Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 2016
Let $UY_{n}(q)$ be a Sylow $p$-subgroup of an untwisted Chevalley group $Y_{n}(q)$ of rank $n$ defined over $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ where $q$ is a power of a prime $p$. We partition the set $\text{Irr}(UY_{n}(q))$ of irreducible characters of $UY_{n}(q)$ into families indexed by antichains of positive roots of the root system of type $Y_{n}$. We focus our attention on the families of characters of $UY_{n}(q)$ which are indexed by antichains of length $1$. Then for each positive root $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$ we establish a one-to-one correspondence between the minimal degree members of the family indexed by $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$ and the linear characters of a certain subquotient $\overline{T}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}$ of $UY_{n}(q)$. For $Y_{n}=A_{n}$ our single root character construction recovers, among other things, the elementary supercharacters of these groups. Most importantly, though, this paper lays the groundwork for our classification of the elements of $\text{Irr}(UE_{i}(q))$, $6\leqslant i\leqslant 8$, and $\text{Irr}(UF_{4}(q))$.