For any branched double covering of compact Riemann surfaces, we consider the associated character varieties that are unitary in the global sense, which we call $\operatorname {\mathrm {GL}}_n\rtimes \!<\!\sigma {>}$-character varieties. We restrict the monodromies around the branch points to generic semi-simple conjugacy classes contained in $\operatorname {\mathrm {GL}}_n\sigma $ and compute the E-polynomials of these character varieties using the character table of $\operatorname {\mathrm {GL}}_n(q)\rtimes \!<\!\sigma \!>\!$. The result is expressed as the inner product of certain symmetric functions associated to the wreath product $(\mathbb {Z}/2\mathbb {Z})^N\rtimes \mathfrak {S}_N$. We are then led to a conjectural formula for the mixed Hodge polynomial, which involves (modified) Macdonald polynomials and wreath Macdonald polynomials.

This is a contribution to the study of $\mathrm {Irr}(G)$ as an $\mathrm {Aut}(G)$-set for G a finite quasisimple group. Focusing on the last open case of groups of Lie type $\mathrm {D}$ and $^2\mathrm {D}$, a crucial property is the so-called $A'(\infty )$ condition expressing that diagonal automorphisms and graph-field automorphisms of G have transversal orbits in $\mathrm {Irr}(G)$. This is part of the stronger $A(\infty )$ condition introduced in the context of the reduction of the McKay conjecture to a question about quasisimple groups. Our main theorem is that a minimal counterexample to condition $A(\infty )$ for groups of type $\mathrm {D}$ would still satisfy $A'(\infty )$. This will be used in a second paper to fully establish $A(\infty )$ for any type and rank. The present paper uses Harish-Chandra induction as a parametrization tool. We give a new, more effective proof of the theorem of Geck and Lusztig ensuring that cuspidal characters of any standard Levi subgroup of $G=\mathrm {D}_{ l,\mathrm {sc}}(q)$ extend to their stabilizers in the normalizer of that Levi subgroup. This allows us to control the action of automorphisms on these extensions. From there, Harish-Chandra theory leads naturally to a detailed study of associated relative Weyl groups and other extendibility problems in that context.

To each pair consisting of a saturated fusion system over a p-group together with a compatible family of Külshammer-Puig cohomology classes, one can count weights in a hypothetical block algebra arising from these data. When the pair arises from a genuine block of a finite group algebra in characteristic p, the number of conjugacy classes of weights is supposed to be the number of simple modules in the block. We show that there is unique such pair associated with each Benson-Solomon exotic fusion system, and that the number of weights in a hypothetical Benson-Solomon block is $12$ , independently of the field of definition. This is carried out in part by listing explicitly up to conjugacy all centric radical subgroups and their outer automorphism groups in these systems.

We compute the trivial source character tables (also called species tables of the trivial source ring) of the infinite family of finite groups $\operatorname{SL}_{2}(q)$ for q even over a large enough field of odd characteristics. This article is a continuation of our article Trivial Source Character Tables of $\operatorname{SL}_{2}(q)$, where we considered, in particular, the case in which q is odd in non-defining characteristic.

A subset Y of the general linear group $\text{GL}(n,q)$ is called t-intersecting if $\text{rk}(x-y)\le n-t$ for all $x,y\in Y$ , or equivalently x and y agree pointwise on a t-dimensional subspace of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ for all $x,y\in Y$ . We show that, if n is sufficiently large compared to t, the size of every such t-intersecting set is at most that of the stabiliser of a basis of a t-dimensional subspace of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ . In case of equality, the characteristic vector of Y is a linear combination of the characteristic vectors of the cosets of these stabilisers. We also give similar results for subsets of $\text{GL}(n,q)$ that intersect not necessarily pointwise in t-dimensional subspaces of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ and for cross-intersecting subsets of $\text{GL}(n,q)$ . These results may be viewed as variants of the classical Erdős–Ko–Rado Theorem in extremal set theory and are q-analogs of corresponding results known for the symmetric group. Our methods are based on eigenvalue techniques to estimate the size of the largest independent sets in graphs and crucially involve the representation theory of $\text{GL}(n,q)$ .

