We show that stationary characters on irreducible lattices $Γ< G$ of higher-rank connected semisimple Lie groups are conjugation invariant, that is, they are genuine characters. This result has several applications in representation theory, operator algebras, ergodic theory and topological dynamics. In particular, we show that for any such irreducible lattice $Γ< G$, the left regular representation $λ_Γ$ is weakly contained in any weakly mixing representation $π$. We prove that for any such irreducible lattice $Γ< G$, any uniformly recurrent subgroup (URS) of $Γ$ is finite, answering a question of Glasner-Weiss. We also obtain a new proof of Peterson's character rigidity result for irreducible lattices $Γ< G$. The main novelty of our paper is a structure theorem for stationary actions of lattices on von Neumann algebras.
We prove an effective variant of the Kazhdan-Margulis theorem generalized to stationary actions of semisimple groups over local fields: the probability that the stabilizer of a random point admits a non-trivial intersection with a small $r$-neighborhood of the identity is at most $βr^δ$ for some explicit constants $β, δ> 0$ depending only the group. This is a consequence of a key convolution inequality. We deduce that vanishing at infinity of injectivity radius implies finiteness of volume. Further applications are the compactness of the space of discrete stationary random subgroups and a nove…
In this article, we study the elements with disconnected centralizer in the Brauer complex associated to a simple algebraic group G defined over a finite field with corresponding Frobenius map F and derive the number of F-stable semisimple classes of G with disconnected centralizer when the order of the fundamental group has prime order. We also discuss extendibility of semisimple characters to their inertia group in the full automorphism group. As a consequence, we prove that "twisted" and "untwisted" simple groups of type E_6 are "good" in defining characteristic, which is a contribution to …
In this note, we formulate an observation that "almost all" irreducible ordinary characters of finite groups of Lie type remain irreducible when restricted to the derived subgroups. To see this, key ingredients are some asymptotic results for conjugacy classes of finite groups of Lie type and strongly regular semisimple elements in dual groups.
Let G be a finite simple group of Lie type. In this paper we study characters of G that vanish at the non-semisimple elements and whose degree is equal to the order of a maximal unipotent subgroup of G. Such characters can be viewed as a natural generalization of the Steinberg character. For groups G of small rank we also determine the characters of this degree vanishing only at the non-identity unipotent elements.
It is well-known that an element of the linear group ${\rm GL}_n(\C)$ is semisimple if and only if its conjugacy class is Zariski closed. The aim of this paper is to show that the same result holds for the group of complex plane polynomial automorphisms.
We prove that, for any fields $k$ and $\mathbb{F}$ of characteristic $0$ and any finite group $T$, the category of modules over the shifted Green biset functor $(kR_{\mathbb{F}})_T$ is semisimple.
We prove an analogue of the celebrated Hall-Higman theorem, which gives a lower bound for the degree of the minimal polynomial of any semisimple element of prime power order $p^{a}$ of a finite classical group in any nontrivial irreducible cross characteristic representation. With a few explicit exceptions, this degree is at least $p^{a-1}(p-1)$.
It was shown in Part I that there exist strongly dense free subgroups in any semisimple algebraic group over a large enough field. These are nonabelian free subgroups all of whose subgroups are either cyclic or Zariski-dense. Here we show that the same is true for as long as the transcendence degree of the field is at least $1$ in characteristic zero and at least $2$ in positive characteristic. We also consider related questions for surface groups.
Let $G$ be a semisimple affine algebraic group defined over a field $k$ of characteristic zero. We describe all the maximal connected solvable subgroups of $G$, defined over $k$, up to conjugation by rational points of $G$.
In adjoint reductive groups $H$ of type $\mathsf{D}$ we show that for every semisimple element $s$, its centralizer splits over its connected component, i.e., $C_H(s) = C_H(s)^\circ \rtimes \check A$ for some complement $\check A$ with strong stability properties. We derive several consequences about the action of automorphisms on semisimple conjugacy classes. This helps to parametrize characters of the finite groups $\mathsf{D}_{l,\text{sc}}(q)$ and $^2\mathsf{D}_{l,\text{sc}}(q)$ and describe the action of automorphisms on them. It is also a contribution to the final proof of the McKay conje…
Let $p$ be an odd prime and let $G$ be a non-abelian finite $p$-group of exponent $p^2$ with three distinct characteristic subgroups, namely $1$, $G^p$, and $G$. The quotient group $G/G^p$ gives rise to an anti-commutative ${\mathbb F}_p$-algebra $L$ such that the action of ${\rm Aut}(L)$ is irreducible on $L$; we call such an algebra IAC. This paper establishes a duality $G\leftrightarrow L$ between such groups and such IAC algebras. We prove that IAC algebras are semisimple and we classify the simple IAC algebras of dimension at most 4 over certain fields. We also give other examples of simp…
We determine the conjugacy classes of semisimple elements in the symplectic groups ${\rm Sp}(2m,F)$, where $F$ is an arbitrary field of characteristic not $2$. This note was originally a letter dated 23 March, 2006, from G.E. Wall to Cheryl E. Praeger, and has been reproduced with his kind permission.
