Generalized wreath products of association schemes (Q820085)

Let \( {\mathcal Q}_1 \) be an association scheme on \( \Omega_1 \), and let \( {\mathcal Q}_2 \) be an association scheme on \( \Omega_2 \). The topic of this paper is a generalization of the two known methods for combining \( {\mathcal Q}_1 \) and \( {\mathcal Q}_2 \) into an association scheme on \( \Omega_1 \times \Omega_2 \). While only series-parallel posets arise from iterated crossing and nesting, the construction presented allows for an association scheme from any finite family of association schemes \( (\Omega_x, {\mathcal Q}_x) \) indexed by elements of a finite partially ordered set \(X\) -- called the generalized wreath product of the family \( (\Omega_x, {\mathcal Q}_x) \), \(x \in X \), on the set \( \prod_{x \in X} \; \Omega_x \). The generalized wreath product is shown to be equal to iterated crossing and nesting when \(X\) is series-parallel, and is hence a genuine generalization. The association classes of the generalized wreath product use the concept of an antichain in the partially ordered set \(X\) together with the set of elements of \(X\) ``smaller'' and ``larger'' than the antichain. A general method for constructing the table of eigenvalues (the character table) of the generalized product is also presented together with a completely worked out example for the smallest poset that is not series-parallel, called the ``N-poset''.