In their renowned paper (2011, Inventiones Mathematicae 184, 591–627), I. Vollaard and T. Wedhorn defined a stratification on the special fiber of the unitary unramified PEL Rapoport–Zink space with signature $(1,n-1)$ . They constructed an isomorphism between the closure of a stratum, called a closed Bruhat–Tits stratum, and a Deligne–Lusztig variety which is not of classical type. In this paper, we describe the $\ell $ -adic cohomology groups over $\overline {{\mathbb Q}_{\ell }}$ of these Deligne–Lusztig varieties, where $\ell \not = p$ . The computations involve the spectral sequence associated with the Ekedahl–Oort stratification of a closed Bruhat–Tits stratum, which translates into a stratification by Coxeter varieties whose cohomology is known. Eventually, we find out that the irreducible representations of the finite unitary group which appear inside the cohomology contribute to only two different unipotent Harish-Chandra series, one of them belonging to the principal series.

We prove that any element in a sufficiently large transitive finite simple permutation group is a product of two derangements.

The Alperin–McKay conjecture is a longstanding open conjecture in the representation theory of finite groups. Späth showed that the Alperin–McKay conjecture holds if the so-called inductive Alperin–McKay (iAM) condition holds for all finite simple groups. In a previous paper, the author has proved that it is enough to verify the inductive condition for quasi-isolated blocks of groups of Lie type. In this paper, we show that the verification of the iAM-condition can be further reduced in many cases to isolated blocks. As a consequence of this, we obtain a proof of the Alperin–McKay conjecture for $2$ -blocks of finite groups with abelian defect.

We fix an error on a $3$ -cocycle in the original version of the paper ‘Endoscopy for Hecke categories, character sheaves and representations’. We give the corrected statements of the main results.

We study the fields of values of the irreducible characters of a finite group of degree not divisible by a prime p. In the case where $p=2$, we fully characterise these fields. In order to accomplish this, we generalise the main result of [ILNT] to higher irrationalities. We do the same for odd primes, except that in this case the analogous results hold modulo a simple-to-state conjecture on the character values of quasi-simple groups.

We determine the smallest irreducible Brauer characters for finite quasi-simple orthogonal type groups in non-defining characteristic. Under some restrictions on the characteristic we also prove a gap result showing that the next larger irreducible Brauer characters have a degree roughly the square of those of the smallest non-trivial characters.

We establish the inductive blockwise Alperin weight condition for simple groups of Lie type $\mathsf C$ and the bad prime $2$ . As a main step, we derive a labelling set for the irreducible $2$ -Brauer characters of the finite symplectic groups $\operatorname {Sp}_{2n}(q)$ (with odd q), together with the action of automorphisms. As a further important ingredient, we prove a Jordan decomposition for weights.

For a reductive group $G$ over a finite field, we show that the neutral block of its mixed Hecke category with a fixed monodromy under the torus action is monoidally equivalent to the mixed Hecke category of the corresponding endoscopic group $H$ with trivial monodromy. We also extend this equivalence to all blocks. We give two applications. One is a relationship between character sheaves on $G$ with a fixed semisimple parameter and unipotent character sheaves on the endoscopic group $H$, after passing to asymptotic versions. The other is a similar relationship between representations of $G(\mathbb{F}_{q})$ with a fixed semisimple parameter and unipotent representations of $H(\mathbb{F}_{q})$.

Let $F$ be a totally real field in which $p$ is unramified. Let $\overline{r}:G_{F}\rightarrow \text{GL}_{2}(\overline{\mathbf{F}}_{p})$ be a modular Galois representation that satisfies the Taylor–Wiles hypotheses and is tamely ramified and generic at a place $v$ above $p$. Let $\mathfrak{m}$ be the corresponding Hecke eigensystem. We describe the $\mathfrak{m}$-torsion in the $\text{mod}\,p$ cohomology of Shimura curves with full congruence level at $v$ as a $\text{GL}_{2}(k_{v})$-representation. In particular, it only depends on $\overline{r}|_{I_{F_{v}}}$ and its Jordan–Hölder factors appear with multiplicity one. The main ingredients are a description of the submodule structure for generic $\text{GL}_{2}(\mathbf{F}_{q})$-projective envelopes and the multiplicity one results of Emerton, Gee and Savitt [Lattices in the cohomology of Shimura curves, Invent. Math. 200(1) (2015), 1–96].

