In
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, the Hall–Littlewood polynomials are
symmetric functions depending on a parameter ''t'' and a
partition λ. They are
Schur functions when ''t'' is 0 and monomial symmetric functions when ''t'' is 1 and are special cases of
Macdonald polynomials.
They were first defined indirectly by
Philip Hall using the
Hall algebra, and later defined directly by
Dudley E. Littlewood
Dudley Ernest Littlewood (7 September 1903, London –
6 October 1979, Llandudno) was a British mathematician known for his work in group representation theory.
He read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his tutor was John Ed ...
(1961).
Definition
The Hall–Littlewood polynomial ''P'' is defined by
:
where λ is a partition of at most ''n'' with elements λ
''i'', and ''m''(''i'') elements equal to ''i'', and ''S''
''n'' is the
symmetric group of order ''n''!.
As an example,
:
Specializations
We have that
,
and
where the latter is the Schur ''P'' polynomials.
Properties
Expanding the
Schur polynomials in terms of the Hall–Littlewood polynomials, one has
:
where
are the
Kostka–Foulkes polynomials
In mathematics, Kostka polynomials, named after the mathematician Carl Kostka, are families of polynomials that generalize the Kostka numbers. They are studied primarily in algebraic combinatorics and representation theory.
The two-variable Kost ...
.
Note that as
, these reduce to the ordinary Kostka coefficients.
A combinatorial description for the Kostka–Foulkes polynomials was given by Lascoux and Schützenberger,
:
where "charge" is a certain combinatorial statistic on semistandard Young tableaux,
and the sum is taken over all semi-standard Young tableaux with shape ''λ'' and type ''μ''.
See also
*
Hall polynomial
References
*
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall-Littlewood polynomials
Orthogonal polynomials
Algebraic combinatorics
Symmetric functions