A lift of Schur's Q-functions to the peak algebra

Abstract

We construct a lift of Schur's Q-functions to the peak algebra of the symmetric group, called the noncommutative Schur Q-functions, and extract from them a new natural basis with several nice properties such as the positive right-Pieri rule, combinatorial expansion, etc. Dually, we get a basis of the Stembridge algebra of peak functions refining Schur's P-functions in a simple way.