We prove in generic situations that the lattice in a tame type induced by the completed cohomology of a $U(3)$-arithmetic manifold is purely local, that is, only depends on the Galois representation at places above $p$. This is a generalization to $\text{GL}_{3}$ of the lattice conjecture of Breuil. In the process, we also prove the geometric Breuil–Mézard conjecture for (tamely) potentially crystalline deformation rings with Hodge–Tate weights $(2,1,0)$ as well as the Serre weight conjectures of Herzig [‘The weight in a Serre-type conjecture for tame $n$-dimensional Galois representations’, Duke Math. J. 149(1) (2009), 37–116] over an unramified field extending the results of Le et al. [‘Potentially crystalline deformation 3985 rings and Serre weight conjectures: shapes and shadows’, Invent. Math. 212(1) (2018), 1–107]. We also prove results in modular representation theory about lattices in Deligne–Lusztig representations for the group $\text{GL}_{3}(\mathbb{F}_{q})$.

We develop the concept of character level for the complex irreducible characters of finite, general or special, linear and unitary groups. We give characterizations of the level of a character in terms of its Lusztig label and in terms of its degree. Then we prove explicit upper bounds for character values at elements with not-too-large centralizers and derive upper bounds on the covering number and mixing time of random walks corresponding to these conjugacy classes. We also characterize the level of the character in terms of certain dual pairs and prove explicit exponential character bounds for the character values, provided that the level is not too large. Several further applications are also provided. Related results for other finite classical groups are obtained in the sequel [Guralnick et al. ‘Character levels and character bounds for finite classical groups’, Preprint, 2019, arXiv:1904.08070] by different methods.

Let $p$ be an odd prime. We construct a $p$-group $P$ of nilpotency class two, rank seven and exponent $p$, such that $\text{Aut}(P)$ induces $N_{\text{GL}(7,p)}(G_{2}(p))=Z(\text{GL}(7,p))G_{2}(p)$ on the Frattini quotient $P/\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}(P)$. The constructed group $P$ is the smallest $p$-group with these properties, having order $p^{14}$, and when $p=3$ our construction gives two nonisomorphic $p$-groups. To show that $P$ satisfies the specified properties, we study the action of $G_{2}(q)$ on the octonion algebra over $\mathbb{F}_{q}$, for each power $q$ of $p$, and explore the reducibility of the exterior square of each irreducible seven-dimensional $\mathbb{F}_{q}[G_{2}(q)]$-module.

We classify tame block algebras of Hecke algebras of classical type over an algebraically closed field of characteristic not equal to two.

We investigate the structure of root data by considering their decomposition as a product of a semisimple root datum and a torus. Using this decomposition, we obtain a parametrization of the isomorphism classes of all root data. By working at the level of root data, we introduce the notion of a smooth regular embedding of a connected reductive algebraic group, which is a refinement of the commonly used regular embeddings introduced by Lusztig. In the absence of Steinberg endomorphisms, such embeddings were constructed by Benjamin Martin. In an unpublished manuscript, Asai proved three key reduction techniques that are used for reducing statements about arbitrary connected reductive algebraic groups, equipped with a Frobenius endomorphism, to those whose derived subgroup is simple and simply connected. Using our investigations into root data we give new proofs of Asai's results and generalize them so that they are compatible with Steinberg endomorphisms. As an illustration of these ideas, we answer a question posed to us by Olivier Dudas concerning unipotent supports.

Harish-Chandra induction and restriction functors play a key role in the representation theory of reductive groups over finite fields. In this paper, extending earlier work of Dat, we introduce and study generalisations of these functors which apply to a wide range of finite and profinite groups, typical examples being compact open subgroups of reductive groups over non-archimedean local fields. We prove that these generalisations are compatible with two of the tools commonly used to study the (smooth, complex) representations of such groups, namely Clifford theory and the orbit method. As a test case, we examine in detail the induction and restriction of representations from and to the Siegel Levi subgroup of the symplectic group $\text{Sp}_{4}$ over a finite local principal ideal ring of length two. We obtain in this case a Mackey-type formula for the composition of these induction and restriction functors which is a perfect analogue of the well-known formula for the composition of Harish-Chandra functors. In a different direction, we study representations of the Iwahori subgroup $I_{n}$ of $\text{GL}_{n}(F)$, where $F$ is a non-archimedean local field. We establish a bijection between the set of irreducible representations of $I_{n}$ and tuples of primitive irreducible representations of smaller Iwahori subgroups, where primitivity is defined by the vanishing of suitable restriction functors.