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$\DeclareMathOperator\SL{SL}$There is a well-known Clebsch–Gordan decomposition formula for irreducible representations of $\SL_2$. If $V_n$ denotes the unique $n+1$-dimensional irreducible representation of $\SL_2$ we have that for $n \geq m$:

$$ V_n \otimes V_m = V_{n+m} \oplus V_{n+m-2} \oplus \dots \oplus V_{n-m}. $$

I wonder if similar formulas exist for any other algebraic groups, for instance, $\SL_3$ or the symmetric group $S_n$.

Böhning and Bothmer - A Clebsch–Gordan formula for $\SL_3(\mathbb C)$ and applications to rationality uses an algorithm with Young tableaux to decompose the tensor products of two irreducible representations of $\SL_3$. More about this algorithm can be found in chapter 12 of Georgi - Lie algebras in particle physics. For $S_n$, I found Schindler - The decomposition of the tensor product of representations of the symmetric group, but no explicit formula is given.

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dm82424
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    You should read Fulton and Harris' book on representations of Lie algebras, where they give a wealth of information about decomposition of tensor products of irreducible representations ("plethysm", as they call it). – David Loeffler Jan 27 '23 at 11:38
  • I already had a look at chapter 13 of Fulton and Harris. From exercise $13.8$ it's easy to deduce a formula for the decomposition into irreducibles of $V \otimes \Gamma_{a,b}$, where $V$ is the standard representation and $\Gamma_{a,b}$ irreducible. However, I would be more interested in finding a formula for $\Gamma_{a,b} \otimes \Gamma_{c,d}$. – dm82424 Jan 27 '23 at 11:59
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    You will certainly find something useful in Table 5 of this book: A. L. Onishchik, E. B. Vinberg, Lie groups and algebraic groups. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1990. – Mikhail Borovoi Jan 27 '23 at 13:21
  • I have been looking at table 5 of "Lie groups and algebraic groups". They say that $R(\pi_p) R(\pi_q) = \sum_{i \geq 0} R(\pi_{p+i} + \pi_{q-i})$, but I am not sure what $R(\pi_q)$ means as they only define $R(\pi_1)$ as the simplest representation. I have looked around other sections of the book, but I can't find where they introduce this notation. – dm82424 Jan 27 '23 at 14:59
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    In the table for $A_l$ they write $\bigwedge^p R=R(\pi_p)$. Therefore, I think that $\pi_p$ is the weight with numerical labels $\langle \pi_p,\alpha_i^\vee\rangle =\delta_{p,i},$, where $\alpha_i^\vee$ are the simple coroots, and $\delta_{p,i}$ denotes Kronecker's symbol. – Mikhail Borovoi Jan 28 '23 at 09:42

1 Answers1

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Let $G$ denote the group, and suppose one has an enumeration of its irreducible representations $V_{\lambda}$ by some combinatorial objects $\lambda$, like nonnegative integers for $SU_2$ (or for finite dimensional non-unitary representations of $SL_2$) or integer partitions, etc. There are two different Clebsch-Gordan (CG) problems which the OP seems to conflate.

CG1) The numerical CG problem: It is to figure out the multiplicities $m(\lambda,\mu;\nu)\in\mathbb{N}$ in the general decomposition into irreducibles of tensor products of two irreducibles: $$ V_{\lambda}\otimes V_{\mu}=\bigoplus_{\nu}V_{\nu}^{\oplus m(\lambda,\mu;\nu)}\ . $$

CG2) The explicit CG problem: It is to realize the above decomposition with explicit intertwiners, namely, to write a decomposition of the identity operator $I_{V_{\lambda}\otimes V_{\mu}}$ on $V_{\lambda}\otimes V_{\mu}$ in the form: $$ I_{V_{\lambda}\otimes V_{\mu}}=\sum_{\nu}\sum_{j=1}^{m(\lambda,\mu;\nu)} \iota_{\lambda,\mu,\nu,j}\circ\pi_{\lambda,\mu,\nu,j} $$ where $\pi_{\lambda,\mu,\nu,j}\in {\rm Hom}_G(V_{\lambda}\otimes V_{\mu},V_{\nu})$ and $\iota_{\lambda,\mu,\nu,j}\in {\rm Hom}_G(V_{\nu},V_{\lambda}\otimes V_{\mu})$ are explicit $G$-equivariant maps, i.e., intertwiners.

Note that to be able to even ask the question, a prerequisite is to solve

CG0) The parametrization of irreducibles: Namely, understanding the list of irreducibles, and having a parametrization $\lambda\mapsto V_{\lambda}$.

For $SU_2$, $SL_2$ all these problems were solved by Paul Gordan and Alfred Clebsch in the mid 19-th century, see Section 2 of my article:

Problem CG1 for $SU_n$, $SL_n$, $GL_n$ has been solved, and the multiplicities are the so-called Littlewood-Richardson coefficients. For $S_n$, CG1 is much more difficult. The multiplicities are the Kronecker coefficients, and there is no satisfactory combinatorial description for them.

The recent article by Böhning and Graf von Bothmer does not just solve CG1 for $SU_3$, $SL_3$ (that's known from a long time ago), but rather problem CG2 for these groups. The case of $SL_n$, $GL_n$ is still open. When $\mu$ is the fundamental representation (adding a single box), there are some results, see

  • M. Hunziker, J. A. Miller, and M. Sepanski. Explicit Pieri Inclusions. Electronic J. of Combinatorics 28 (2021), no. 3, P3.49.

and references therein (in particular some older work by Peter Olver). As for CG0 in the case of $SL_n$, it was solved by Alfred Clebsch in the 1870's, and later by Deruyts, and then Schur, see:

For $S_n$, CG0 was solved by Alfred Young and later by Specht. A good account is in the lectures by Adriano Grasia Alfred Young’s construction of the irreducible representations of $S_n$.

