On the matchings-Jack and hypermap-Jack conjectures for labelled matchings and star maps

Introduced by Goulden and Jackson in their 1996 paper, the matchings-Jack conjecture and the hypermap-Jack conjecture (also known as the b-conjecture) are two major open questions relating Jack symmetric functions, the representation theory of the symmetric groups and combinatorial maps. They show that the coefficients in the power sum expansion of some Cauchy sum for Jack symmetric functions and in the logarithm of the same sum interpolate respectively between the structure constants of the class algebra and the double coset algebra of the symmetric group and between the numbers of orientable and locally orientable hypermaps. They further provide some evidence that these two families of coefficients indexed by three partitions of a given integer n and the Jack parameter α are polynomials in β = α − 1 with non-negative integer coefficients of combinatorial significance. This paper is devoted to the case when one of the three partitions is equal to (n). We exhibit some polynomial properties of both families of coefficients and prove a variation of the hypermap-Jack conjecture and the matchings-Jack conjecture involving labelled hypermaps and matchings in some important cases.