On the natural representation of the symmetric groups

Extract

Let E be an arbitrary (non-empty) set and S the restricted symmetric group on E, that is the group of all permutations of E which keep all but a finite number of elements of E fixed. If Φ is any commutative ring with unit element, let Γ = Φ(S) be the group algebra of S over Φ,Γ ⊃ Φ and let M be the free Φ-module having E as Φ-base. The “natural” representation of S is obtained by turning M into a Γ-module in the obvious manner, namely by writing for α∈S, λ₁∈Φ,