Robinson-Schensted correspondence and left cells

Abstract

Although the Robinson-Schensted-Knuth correspondence is a classical subject, its study is still active because of new development in last two decades. In this field, fundamental results are sometimes proved by using machineries which may be bypassed. Hence we still feel a lack of good source for these elementary materials. This paper is intended to fill in this lack about the RSK correspondence and the left cells of the symmetric group. It is mostly survey-like, but shows the variety of fields the RSK correspondence is related to.