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The content vector of a standard Young tableau $T$ is $(c_T(1),\dots ,c_T(n))$, where $c_T(r)$ is the Content of a Young-diagram cell containing $r$. Such vectors are exactly the integer vectors satisfying: the first coordinate is zero; each subsequent coordinate has an earlier neighbor differing by one; between two occurrences of $a$ both $a-1$ and $a+1$ occur. To reconstruct the tableau, insert each entry in the next available cell on its prescribed diagonal. The neighbor conditions supply its required predecessors, so each insertion is an addable node of a Young diagram.

We verify all three content vector of a standard Young tableau conditions using the spectral rules proved in part (i).

The first coordinate is zero by part (ii). For the neighbour condition, suppose some $a_j$ has neither $a_j-1$ nor $a_j+1$ among earlier coordinates. Try moving $a_j$ successively to the left. Each encountered difference is not $\pm 1$; if it is zero, we have an impossible adjacent equality, while otherwise the local spectral rule permits the swap. If $a_j=0$, this procedure must encounter the original first coordinate $0$ and give that contradiction. If $a_j\ne 0$, it moves $a_j$ to the first position, contradicting $X_1=0$. Therefore an earlier neighbour always exists. Starting from $a_1=0$, this also proves inductively that every coordinate is an integer.

For the repeated-value condition, suppose it fails and choose a failing pair of equal coordinates $a$ with the shortest interval. There is no intervening $a$, since a shorter pair would then also fail. There must be at least one intervening neighbour: otherwise the right-hand $a$ could be moved next to the left-hand $a$ by admissible swaps. Suppose, for example, that $a+1$ is missing. There cannot be two occurrences of $a-1$ in the interval: between them the required neighbour $a$ is missing, producing a shorter failing pair. Thus there is exactly one $a-1$. All other intervening values differ from $a$ by more than $1$, so the two copies of $a$ can be moved towards that unique neighbour until the forbidden consecutive pattern $(a,a-1,a)$ appears. Part (i) excludes it. The case in which $a-1$ is missing is identical, using $(a,a+1,a)$. Both neighbours must therefore occur.

For completeness, these conditions really encode standard Young tableaux. If $a$ occurs for the $r$th time, place the next label inThis is the next unfilled cell on diagonal of content $a$. On the first occurrence of a positive diagonal, the earlier-neighbour condition forces its first left predecessor to exist: earlier diagonal values form an interval containing $0$, so a first positive $a$ can only be reached through $a-1$. The negative case uses the predecessor above. On later occurrences, the two neighbours appearing since the previous occurrence ensure that the new cell's left and upper predecessors have already been filled. For diagonal $0$, the same two-neighbour condition supplies both predecessors after the first box. Thus each addition is an addable node of a Young diagram, and the labels form a standard Young tableau.

Conversely, a standard Young tableau starts at $(1,1)$; any later cell has a left or upper predecessor of neighbouring content. Two cells on one diagonal have the cells immediately to the right and below the earlier one between them in the tableau order, supplying both neighbours. Hence its content vector of a standard Young tableau satisfies precisely the stated conditions. The next position on a diagonal is unique, so this construction is a bijection between content vectors of standard Young tableaux and standard Young tableaux.

We have now proved $\boxed{\mathrm{Spec}(n)\subseteq \mathrm{Cont}(n)}$ without assuming the desired spectrum identification.

Necessity is a property of standard Young tableaux alone. The first entry occupies $(1,1)$, with Content of a Young-diagram cell zero. Every subsequent cell has a cell immediately above or to its left, of content one larger or one smaller, already present. If two entries occupy the same diagonal, the later cell lies strictly southeast of the earlier. The cells immediately right of and immediately below the earlier one exist and have contents $a+1,a-1$; their entries lie strictly between the two given entries. This proves all three conditions for content vectors of standard Young tableaux.

For sufficiency, build the Young diagram one cell at a time. All coordinates are integers, because each new coordinate differs by one from an earlier coordinate, starting at zero. Cells of any fixed content $a$ are ordered northwest to southeast. For $a\ge 0$ their positions are $(r,r+a)$, $r=1,2,\dots$; for $a<0$ they are $(r-a,r)$.

At the first occurrence of a positive $a$, the candidate is $(1,a+1)$. The occurrence of $a+1$ earlier would already force a cell of content $a$ in its row, so the neighbor condition must instead supply the content $a-1$. This supplies the left predecessor. The negative case is symmetric, supplying the upper predecessor, and the first zero gives $(1,1)$.

