On homomorphisms indexed by semistandard tableaux. (Q385532)

This paper is concerned with the representation theory of the Iwahori-Hecke algebra of type A, of which the group algebra of the symmetric group is an important special case. For these algebras one defines an important family of \textit{Specht modules}, which have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. An important problem is to compute the space of homomorphisms between two Specht modules, and this paper gives some results which help with this computation; in fact, a paper [J. Algebra 364, 38-51 (2012; Zbl 1278.20007)] by the reviewer which develops these ideas further yields an explicit algorithm for computing homomorphism spaces. A standard approach to computing the space of homomorphisms \(S^\mu\to S^\lambda\) is to realise \(S^\mu\) as a quotient of the \textit{Young permutation module} \(M^\mu\) by a certain submodule \(H\), so that every homomorphism \(S^\mu\to S^\lambda\) can be considered as a homomorphism \(M^\mu\to S^\lambda\). The space of such homomorphisms is known (with an explicit construction via \textit{semistandard tableaux}); given such a homomorphism \(\theta\), one would like to test whether \(\theta(H)=0\). One of the first results of the paper is the construction of certain `standard generators' \(m_\mu h_{d,t}\) of \(H\), and an expression (Proposition 2.5) for the image of \(m_\mu h_{d,t}\) under a given linear combination of semistandard homomorphisms. However, the expression given by this result is given in terms of not necessarily semistandard tableaux, and so it is difficult to tell whether this expression is zero. This is the aim of the next result (Theorem 2.7) which gives relations between tableau homomorphisms which seem in general to be sufficient to express a tableau homomorphism as a linear combination of semistandard homomorphisms. Some of these results can be seen as \(q\)-analogues of results of the reviewer and \textit{S. Martin} [Math. Z. 248, No. 2, 395-421 (2004; Zbl 1067.20011)], although the set-up here is dual to that used in [loc. cit.] (where \(S^\lambda\) is taken as a submodule of \(M^\lambda\), and a homomorphism \(S^\mu\to S^\lambda\) is viewed as a homomorphism \(S^\mu\to M^\lambda\)). The author of the paper under review provides a very helpful comparison of the two approaches, indicating how to translate results from one setting to the other. The results in this paper have already proved extremely useful in constructing and classifying homomorphisms between Specht modules. The author gives some explicit examples in the paper, and references to others. The paper is very well written, especially considering the intricacies of working with the Hecke algebra as opposed to the relatively easy symmetric group. Examples and indices of notation are provided, and this paper will serve very well as either a reference or an introduction to this topic.