Random Walks on Strict Partitions

Abstract

We consider a certain sequence of random walks. The state space of the n-th random walk is the set of all strict partitions of n (that is, partitions without equal parts). We prove that, as n goes to infinity, these random walks converge to a continuous-time Markov process. The state space of this process is the infinite-dimensional simplex consisting of all nonincreasing infinite sequences of nonnegative numbers with sum less than or equal to one. The main result about the limit process is the expression of its the pre-generator as a formal second order differential operator in a polynomial algebra. Of separate interest is the generalization of Kerov interlacing coordinates to the case of shifted Young diagrams.