This paper computes the irreducible characters of the alternating Hecke algebras, which are deformations of the group algebras of the alternating groups. More precisely, we compute the values of the irreducible characters of the semisimple alternating Hecke algebras on a set of elements indexed by minimal length conjugacy class representatives and we show that these character values determine the irreducible characters completely. As an application we determine a splitting field for the alternating Hecke algebras in the semisimple case.
We study primitive stable representations of free groups into higher rank semisimple Lie groups and their properties. Let $Σ$ be a compact, connected, orientable surface (possibly with boundary) of negative Euler characteristic. We first verify the $σ_{mod}$-regularity for convex projective structures and positive representations. Then we show that the holonomies of convex projective structures and positive representations on $Σ$ are all primitive stable if $Σ$ has one boundary component.
Let $G$ be a linear algebraic group over a field $k$ of characteristic 0. We show that any two connected semisimple $k$-subgroups of $G$ that are conjugate over an algebraic closure of $k$ are actually conjugate over a finite field extension of $k$ of degree bounded independently of the subgroups. Moreover, if $k$ is a real number field, we show that any two connected semisimple $k$-subgroups of $G$ that are conjugate over the field of real numbers $\mathbb{R}$ are actually conjugate over a finite real extension of $k$ of degree bounded independently of the subgroups.
A linear algebraic group G over a field k is called a Cayley group if it admits a Cayley map, i.e. a G-equivariant birational isomorphism over k between the group variety G and its Lie algebra Lie(G). A prototypical example is the classical "Cayley transform" for the special orthogonal group SO(n) defined by Arthur Cayley in 1846. A linear algebraic k-group G is called stably Cayley if $G \times S$ is Cayley for some split k-torus S. We classify stably Cayley semisimple groups over an arbitrary field k of characteristic 0.
Let $G$ be an algebraic group over a field $k$. We call $g\in G(k)$ {\bf real} if $g$ is conjugate to $g^{-1}$ in $G(k)$. In this paper we study reality for groups of type $G_2$ over fields of characteristic different from 2. Let $G$ be such a group over $k$. We discuss reality for both semisimple and unipotent elements. We show that a semisimple element in $G(k)$ is real if and only if it is a product of two involutions in $G(k)$. Every unipotent element in $G(k)$ is a product of two involutions in $G(k)$. We discuss reality for $G_2$ over special fields and construct examples to show that re…
The purpose of this paper is to introduce and study a Hom-type generalization of rings. We provide their basic properties and and some key constructions. Furthermore, we consider modules over Hom-rings and characterize the category of simple modules and simple Hom-rings. In addition, we extend some classical results and concepts of groups to Hom-groups. We construct free regular Hom-group using Super-Leaf weighted trees and discuss Normal Hom-subgroups, abelianization of regular Hom-group, universality of tensor product of Hom-groups and simple Hom-groups.
We complete the quasi-isometric classification of irreducible lattices in semisimple Lie groups over nondiscrete locally compact fields of characteristic zero by showing that any quasi-isometry of a rank one S-arithmetic lattice in a semisimple Lie group over nondiscrete locally compact fields of characteristic zero is a finite distance in the sup-norm from a commensurator.
In this paper we give a combinatorial characterization of projections of geodesics in Euclidean buildings to Weyl chambers. We apply these results to the representation theory of complex semisimple Lie groups and to spherical Hecke rings associated with nonarchimedean reductive Lie groups. Our main application is a generalization of the saturation theorem of Knutson and Tao for SL(n) to other complex semisimple Lie groups.
The representation theory of semisimple algebraic groups over the complex numbers (equivalently, semisimple complex Lie algebras or Lie groups, or real compact Lie groups) and the question of whether a given representation is symplectic or orthogonal has been solved over the complex numbers since at least the 1950s. Similar results for Weyl modules of split reductive groups over fields of characteristic different from 2 hold by using similar proofs. This paper considers analogues of these results for simple, induced and tilting modules of split reductive groups over fields of prime characteris…
