Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / iii / Paper 103 / 1 / b

The Young–Jucys–Murphy elements arewith products of permutations composed from right to left. Fix $i<j$. In $[X_i,X_j]$, all pairs of disjoint transpositions commute. The only terms left, for each $a<i$, areIndeed $(ai)(ij)=(aj)(ai)$ and $(ij)(ai)=(ai)(aj)$. Summing directly provesThus all the Young–Jucys–Murphy elements commute.

The primitive idempotent products used above show that the Gelfand–Tsetlin algebra is generated by the centers at all levels: those products give every diagonal matrix unit, whereas each center acts diagonally. Hence

For the second generation assertion use the permitted Olshanskii centralizer lemma, in the precise formIn particular $Z_r\subseteq \mathrm{alg}(Z_{r-1},X_r)$. Induction puts every $Z_r$ in $\mathrm{alg}(1,X_1,\dots ,X_r)$. Conversely, if $A_r$ is the sum of all transpositions in $S_r$, then $A_r\in Z_r$ and $X_r=A_r-A_{r-1}\in G{Z}_n$. ThereforeHere generation is unital; the zero generator $X_1$ causes no problem.