Finally, the only instance of CG2-related work for $S_n$ that I am aware of is:

  • Thanks for your answer. I am mainly interested in CG1. Do you have references for the Littlewood-Richardson coefficients of $SU_n$, $SL_n$ and $GL_n$? – dm82424 Jan 27 '23 at 16:23
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    From memory, it is not done in Fulton-Harris but it is done in the book by Fulton alone on Young Tableaux. – Abdelmalek Abdesselam Jan 27 '23 at 16:28
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    For algorithms for the computation of LR coefficients the wikipedia page is not bad as a starting point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlewood%E2%80%93Richardson_rule and also a page by Per Alexandersson https://www.symmetricfunctions.com/littlewoodRichardson.htm#littlewoodRichardsonModels for quickest ways to compute see the paragraph LR tableaux in Per's page. – Abdelmalek Abdesselam Jan 27 '23 at 16:36
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    The Littlewood-Richardson rule is discussed in detail in Appendix 1 of Chapter 7 (written by Sergey Fomin) in Stanley's "Enumerative Combinatorics," Vol. 2, and the connection with general linear group characters is explained in Appendix 2. – Sam Hopkins Jan 27 '23 at 16:40
  • Correction: FH do explain the LR rule in their Appendix A but do not prove it. Sam's reference to Stanley's book is probably better. – Abdelmalek Abdesselam Jan 27 '23 at 16:44
  • The problem CG1 was solved long time ago by Peter Littelman (using combinatorial formalism of LS paths), ca 1994. – Moishe Kohan Jan 27 '23 at 17:34
  • @MoisheKohan: surely it depends on what group $G$ you're talking about - I guess w.r.t. Littelman you mean for all semisimple Lie groups (or maybe reductive algebraic groups) $G$. – Sam Hopkins Jan 27 '23 at 18:28
  • @SamHopkins: Right. – Moishe Kohan Jan 27 '23 at 18:46
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    For one-off calculations within CG1, you can also refer to the LiE computer algebra package. It can handle any of the complex simple Lie algebras. The biggest hassle of the UI, depending on your background, is learning to label irreps by their highest weight vectors. – Igor Khavkine Jan 27 '23 at 21:53
  • I just finished reading Appendix 1 of Stanley and I still have some questions. Theorem A1.3.11 says that the coefficients can be computed by counting the number of BZ patterns. Now my question is, for which groups does this work? On page 432 (above Theorem A1.3.3), it says that the Littlewood-Richardson coefficients appear in the tensor product decomposition of $S_n$ and $GL_n$, but can I also use this Theorem for other algebraic groups? The paper by Böhning and Bothmer explains which $GL_n$-modules correspond to $SL_n$-modules in terms of their parametrisation. – dm82424 Jan 28 '23 at 12:02
  • Regarding Appendix A of Fulton, Harris they describe this algorithm with Young tableaux (p. 456) as Georgie, but they do not give a formula. So in practice, we would need to draw the Young tableaux and follow this tedious algorithm. Similarly, "Young Tableaux" by Fulton describes this algorithm in Corollary 5 of chapter 5. – dm82424 Jan 28 '23 at 12:17
  • @dm82424: The Littlewood-Richardson rule applies directly only for computing tensor product mulitiplicities of $GL_n$ representations. For symmetric groups, it gives multiplities under the "induction product," which is quite a different beast, involving symmetric groups of different sizes. As Abdelmalek explained, the tensor product decomposition problem for $S_n$ - involving the so-called "Kronecker coefficients" - is wide open (in fact some people think it is a hopeless problem). [Continued ...] – Sam Hopkins Jan 28 '23 at 13:34
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    Regarding other groups: since $SL_n$ is not so different from $GL_n$ you can get the formula for $SL_n$ tensor decompositions from the $GL_n$ formula with a little work - see for instance Theorem A2.5 in the aforementioned book of Stanley. For other classical groups, simple Lie groups, reductive algebraic groups, etc. there are known formulas (as mentioned in the comments above) but they are more complicated and more recent: e.g. using Littelmann paths, or using crystals. – Sam Hopkins Jan 28 '23 at 13:36
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    Okay, this looks like a reasonable survey for semisimple algebraic groups $G$: "Tensor product decomposition" by Shrawan Kumar, in the 2010 ICM Proceedings, available online at https://kumar.math.unc.edu/papers/kumar60.pdf – Sam Hopkins Jan 28 '23 at 18:09
  • @IgorKhavkine do you know if the online calculator of LiE is currently down? I have been trying to use it the last couple of days from different computers but I get an error (502 Bad Gateway). – dm82424 Feb 01 '23 at 11:49
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    @dm82424 The LiE online calculator used to work once upon a time. If I try it now, I get the same error as you. Perhaps the maintainers of that website should be notified. The software does work if you install it on your computer. Also, the SAGE computer algebra system has similar functionality. – Igor Khavkine Feb 01 '23 at 15:10
  • @AbdelmalekAbdesselam thank you for the great summary, it is very helpful: it is very difficult to find what is known and what is not known in the current literature. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive review of the CG2 problem. What I know, for example, in the case of $GL(d)$ there are explicit formulas for CG coefficients in terms of reduced Wigner coefficients when one considers a tensor product of an arbitrary irrep with the defining irrep (or the dual of the defining irrep).

    Do you know if the similar CG2 problem is solved for complex $O(d)$ and $Sp(2d)$ explicitly somewhere?

    – dmitry Jan 31 '24 at 12:23
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    @dmitry For it to receive any attention, you should probably ask this as a stand-alone question. – Igor Khavkine Feb 11 '24 at 12:52