The reflection representation in the homology of subword order

DOI10.5802/ALCO.184MaRDI QIDQ2065711zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 12 January 2022

Published in Algebraic Combinatorics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.13367

\(h\)-positivity internal product Kronecker product reflection representation Stirling numbers subword order Whitney homology

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of representation theory (05E10) Bell and Stirling numbers (11B73) Representations of finite symmetric groups (20C30)

Abstract: We investigate the homology representation of the symmetric group on rank-selected subposets of subword order. We show that the homology module for words of bounded length, over an alphabet of size

n,

decomposes into a sum of tensor powers of the

S_{n}

-irreducible

S_{(n - 1, 1)}

indexed by the partition

(n - 1, 1),

recovering, as a special case, a theorem of Bj"orner and Stanley for words of length at most

k .

For arbitrary ranks we show that the homology is an integer combination of positive tensor powers of the reflection representation

S_{(n - 1, 1)}

, and conjecture that this combination is nonnegative. We uncover a curious duality in homology in the case when one rank is deleted. We prove that the action on the rank-selected chains of subword order is a nonnegative integer combination of tensor powers of

S_{(n - 1, 1)}

, and show that its Frobenius characteristic is

h

-positive and supported on the set

T_{1} (n) = h_{l} a m b d a : l a m b d a = (n - r, 1^{r}), r g e 1 .

Our most definitive result describes the Frobenius characteristic of the homology for an arbitrary set of ranks, plus or minus one copy of the Schur function

s_{(n - 1, 1)},

as an integer combination of the set

T_{2} (n) = h_{l} a m b d a : l a m b d a = (n - r, 1^{r}), r g e 2 .

We conjecture that this combination is nonnegative, establishing this fact for particular cases.

Review text

The paper studies representations of the symmetric group given by the homology of certain subposets of the subword order. Given an alphabet \(A\) with \(n \geqslant 2\) letters, the free monoid on \(A\) is denoted \(A^{\ast}\). The subword order on \(A^{\ast}\) is the order such that \(u \leqslant v\) whenever \(u\) is a subword of \(v\). This is evidently a graded poset, with the rank function given by the length of the word. The subposets of particular concern in the paper are those consisting of elements with ranks lying in a certain set \(T\), known as rank-selected subposets. The cases studied are where \(T\) is one of the following sets of ranks: \par 1.) \([r, k]\), \(1 \leqslant r \leqslant k\); \par 2.) \([1, k] \setminus r\), \(1 \leqslant r \leqslant k\); \par 3.) \(\{1 \leqslant s_{1} < s_{2} \leqslant k\}\). Given a poset \(P\) with least element \(\hat{0}\) and greatest element \(\hat{1}\), there is a simplicial complex whose simplices are the chains of \(P\setminus \{\hat{0}, \hat{1}\}\). The paper considers the reduced homology \(\tilde{H}_{i}(P)\) of this simplicial complex. If \(P\) admits an action from a group \(G\), then \(\tilde{H}_{i}(P)\) is also a \(G\)-module. The particular case the paper considers is the homology of rank-selected posets of the subword order under the action of the symmetric group by permuting the letters of the alphabet. The paper makes two main conjectures. The first conjecture is that \(S_{n}\)-module given by the homology of any finite non-empty rank-selected subposet of the subword order on \(A^{\ast}\) is a non-negative integer combination of positive tensor powers of the irreducible \(S_{n}\)-module indexed by the partition \((n - 1, 1)\). This conjecture is proven in the cases listed above. The second main conjecture is that the \(S_{n}\)-module given by the homology of any finite non-empty rank-selected subposet of the subword order on \(A^{\ast}\), plus or minus the reflection representation of \(S_{n}\), is a permutation module. The conjecture further states that the Frobenius characteristic of this permutation module is a non-negative combination of the homogeneous symmetric functions \(h_{(n - r, 1^{r})}\), where \(r \geqslant 2\). This conjecture is likewise proven for the sets of ranks listed above. Versions of both conjectures are also proven for the \(S_{n}\)-module induced by the action of \(S_{n}\) on the maximal chains of any rank-selected subposet of \(A^{\ast}\). That is, it is shown that this module is a non-negative combination of tensor powers of the reflection representation \(S_{(n - 1, 1}\), and that, if the set of ranks is non-empty, then the Frobenius characteristic of this module is a non-negative combination of the homogeneous symmetric functions \(h_{(n - r, 1^{r})}\), where \(r \geqslant 2\).

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