This paper uses the theory of dual equivalence graphs to give explicit Schur expansions to several families of symmetric functions. We begin by giving a combinatorial definition of the modified Macdonald polynomials and modified Hall-Littlewood polynomials indexed by any diagram $δ ⊂ \mathbb{Z} \times \mathbb{Z}$, written as $\widetilde H_δ (X;q,t)$ and $\widetilde P_δ (X;t)$, respectively. We then give an explicit Schur expansion of $\widetilde P_δ (X;t)$ as a sum over a subset of the Yamanouchi words, as opposed to the expansion using the charge statistic given in 1978 by Lascoux and Schüztenberger. We further define the symmetric function $R_γ ,δ (X)$ as a refinement of $\widetilde P_δ$ and similarly describe its Schur expansion. We then analysize $R_γ ,δ (X)$ to determine the leading term of its Schur expansion. To gain these results, we associate each Macdonald polynomial with a signed colored graph $\mathcal{H}_δ$ . In the case where a subgraph of $\mathcal{H}_δ$ is a dual equivalence graph, we provide the Schur expansion of its associated symmetric function, yielding several corollaries.
Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science