A generalization of the Kostka-Foulkes polynomials (Q5960004)

[\textit{M. Shimozono} and \textit{J. Weyman}, Eur. J. Comb. 21, 257-288 (2000; Zbl 0956.05100)] began the combinatorial study of a family of polynomials which are \(q\)-analogues of the Littlewood-Richardson coefficients and are defined as the Poincaré polynomials of isotypic components of Euler characteristics of certain \({\mathbb{C}}[gl_n]\)-modules supported in the closures of nilpotent conjugacy classes. These polynomials generalize also the Kostka-Foulkes polynomials. The two-column Macdonald-Kostka polynomials also occur as a special case. The starting point of the paper under review is the observation that in special cases these polynomials seem to coincide with other \(q\)-analogues of the appropriate Littlewood-Richardson coefficients given by the so-called rigged configurations. The authors present several conjectures for the symmetry and monotonicity properties that extend those satisfied by the Kostka-Foulkes polynomials. They also give bijections and injections which exhibit these properties combinatorially for three objects which are related with the considered polynomials: Littlewood-Richardson tableaux, catabolizable tableaux and rigged configurations. Other conjectures concern relations with generating functions over ribbon tableaux. As the authors mention, the original version of the manuscript was submitted for publication in 1998. Three years passed before it was refereed. During this time several conjectures became theorems. Since the main part of the text is unchanged except for corrections and minor points of exposition, the authors indicate which conjectures have been proved and where the proofs may be found.