On principal hook length partitions and durfee sizes in skew characters

Abstract

In this paper we construct for a given arbitrary skew diagram A all partitions nu with maximal principal hook lengths among all partitions with the character [nu] appearing in the skew character [A]. Furthermore we show that these are also partitions with minimal Durfee size. This we use to give the maximal Durfee size for [nu] appearing in [A] for the cases when A decays into two partitions and for some special cases of A. Also this gives conditions for two skew diagrams to represent the same skew character.