Construction of orthonormal bases in higher symmetry classes of tensors

We present a method for constructing an orthonormal basis for a symmetry class of tensors from an orthonormal basis of the underlying vector space. The basis so obtained is not composed of decomposable symmetrized tensors. Indeed, we show that, for symmetry classes of tensors whose associated character has degree higher than one, it is impossible to construct an orthogonal basis of decomposable symmetrized tensors from any basis of the underlying vector space. We end with an open problem on the possibility of a symmetry class having an orthonormal basis of decomposable symmetrized tensors.