Authors: François Bergeron ¹; Aaron Lauve ¹

• 1 Laboratoire de combinatoire et d'informatique mathématique [Montréal]

We analyze the structure of the algebra $\mathbb{K}\langle \mathbf{x}\rangle^{\mathfrak{S}_n}$ of symmetric polynomials in non-commuting variables in so far as it relates to $\mathbb{K}[\mathbf{x}]^{\mathfrak{S}_n}$, its commutative counterpart. Using the "place-action'' of the symmetric group, we are able to realize the latter as the invariant polynomials inside the former. We discover a tensor product decomposition of $\mathbb{K}\langle \mathbf{x}\rangle^{\mathfrak{S}_n}$ analogous to the classical theorems of Chevalley, Shephard-Todd on finite reflection groups. In the case $|\mathbf{x}|= \infty$, our techniques simplify to a form readily generalized to many other familiar pairs of combinatorial Hopf algebras.