(back) TO DO Combinatorics section

Symmetric group/geometry/set partition Notes

There is no low-dimensional geometry in the symmetric group. But there are substructures and enhancements with geometrical features (such as Coxeter generators - see e.g. [Humphreys]). This leads to various interesting bits of maths - in particular some combinatorics.

The line and the plane

We start by explaining the figure

This figure (from [MarshMartin06]) summarizes various maps.
The first is the chi map from S_n to the set of set partitions of a set of order n.
For a perm p (an element of S_n written as the image of sequence 123...n _after_ the permutation has been applied)
then chi(p) is the relation with pair (i,j) whenever i>j and i immediately precedes j in p.
(Note here that we are using an underlying property of the set being permuted - a property not intrinsic to S_n.)
The partition obtained from this relation is the RST closure.

Note that this map is not injective.

Next we need the notion of c-sort. Let c be a word in the Coxeter generators containing one copy of each.
(We can take c=s_1 s_2 ... s_{n-1} here.)
Then every perm may be obtained from some power of c (as a word) by deleting some factors.
Consider the set of factors kept from each `block' (copy of c). If the set from block i is a subset of the set from block i-1 for all i then p is c-sortable.
CLAIM: chi is a bijection from c-sortable elements to non-crossing partitions.
Next we need a bijection from c-sortable elements to c-clusters.
One fixes a reference triangulation of the n+2-gon - in our case we take a fan triangulation, with the diagonals numbered consecutively. Each triangulation then gives (relative to the reference) a cluster - the list of sets of numbered fan diagonals crossed by each diagonal. ...

Homework: c-clusters are in bijection with diagonal triangulations of the n-gon. How can we lift this whole setup to m+2-angulations of the sm+2-gon?


To do

This is a work in progress. Here we note some jobs that need doing (entirely for my own organisational benefit).

  • Suggested further reading

    On representation theory of the symmetric group
    Algebras and Representations Leeds undergraduate module
    References on representation theory of the symmetric group
    Khovanov's rep theory resources
    Benson, Representations and Cohomology: Basic representation theory of finite groups and associative algebras
    J A Green, Polynomial representations of GLn (Springer) (version with K Erdmann and M Schocker)
    Assem, Simson and Skowronski, Vol.1 (LMS ST65)
    Curtis and Reiner, Representation theory of finite groups and associative algebras, Wiley Interscience
    Curtis and Reiner, Methods of representation theory I, Wiley Interscience
    Hamermesh, Group Theory
    Gabriel and Roiter, Representations of finite-dimensional algebras
    Jain and Parvathi, Noncommutative rings, group rings, diagram algebras, and their applications
    ...

    Organiser: Paul