Row–column duality and combinatorial topological strings

Abstract

Integrality properties of partial sums over irreducible representations, along columns of character tables of finite groups, were recently derived using combinatorial topological string theories (CTST). These CTST were based on Dijkgraaf-Witten theories of flat G-bundles for finite groups G in two dimensions, denoted G-TQFTs. We define analogous combinatorial topological strings related to two dimensional topological field theories (TQFTs) based on fusion coefficients of finite groups. These TQFTs are denoted as R(G)-TQFTs and allow analogous integrality results to be derived for partial row sums of characters over conjugacy classes along fixed rows. This relation between the G-TQFTs and R(G)-TQFTs defines a row-column duality for character tables, which provides a physical framework for exploring the mathematical analogies between rows and columns of character tables. These constructive proofs of integrality are complemented with the proof of similar and complementary results using the more traditional Galois theoretic framework for integrality properties of character tables. The partial row and column sums are used to define generalised partitions of the integer row and column sums, which are of interest in combinatorial representation theory.