Primitive elements of the Hopf algebras of tableaux

Abstract

The character theory of symmetric groups, and the theory of symmetric functions, both make use of the combinatorics of Young tableaux, such as the Robinson–Schensted algorithm, Schützenberger’s “jeu de taquin”, and evacuation. In 1995 Poirier and the second author introduced some algebraic structures, different from the plactic monoid, which induce some products and coproducts of tableaux, with homomorphisms. Their starting point are the two dual Hopf algebras of permutations, introduced by the authors in 1995. In 2006 Aguiar and Sottile studied in more detail the Hopf algebra of permutations: among other things, they introduce a new basis, by Möbius inversion in the poset of weak order, that allows them to describe the primitive elements of the Hopf algebra of permutations. In the present Note, by a similar method, we determine the primitive elements of the Poirier–Reutenauer algebra of tableaux, using a partial order on tableaux defined by Taskin.