English

Equal knapsack identities between symmetric group character degrees

Combinatorics 2025-10-02 v1

Abstract

We prove a series of ``knapsack'' type equalities for irreducible character degrees of symmetric groups. That is, we find disjoint subsets of the partitions of nn so that the two corresponding character-degree sums are equal. Our main result refines our recent description of the Riordan numbers as the sum of all character degrees fλf^\lambda where λ\lambda is a partition of nn into three parts of the same parity. In particular, the sum of the ``fat-hook'' degrees f(k,k,1n2k)+f(k+1,k+1,1n2k2)f^{(k,k,1^{n-2k})}+f^{(k+1,k+1,1^{n-2k-2})} equals the sum of all fλf^\lambda where λ\lambda has three parts, with the second equal to kk and the second and third of equal parity. We further prove an infinite family of additional ``knapsack'' identities between character degrees

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.00301,
  title  = {Equal knapsack identities between symmetric group character degrees},
  author = {David J. Hemmer and Armin Straub and Karlee J. Westrem},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.00301},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:09:06.289Z