Haglund's positivity conjecture for multiplicity one pairs

Abstract

Haglund's conjecture states that $\dfrac{\langle J_{\lambda}(q,q^k),s_\mu \rangle}{(1-q)^{|\lambda|}} \in \mathbb{Z}_{\geq 0}[q]$ for all partitions $\lambda,\mu$ and all non-negative integers $k$, where $J_{\lambda}$ is the integral form Macdonald symmetric function and $s_\mu$ is the Schur function. This paper proves Haglund's conjecture in the cases when the pair $(\lambda,\mu)$ satisfies $K_{\lambda,\mu}=1$ or $K_{\mu',\lambda'}=1$ where $K$ denotes the Kostka number. We also obtain some general results about the transition matrix between Macdonald symmetric functions and Schur functions.