Plethysm and the algebra of uniform block permutations (Q2097200)

Suppose that there exist two parties each of which consists of \(n\) members. The parties hold meetings splitting into several small groups. Every group consists of the members of each party of the same number. The set of such decompositions into small groups makes an algebra called the party algebra under a certain product. Since the block sizes of the two set partitions are required to match, this algebra is also known as the uniform block permutation algebra. In this paper, the authors study the representation theory of uniform block permutation algebras in the context of the representation theory of factorizable inverse monoids. A uniform block permutation algebra is a subalgebra of the partition algebra. They compute its characters and provide a Frobenius characteristic map to symmetric functions. This reveals connections between the characters of the uniform block permutation algebra and the plethysms of Schur functions. The obtained representations extend Young's construction of the irreducible representations of symmetric groups: instead of a symmetric group action on standard tableaux, the authors obtain a monoid action on sequences of set-valued tableaux. The action can be described on a basis indexed by combinatorial objects using familiar and well-used relations on tableaux.