Bijections and symmetries for the factorizations of the long cycle

Abstract: We study the factorizations of the permutation $(1,2,...,n)$ into $k$ factors of given cycle types. Using representation theory, Jackson obtained for each $k$ an elegant formula for counting these factorizations according to the number of cycles of each factor. In the cases $k=2,3$ Schaeffer and Vassilieva gave a combinatorial proof of Jackson's formula, and Morales and Vassilieva obtained more refined formulas exhibiting a surprising symmetry property. These counting results are indicative of a rich combinatorial theory which has remained elusive to this point, and it is the goal of this article to establish a series of bijections which unveil some of the combinatorial properties of the factorizations of $(1,2,...,n)$ into $k$ factors for all $k$. We thereby obtain refinements of Jackson's formulas which extend the cases $k=2,3$ treated by Morales and Vassilieva. Our bijections are described in terms of "constellations", which are graphs embedded in surfaces encoding the transitive factorizations of permutations.