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JOURNAL OF
ALGEBRAIC
COMBINATORICS

  Editors-in-chief: C. A. Athanasiadis, T. Lam, A. Munemasa, H. Van Maldeghem
ISSN 0925-9899 (print) • ISSN 1572-9192 (electronic)
 

A Rational-Function Identity Related to the Murnaghan-Nakayama Formula for the Characters of Sn

Curtis Greene

DOI: 10.1023/A:1022435901373

Abstract

The Murnaghan-Nakayama formula for the characters of S n is derived from Young's seminormal representation, by a direct combinatorial argument. The main idea is a rational function identity which when stated in a more general form involves Möbius functions of posets whose Hasse diagrams have a planar embedding. These ideas are also used to give an elementary exposition of the main properties of Young's seminormal representations.

Pages: 235–255

Keywords: symmetric group; representation; character; Young tableau; Möbius function

Full Text: PDF

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