English

Generating functions for fixed points of the Mullineux map

Combinatorics 2025-02-24 v2 Representation Theory

Abstract

Mullineux defined an involution on the set of ee-regular partitions of nn. When e=pe=p is prime, these partitions label irreducible symmetric group modules in characteristic pp. Mullineux's conjecture, since proven, was that this ``Mullineux map" described the effect on the labels of taking the tensor product with the one-dimensional signature representation. Counting irreducible modules fixed by this tensor product is related to counting irreducible modules for the alternating group AnA_n in prime characteristic. In 1991, Andrews and Olsson worked out the generating function counting fixed points of Mullineux's map when e=pe=p is an odd prime (providing evidence in support of Mullineux's conjecture). In 1998, Bessenrodt and Olsson counted the fixed points in a pp-block of weight ww. We extend both results to arbitrary ee, and determine the corresponding generating functions. When ee is odd but not prime the extension is immediate, while ee even requires additional work and the results, which are different, have not appeared in the literature.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2402.03643,
  title  = {Generating functions for fixed points of the Mullineux map},
  author = {David J. Hemmer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.03643},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

To appear, European Journal of Combinatorics

R2 v1 2026-06-28T14:39:33.843Z