Intermediate symplectic characters and shifted plane partitions of shifted double staircase shape

Abstract

We use intermediate symplectic characters to give a proof and variations of Hopkins' conjecture, now proved by Hopkins and Lai, on the number of shifted plane partitions of shifted double staircase shape with bounded entries. In fact, we prove some character identities involving intermediate symplectic characters, and find generating functions for such shifted plane partitions. The key ingredients of the proof are a bialternant formula for intermediate symplectic characters, which interpolates between those for Schur functions and symplectic characters, and the Ishikawa-Wakayama minor-summation formula.