Skip to main content
3 of 3
added 614 characters in body
Sam Hopkins
  • 24.2k
  • 5
  • 97
  • 171

Basis of coinvariant algebra on which reflection group acts as regular representation

This question is almost a duplicate of a question of Christian Stump, except that Christian seems to ask about an isomorphism to irreducible representations rather than the regular representation: What does the regular representation of the coinvariant ring of a unitary reflection group look like?

If $W\subseteq GL(V)$ is a finite reflection group, then the Chevalley-Shephard-Todd theorem says that the invariant algebra $\mathbb{C}[V]^W$ is isomorphic to a polynomial algebra $\mathbb{C}[V]^W\simeq \mathbb{C}[e_1,e_2,\ldots,e_n]$ and that the coinvariant algebra $\mathbb{C}[V]^{\mathrm{co}W} := \mathbb{C}[V]/\mathbb{C}[V]^W_+$ (where $\mathbb{C}[V]^W_+$ is the set of invariant polynomials of positive degree) is isomorphic as a $W$-module to the left regular representation.

Question: can we write down some explicit basis of $\mathbb{C}[V]^{\mathrm{co}W}$ on which $W$ acts as the regular representation?

The only proofs I know of the fact that $\mathbb{C}[V]^{\mathrm{co}W}$ carries the regular representation use character computations which have a "non-constructive" flavor.

Really I am most interested just in the case of the symmetric group $W=S_n$.

Let me give a quick example of what this looks like for $W=S_2$. Then $\mathbb{C}[V] = \mathbb{C}[x_1,x_2]$ and we get $\mathbb{C}[V]^W = \mathbb{C}[x_1+x_2,x_1x_2]$ (these are the ``elementary symmetric polynomials''). (Maybe strictly speaking because $S_2$ acts on $\mathbb{R}^2/(1,1)$ I should write $\mathbb{C}[V] = \mathbb{C}[x_1,x_2]/\langle x_1+x_2 \rangle$ and $\mathbb{C}[V]^W =\mathbb{C}[x_1x_2]$ but I don't think this technicality matters.) At any rate we have that the coinvariant ring is $\mathbb{C}[V]^{\mathrm{co}W}=\mathbb{C}[x_1,x_2]/\langle x_1+x_2,x_1x_2 \rangle$. There are standard bases of the coinvariant ring for the symmetric group, like the staircase monomials or the Schubert polynomials. In this case both of those bases would be $\{x_1,1\}$ (note that those bases are homogeneous). But the symmetric group $S_2$ does not act on that basis as in the regular representation. Instead I would want a basis like $\{x_1+1,-x_1+1\}$.

EDIT: Christian Gaetz asked me what taking $W=C_n=\langle c \rangle$ the cyclic group of order $n$ looks like. Here $c$ acts on $\mathbb{C}$ by $c\cdot x = \xi x$ with $\xi$ a primitive $n$th root of unity. Thus $\mathbb{C}[V]^{\mathrm{co}W} = \mathbb{C}[x]/\langle x^n \rangle$. A good choice of basis here is $\{c^m\cdot f\colon m=0,1,\ldots,n-1\}$ where $f=1+x+x^2+\cdots+x^{n-1}$. Indeed, in this case you can check that all the $c^m\cdot f$ are linearly independent by writing them in the standard basis $\{1,x,\ldots,x^{n-1}\}$ and then evaluating a Vandermonde determinant where you plug in $x_i=\xi^i$.

Sam Hopkins
  • 24.2k
  • 5
  • 97
  • 171