On the multiplicities of the central cocharacter of algebras with polynomial identities

Abstract

For an associative algebra $A$ over a field of characteristic zero, let $P_n(A)$ and $P_n^z(A)$ denote the spaces of multilinear polynomials of degree $n$ modulo the polynomial identities and the central polynomials of $A$, respectively. We also write $\Delta_n(A)$ for the space of multilinear central polynomials of degree $n$ modulo the polynomial identities of $A$. The corresponding sequences of colengths, central colengths and proper central colengths measure the number of irreducible components in the $S_n$-module decompositions of $P_n(A)$, $P_n^z(A)$ and $\Delta_n(A)$, respectively. In this paper, we investigate several examples of PI-algebras and explicitly describe their cocharacter, central cocharacter and proper central cocharacter sequences. As a consequence, we obtain a complete classification, up to PI-equivalence, of all algebras whose sequences of colengths and central colengths are bounded by a constant.