Representation theory of the group of automorphisms of a finite rooted tree

Abstract

We construct the ordinary irreducible representations of the group of automorphisms of a finite rooted tree and we get a natural parametrization of them. To achieve this goals, we introduce and study the combinatorics of tree compositions, a natural generalization of set compositions but with new features and more complexity. These combinatorial structures lead to a family of permutation representations which have the same parametrization of the irreducible representations. Our trees are not necessarily spherically homogeneous and our approach is coordinate free.