S. Hariharan

Zero-free columns in character tables of symmetric groups

The rows and columns of the character table of the symmetric group $S_n$ are both naturally indexed by partitions of $n$. Let $D(n)$ denote the number of conjugacy classes of $S_n$ whose column contains no zero entry. The identity column is always zero-free, so $D(n)\geq 1$. It is known that $D(n)\ll n^2$. We prove that $D(n)\ll n^{3/4}$. Second, we prove for almost all positive integers $n$ that $D(n)\ll_B n^{1/2}(\log n)^B$ for every $B>5/6$, with a quantitative bound for the exceptional set, using work of Matom\"aki and Radziwill. Finally, we offer a heuristic supporting our conjecture that $D(n)\ll_{\varepsilon} n^{\varepsilon}$. AxiomProver formalized the results in this paper in Lean assuming preexisting literature.