Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications (SIGMA)

SIGMA 21 (2025), 023, 45 pages      arXiv:2404.10532      https://doi.org/10.3842/SIGMA.2025.023
Contribution to the Special Issue on Basic Hypergeometric Series Associated with Root Systems and Applications in honor of Stephen C. Milne

Macdonald Identities, Weyl-Kac Denominator Formulas and Affine Grassmannian Elements

Cédric Lecouvey and David Wahiche
Univ. de Tours, UMR CNRS 7013, Institut Denis Poisson, France

Received June 20, 2024, in final form March 04, 2025; Published online April 10, 2025

Abstract
The Nekrasov-Okounkov formula gives an expression for the Fourier coefficients of the Euler functions as a sum of hook length products. This formula can be deduced from a specialization in a renormalization of the affine type $A$ Weyl denominator formula and the use of a polynomial argument. In this paper, we rephrase the renormalized Weyl-Kac denominator formula as a sum parametrized by affine Grassmannian elements. This naturally gives rise to the (dual) atomic length of the root system considered introduced by Chapelier-Laget and Gerber. We then provide an interpretation of this atomic length as the cardinality of some subsets of $n$-core partitions by using foldings of affine Dynkin diagrams. This interpretation does not permit the direct use of a polynomial argument for all affine root systems. We show that this obstruction can be overcome by computing the atomic length of certain families of integer partitions. Then we show how hook-length statistics on these partitions are connected with the Coxeter length on affine Grassmannian elements and Nekrasov-Okounkov type formulas.

Key words: affine root systems; affine Grassmannians; Nekrasov-Okounkov formulas; hook length formulas; Littlewood decomposition.

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