Bounds on the Kronecker coefficients

We present several upper and lower bounds on the Kronecker coefficients of the symmetric group. We prove $k$-stability of the Kronecker coefficients generalizing the (usual) stability, and giving a new upper bound. We prove a lower bound via the characters of $S_n$. We apply these and other results to generalize Sylvester's unimodality of the $q$-binomial coefficients $\binom{n}{k}_q$ as polynomials in $q$: we derive explicit sharp bounds on the differences of their consecutive coefficients.