1 \leqslant r \leqslant k\); \par 3.) \(\{1 \leqslant s_{1} < s_{2} \leqslant k\}\). Given a poset \(P\) with least element \(\hat{0}\) and greatest element \(\hat{1}\), there is a simplicial complex whose simplices are the chains of \(P\setminus \{\hat{0}, \hat{1}\}\). The paper considers the reduced homology \(\tilde{H}_{i}(P)\) of this simplicial complex. If \(P\) admits an action from a group \(G\), then \(\tilde{H}_{i}(P)\) is also a \(G\)-module. The particular case the paper considers is the homology of rank-selected posets of the subword order under the action of the symmetric group by permuting the letters of the alphabet. The paper makes two main conjectures. The first conjecture is that \(S_{n}\)-module given by the homology of any finite non-empty rank-selected subposet of the subword order on \(A^{\ast}\) is a non-negative integer combination of positive tensor powers of the irreducible \(S_{n}\)-module indexed by the partition \((n - 1, 1)\). This conjecture is proven in the cases listed above. The second main conjecture is that the \(S_{n}\)-module given by the homology of any finite non-empty rank-selected subposet of the subword order on \(A^{\ast}\), plus or minus the reflection representation of \(S_{n}\), is a permutation module. The conjecture further states that the Frobenius characteristic of this permutation module is a non-negative combination of the homogeneous symmetric functions \(h_{(n - r, 1^{r})}\), where \(r \geqslant 2\). This conjecture is likewise proven for the sets of ranks listed above. Versions of both conjectures are also proven for the \(S_{n}\)-module induced by the action of \(S_{n}\) on the maximal chains of any rank-selected subposet of \(A^{\ast}\). That is, it is shown that this module is a non-negative combination of tensor powers of the reflection representation \(S_{(n - 1, 1}\), and that, if the set of ranks is non-empty, then the Frobenius characteristic of this module is a non-negative combination of the homogeneous symmetric functions \(h_{(n - r, 1^{r})}\), where \(r \geqslant 2\).