Necessary conditions for the positivity of Littlewood-Richardson and plethystic coefficients

Abstract

We give necessary conditions for the positivity of Littlewood-Richardson coefficients and SXP coefficients. We deduce necessary conditions for the positivity of the plethystic coefficients. Explicitly, our main result states that if $S^\lambda(V)$ appears as a summand in the decomposition into irreducibles of $S^\mu(S^\nu(V))$, then $\nu$'s diagram is contained in $\lambda$'s diagram.