Identities for classical group characters of nearly rectangular shape (Q1272454)

The author derives several identities involving irreducible characters of the classical groups -- the general linear, the symplectic and the orthogonal groups. All of the identities feature characters that are indexed by shapes that are ``nearly'' rectangular, i.e., the shapes are rectangular but for one row or column that might be shorter than the others. As applications, the author also proves new results in plane partitions and tableaux enumeration. The tableaux descriptions by De Concini, Procesi, Lakshmibai, Musili and Seshadri play an important role in the proof of these results.