Classification of Collisions of Twisted Foulkes Character Polynomials

Abstract

The twisted Foulkes character polynomial is an algebraically defined polynomial attached to an integer partition. We determine precisely how much combinatorial information this polynomial encodes by completely classifying all pairs of partitions that give rise to the same polynomial. Our main result shows that equality of twisted Foulkes character polynomials admits a purely combinatorial characterization in terms of two explicit local operations on partitions.