q-Analogs of symmetric function operators

Abstract

For any homomorphism V on the space of symmetric functions, we introduce an operation which creates a q-analog of V. By giving several examples we demonstrate that this quantization occurs naturally within the theory of symmetric functions. In particular, we show that the Hall-Littlewood symmetric functions are formed by taking this q-analog of the Schur symmetric functions and the Macdonald symmetric functions appear by taking the q-analog of the Hall-Littlewood symmetric functions in the parameter t. This relation is then used to derive recurrences on the Macdonald q,t-Kostka coefficients.