On the values of unipotent characters of finite Chevalley groups of type $E_7$ in characteristic 2
Jonas Hetz
备注:
19 pages. Correction in the proof of Proposition 5.2 (whose statement remains valid); some minor improvements. We thank an unknown referee for a careful reading of the manuscript and useful comments. To appear in Osaka J. Math
Let $G$ be a finite group of Lie type. In order to determine the character table of $G$, Lusztig developed the theory of character sheaves. In this framework, one has to find the transformation between two bases for the space of class functions on $G$, one of them being the irreducible characters of $G$, the other one consisting of characteristic functions associated to character sheaves. In principle, this has been achieved by Lusztig and Shoji, but the underlying process involves some scalars which are still unknown in many cases. The problem of specifying these scalars can be reduced to considering cuspidal character sheaves. We will deal with the latter for the specific case where $G=E_7(q)$, and $q$ is a power of the bad prime $p=2$ for $E_7$.
We show that the two cuspidal unipotent characters of a finite Chevalley group $E_7(q)$ have Schur index~2, provided that $q$ is an even power of a (sufficiently large) prime number $p$ such that $p\equiv 1 \bmod 4$. The proof uses a refinement of Kawanaka's generalized Gelfand--Graev representations and some explicit computations with the {\sf CHEVIE} computer algebra system.
Let $G$ be a finite Chevalley group. We are concerned with computing the values of the unipotent characters of $G$ by making use of Lusztig's theory of character sheaves. In this framework, one has to find the transformation between several bases for the class functions on $G$. In principle, this has been achieved by Lusztig and Shoji, but the underlying process involves some scalars which are still unknown in many cases. We shall determine these scalars in the specific case where $G$ is the (twisted or non-twisted) group of type $E_6$ over the finite field with $q$ elements, for $q$ a power o…
Let $q$ be a prime power and $F_4(q)$ be the Chevalley group of type $F_4$ over a finite field with $q$ elements. Marcelo--Shinoda (1995) determined the values of the unipotent characters of $F_4(q)$ on all unipotent elements, extending earlier work by Kawanaka and Lusztig to small characteristics. Assuming that $q$ is a power of~$2$, we explain how to construct the complete character table of~$F_4(q)$.
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Let $G(q)$ be a Chevalley group over a finite field $F_q$. By Lusztig's and Shoji's work, the problem of computing the values of the unipotent characters of $G(q)$ is solved, in principle, by the theory of character sheaves; one issue in this solution is the determination of certain scalars relating two types of class functions on $G(q)$. We show that this issue can be reduced to the case where $q$ is a prime, which opens the way to use computer algebra methods. Here, and in a sequel to this article, we use this approach to solve a number of cases in groups of exceptional type which seemed hit…
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These are slides for a talk given by the authors at the conference "Current developments and directions in the Langlands program" held in honor of Robert Langlands at the Northwestern University in May of 2008. The slides can be used as a short introduction to the theory of characters and character sheaves for unipotent groups in positive characteristic, developed by the authors in a series of articles written between 2006 and 2011. We give an overview of the main results of this theory along with a bit of motivation.
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