Let $F$ be a non-archimedean local field of characteristic different from 2 and residual characteristic $p$. This paper concerns the $\ell$-modular representations of a connected reductive group $G$ distinguished by a Galois involution, with $\ell$ an odd prime different from $p$. We start by proving a general theorem allowing to lift supercuspidal $\overline {\mathbf {F}}_{\ell }$-representations of $\operatorname {GL}_n(F)$ distinguished by an arbitrary closed subgroup $H$ to a distinguished supercuspidal $\overline {\mathbf {Q}}_{\ell }$-representation. Given a quadratic field extension $E/F$ and an irreducible $\overline {\mathbf {F}}_{\ell }$-representation $\pi$ of $\operatorname {GL}_n(E)$, we verify the Jacquet conjecture in the modular setting that if the Langlands parameter $\phi _\pi$ is irreducible and conjugate-selfdual, then $\pi$ is either $\operatorname {GL}_n(F)$-distinguished or $(\operatorname {GL}_{n}(F),\omega _{E/F})$-distinguished (where $\omega _{E/F}$ is the quadratic character of $F^\times$ associated to the quadratic field extension $E/F$ by the local class field theory), but not both, which extends one result of Sécherre to the case $p=2$. We give another application of our lifting theorem for supercuspidal representations distinguished by a unitary involution, extending one result of Zou to $p=2$. After that, we give a complete classification of the $\operatorname {GL}_2(F)$-distinguished representations of $\operatorname {GL}_2(E)$. Using this classification we discuss a modular version of the Prasad conjecture for $\operatorname {PGL}_2$. We show that the ‘classical’ Prasad conjecture fails in the modular setting. We propose a solution using non-nilpotent Weil–Deligne representations. Finally, we apply the restriction method of Anandavardhanan and Prasad to classify the $\operatorname {SL}_2(F)$-distinguished modular representations of $\operatorname {SL}_2(E)$.

Bernstein, Frenkel, and Khovanov have constructed a categorification of tensor products of the standard representation of $\mathfrak {sl}_2$ , where they use singular blocks of category $\mathcal {O}$ for $\mathfrak {sl}_n$ and translation functors. Here we construct a positive characteristic analogue using blocks of representations of $\mathfrak {s}\mathfrak {l}_n$ over a field $\mathbf {k}$ of characteristic p with zero Frobenius character, and singular Harish-Chandra character. We show that the aforementioned categorification admits a Koszul graded lift, which is equivalent to a geometric categorification constructed by Cautis, Kamnitzer, and Licata using coherent sheaves on cotangent bundles to Grassmanians. In particular, the latter admits an abelian refinement. With respect to this abelian refinement, the stratified Mukai flop induces a perverse equivalence on the derived categories for complementary Grassmanians. This is part of a larger project to give a combinatorial approach to Lusztig’s conjectures for representations of Lie algebras in positive characteristic.

We examine situations, where representations of a finite-dimensional F-algebra A defined over a separable extension field K/F, have a unique minimal field of definition. Here the base field F is assumed to be a field of dimension ≼1. In particular, F could be a finite field or k(t) or k((t)), where k is algebraically closed. We show that a unique minimal field of definition exists if (a) K/F is an algebraic extension or (b) A is of finite representation type. Moreover, in these situations the minimal field of definition is a finite extension of F. This is not the case if A is of infinite representation type or F fails to be of dimension ≼1. As a consequence, we compute the essential dimension of the functor of representations of a finite group, generalizing a theorem of Karpenko, Pevtsova and the second author.

Let ${\rm F}$ be a non-Archimedean locally compact field of residue characteristic $p$, let ${\rm D}$ be a finite-dimensional central division ${\rm F}$-algebra and let ${\rm R}$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic different from $p$. We define banal irreducible ${\rm R}$-representations of the group ${\rm G}={\rm GL}_{m}({\rm D})$. This notion involves a condition on the cuspidal support of the representation depending on the characteristic of ${\rm R}$. When this characteristic is banal with respect to ${\rm G}$, in particular when ${\rm R}$ is the field of complex numbers, any irreducible ${\rm R}$-representation of ${\rm G}$ is banal. In this article, we give a classification of all banal irreducible ${\rm R}$-representations of ${\rm G}$ in terms of certain multisegments, called banal. When ${\rm R}$ is the field of complex numbers, our method provides a new proof, entirely local, of Tadić’s classification of irreducible complex smooth representations of ${\rm G}$.

In this paper, we prove that the modular curve $X(11)$ over a field of characteristic 3 admits the Mathieu group $M_{11}$ as an automorphism group. We also examine some aspects of the geometry of the curve $X(11)$ in characteristic 3. In particular, we show that every point of the curve is a point of inflection, the curve has 110 hyperflexes and there are no inflectional triangles and 11232 inflectional pentagons, of which 144 are self-conjugate. The hyperflexes correspond to the supersingular elliptic curves. We comment on the relationship of Ward's quadrilinear invariant for $M_{12}$ to our work and announce for the first time the equations for Klein's A-curve of level 11. We also comment on the relation of our work to some unpublished work of Bott and Tate.

1991 Mathematics Subject Classification: 11F32, 11G20, 14G10, 14H10, 14N10, 20B25, 20C34.