Enumerating quasi-Yamanouchi tableaux of Durfee size two

Abstract

Quasi-Yamanouchi tableaux connect the two most studied types of tableaux. They are a subset of semistandard Young tableaux that are also a refinement on standard Young tableaux, and they can be used to improve the fundamental quasisymmetric expansion of Schur polynomials. We prove a product formula for enumerating certain quasi-Yamanouchi tableaux and provide strong evidence that no product formula exists in general for other shapes. Along the way, we also prove some nice properties of their distribution and symmetry.