Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / iii / Paper 103 / 6

The single-column Young diagram has exactly one standard Young tableau, so $V^{(1^n)}$ has dimension one. Consecutive labels are in one column, and the Young seminormal form gives $s_{i}w=-w$ for every adjacent transposition $s_i$. These generators determine the representation, and the sign representation sends every one of them to $-1$. ConsequentlyAt $n=1$ there are no adjacent generators and both modules are the trivial representation.

The conjugate partition is ${\lambda }_j^{\prime }=\#\{i:{\lambda }_i\ge j\}$, obtained by transposing the Young diagram. Transposition sends a standard Young tableau $T$ to a standard tableau $T^{\prime }$ and negates every Content of a Young-diagram cell.

Use the Young orthogonal form. For an admissible pair $R=s_{i}T$ and axial distance $d=c_T(i+1)-c_T(i)$, the action on $(w_T,w_R)$ isIn the transposed pair it is $A_{-d}$, whereas in the tensor product of group representations with the sign representation it is $-A_d$. Their diagonal entries agree, and their off-diagonal entries differ by a sign. Fix a reference tableau and let ${ϵ}_T$ be the sign of the unique label permutation from it to $T$. For every admissible swap ${ϵ}_R=-{ϵ}_T$, sointertwines these two actions. In a nonadmissible pair, transposition exchanges row and column and changes the scalar from $+1$ to $-1$ or conversely, also agreeing with the sign twist. Since adjacent transpositions generate $S_n$, this is an isomorphism:The parity choice is globally well defined because the label permutation is unique; no arbitrary edge-by-edge phase choices are required.

There is an index error in the displayed identity of the original PDF. With its definition of the signed Young permutation module, the tensor identity for induced representations givesBoth superscripts must be $\alpha$. In particular ${\tilde{M}}^{{\lambda }^{\prime }}\cong \mathrm{sgn}\otimes M^{{\lambda }^{\prime }}$, rather than the printed sign twist of $M^{\lambda }$. For $\lambda =(n)$, $n\ge 2$, the printed left side has dimension $n!$, while the printed right side has dimension one. Thus that identity cannot hold as written.

The requested character inner product between $M^{\lambda }$ and ${\tilde{M}}^{{\lambda }^{\prime }}$ nevertheless has a well-defined answer. Let $R$ be the row Young subgroup of a tableau of shape $\lambda$, and let $C$ be its column subgroup, conjugate to $S_{{\lambda }^{\prime }}$. By Frobenius reciprocity and the Mackey restriction formula, the inner product is a sum over $R\backslash S_n/C$ ofThese double cosets are encoded by nonnegative integer matrices $A=(a_{ij})$ with row sums ${\lambda }_i$ and column sums ${\lambda }_j^{\prime }$, recording intersection sizes of row and column blocks. The intersection subgroup is a product of $S_{a_{ij}}$. Its sign representation is trivial exactly when every $a_{ij}\le 1$. Each zero-one matrix contributes one, and every other matrix contributes zero.

There is exactly one zero-one matrix with these margins. Its first row has length ${\lambda }_1$, equal to the number of nonzero column sums, so that row must consist entirely of ones. Delete it, subtract one from every column margin and discard zero columns. The remaining margins are those of $({\lambda }_2,{\lambda }_3,\dots )$ and its conjugate partition; induction forces the rest. The unique matrix is $a_{ij}=1$ precisely for $j\le {\lambda }_i$. ThereforeThis calculation uses the actual two modules requested in the PDF and does not depend on its erroneous displayed isomorphism.

The Specht module construction gives a nonzero inclusion $V^{\lambda }\hookrightarrow M^{\lambda }$ over the complex numbers: a polytabloid has coefficient one at its original tabloid, because the row and column stabilizers have trivial intersection, and its span is the corresponding irreducible representation. This establishes $a=M(\lambda ,\lambda )\ge 1$ without using the multiplicity-one conclusion. Similarly $a^{\prime }=M({\lambda }^{\prime },{\lambda }^{\prime })\ge 1$.

By the corrected tensor identity for induced representations and the conjugate-partition sign twist, the multiplicity of $V^{\lambda }$ in ${\tilde{M}}^{{\lambda }^{\prime }}$ is $a^{\prime }$. The character inner product already computed is the sum of products of multiplicities of common irreducible representations. ThusBoth are positive integers, so $a=a^{\prime }=1$. In particularThis deduction avoids assuming the full Young's rule, which would already contain the answer. Alternatively, the permitted one-dimensional R-module homomorphism space gives the same character inner product immediately.

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.