At any later occurrence of $a$, take the next position on its diagonal. The preceding occurrence already supplied all but the next necessary predecessor on each neighboring diagonal. The repeated-entry condition supplies both $a-1$ and $a+1$ after that preceding occurrence, so those next predecessors are present. More explicitly, for $a>0$ and the $r$th occurrence, the left predecessor is the $r$th cell of content $a-1$, and the upper predecessor is the $(r-1)$st cell of content $a+1$. For $a=0$ both are the $(r-1)$st cells on their respective diagonals; for $a<0$ the roles are reversed. These are exactly the predecessors supplied by the two new neighboring occurrences.

The new cell is therefore an addable node of a Young diagram. Induction produces a partition of an integer at every stage, and filling the added cell by its insertion time gives a standard Young tableau. No choice was possible because addable nodes of a Young diagram have distinct contents. Thusand the construction also proves uniqueness of the tableau with a specified vector.

Fix $\lambda ⊢n$ and $\rho ⊢n-1$. Write $\rho \nearrow \mu$ when a single addable node of a Young diagram turns $\rho$ into $\mu$. For each positive part ${\lambda }_i$, let ${\lambda }^{\downarrow i}$ be the partition of an integer obtained by decreasing that part by one, sorting, and omitting zeros. The Vershik linear relations areEqual row lengths must be counted separately on the right. Equivalently, if $c(\lambda ,\gamma )$ is the number of rows whose decrement produces $\gamma$, the right side is ${\sum }_{\gamma \nearrow \lambda }c(\lambda ,\gamma )M(\rho ,\gamma )$. There is no multiplicity coefficient on the left because irreducible restriction branching rule for a symmetric group is simple.

To prove the relations, restrict the Young permutation module $M^{\lambda }$ to the subgroup $S_{n-1}$ fixing $n$. The tabloids split into orbits of a group action according to which labeled row contains $n$. Removing that entry gives, for row $i$, the Young permutation module with composition $\lambda -e_i$, which is isomorphic to the one for its sorted partition. HenceIts $V^{\rho }$ multiplicity is the right side. On the other hand decompose $M^{\lambda }$ into irreducible representations first and apply the restriction branching rule for a symmetric group to each summand. Its $V^{\rho }$ multiplicity is then the left side. Equality proves the relation.

For example $\lambda =(2,2)$ restricts to $2M^{(2,1)}$, so the coefficient is two rather than one. For $\lambda =(1^n)$, the regular representation, the relation reduces to ${\sum }_{\mu :\rho \nearrow \mu }\dim V^{\mu }=n\dim V^{\rho }$. These checks emphasize why counting distinct resulting partitions without their row multiplicities would give a false recurrence.

A standard Young tableau of shape $\lambda ⊢n$ is a Young tableau that uses $1,\dots ,n$ exactly once and strictly increases left to right along every row and top to bottom down every column. Formally, a bijection $T:Y(\lambda )\to \{1,\dots ,n\}$ is standard whenwhenever the indicated cells belong to the Young diagram. We write $\mathrm{SYT}(\lambda )$ for the set of such fillings and $f^{\lambda }=|\mathrm{SYT}(\lambda )|$ for its cardinality.

For $(3,2)$, the five standard Young tableaux are listed below, with each pair giving the top row followed by the bottom row:There are no others: the upper-left entry must be $1$, and choosing the two bottom-row entries fixes both increasing row orders. Of the six choices of two entries from $\{2,3,4,5\}$, only bottom row $(2,3)$ fails, because its $3$ would lie below $4$. Hence $f^{(3,2)}=5$ by direct enumeration, independently of the hook-length formula.

The cells occupied by $1,\dots ,r$ form a Young diagram: every cell above or to the left of an occupied cell has a smaller label. Consequently a standard Young tableau is equivalently a path from the empty shape to $\lambda$ in the Young branching graph, adjoining one addable node of a Young diagram at each step. For $T_2$, the successive shapes areConversely, number the cell added at step $r$ by $r$ to recover the standard Young tableau. This path interpretation also makes a standard Young tableau a linear extension of a partially ordered set defined by the row and column requirements; see Stanley's Algebraic Combinatorics, Chapter 8, on tableaux and paths in Young's lattice.

The usefulness goes beyond counting: the standard polytabloid basis of a Specht module $S^{\lambda }$ over the complex numbers is indexed by $\mathrm{SYT}(\lambda )$, so ${\dim }_{\mathbb{C}}{S}^{\lambda }=f^{\lambda }$. Each of the five pictured standard Young tableaux therefore labels one basis element of the irreducible representation $S^{(3,2)}$ of the symmetric group $S_5$, whose dimension over the complex numbers is five. The filled diagrams index the basis; the actual vectors are polytabloids. The hook-length formula computes this dimension without listing all the standard Young tableaux.