No label defined (Q4464601)

The author surveys a series of conjectures in combinatorics using new results on the geometry of Hilbert schemes. The combinatorial results include the positivity conjecture for the Macdonald symmetric functions, and the ``\(n!\)'' and ``\((n+1)^{n-1}\)'' conjectures which relate Macdonald polynomials to the characters of doubly graded \(S_n\)-modules. In 1987 Macdonald unified the theory of Hall-Littlewood symmetric functions with that of spherical functions on symmetric spaces, introducing a class of symmetric functions, now known as Macdonald polynomials, with coefficients depending on two parameters \(q\) and \(t\). There are bivariate analogues of the Kostka-Foulkes polynomials, and Macdonald conjectured that these more general Kostka-Foulkes polynomials should have positive integer coefficients. In 1993 Garsia and the author introduced some bigraded \(S_n\)-module and conjectured that its dimension is \(n!\) and this is known as the \(n!\) conjecture. It is known that the \(n!\) conjecture implies the Macdonald positivity conjecture. The spaces figuring in the \(n!\) conjecture are quotients of the ring of coinvariants for the diagonal action of \(S_n\) on \({\mathbb C}^n\oplus{\mathbb C}^n\), and it was natural to investigate the characters of the full coinvariant ring. The space of coinvariants has dimension \((n+1)^{n-1}\). This involved \(q\)-analogues of this number and the Catalan numbers \(C_n\) in the data. A menagerie of things studied earlier by combinatorialists for their own sake turned up unexpectedly in this new context. Further, Procesi suggested that the diagonal coinvariants might be interpreted as sections of a vector bundle on the Hilbert scheme \(H_n\) of points in the plane. Understanding this geometric context has led the author to the proofs of the \(n!\) and \((n+1)^{n-1}\) conjectures. The full explanation depends on properties of the Hilbert scheme which were not known before, and had to be established from scratch in order to complete the picture. One might say, that the main results are not the \(n!\) and \((n+1)^{n-1}\) theorems, but new theorems in algebraic geometry. In order to make the exposition self-contained, the author includes background from combinatorics, theory of symmetric functions, representation theory and geometry. At the end of the paper he discusses future directions, new conjectures, and related work of other mathematicians. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1033.00012].