On the decomposition of Brauer's centralizer algebras (Q909795)

The algebras \({\mathfrak A}_ f^{(n)}\), \({\mathfrak B}_ f^{(n)}\) were introduced by \textit{R. Brauer} [Ann. Math., II. Ser. 38, 857-872 (1937; Zbl 0017.39105)] for analyzing decomposition of the action of the orthogonal O(n,R) and symplectic Sp(n,R) groups respectively on the space of f-tensors \(T^ f(V)\) of the natural R-module V. These algebras are not just the centralizer algebras \(End(T^ f(V))\) but R. Brauer described a surjective homomorphism of \({\mathfrak A}_ f^{(n)}\) and \({\mathfrak B}_ f^{(n)}\) onto \(End(T^ f(V))\). In fact, \({\mathfrak A}_ f^{(n)}\) and \({\mathfrak B}_ f^{(n)}\) are semisimple if and only if \(n>f-1\) [\textit{W. P. Brown}, Ann. Math., II. Ser. 63, 324-335 (1956; Zbl 0070.269)]. The authors' problem is to describe the radical of \({\mathfrak A}_ f^{(n)}\) and \({\mathfrak B}_ f^{(n)}\) as well as the simple components of their quotients by the radicals. The definition of these algebras is too long to reproduce it here. Following W. P. Brown the authors connect the structure of both these algebras with the spectrum (i.e. eigenvalues and their multiplicities) of a certain symmetric matrix \(T_{m,k}(n)\) where m, k are integer parameters. Then they determine completely the eigenvalues of \(T_{0,k}(n)\) in terms of representations of symmetric groups. There are some conjectures and comments of interest.