A new link between the descent algebra of type B, domino tableaux and Chow’s quasisymmetric functions

Abstract

Introduced by Solomon in his 1976 paper, the descent algebra of a finite Coxeter group received significant attention over the past decades. As proved by Gessel, in the case of the symmetric group its structure constants give the comultiplication table for the fundamental basis of quasisymmetric functions. We show that this latter property actually implies several well known relations linked to the Robinson–Schensted–Knuth correspondence and some of its generalisations. This provides a new link between these results and the theory of quasisymmetric functions and allows to derive more advanced formulae involving Kronecker coefficients. Using the theory of type B quasisymmetric functions introduced by Chow, we extend this connection to the hyperoctahedral group and derive new formulae relating the structure constants of the descent algebra of type B, the numbers of domino tableaux of given descent set and the Kronecker coefficients of the hyperoctahedral group.