CYCLIC DECOMPOSITIONS OF MULTISETS (Q3977047)

Cyclic decompositions are what Richard Stanley has called multiset permutations. We begin with a finite word in the alphabet of positive integers (with repetitions allowed). Two words are equivalent if one is a cyclic permutation of the other. A cycle is an equivalence class of words. A cyclic decomposition is an element of the free abelian monoid over the set of cycles. The author establishes a bijective correspondence between cyclic decompositions and certain Young tableaux. This correspondence implies the identity \[ \sum_{\gamma\in C} w(\gamma) = \prod_{k=1}^{\infty}[1-(x_ 1^ k + x_ 2^ k + \cdots) ]^{-1}, \] where \(C\) is the set of cyclic decompositions and \(w(a_ 1a_ 2\ldots a_ n) = x_{a_ 1}x_{a_ 2}\ldots x_{a_ n}\). It is also demonstrated that this bijection provides interpretations of identities such as the Rogers-Ramanujan identity in terms of cyclic decompositions.