• 1 Department of Mathematics [UCLA]
• 2 Centro de Ciencias Matematicas [Mexico]

We consider two aspects of Kronecker coefficients in the directions of representation theory and combinatorics. We consider a conjecture of Jan Saxl stating that the tensor square of the $S_n$-irreducible representation indexed by the staircase partition contains every irreducible representation of $S_n$. We present a sufficient condition allowing to determine whether an irreducible representation is a constituent of a tensor square and using this result together with some analytic statements on partitions we prove Saxl conjecture for several partition classes. We also use Kronecker coefficients to give a new proof and a generalization of the unimodality of Gaussian ($q$-binomial) coefficients as polynomials in $q$, and extend this to strict unimodality.