Character sheaves and characters of unipotent groups over finite fields

Let G_0 be a connected unipotent algebraic group over a finite field F_q, and let G be the unipotent group over an algebraic closure F of F_q obtained from G_0 by extension of scalars. If M is a Frobenius-invariant character sheaf on G, we show that M comes from an irreducible perverse sheaf M_0 on G_0, which is pure of weight 0. As M ranges over all Frobenius-invariant character sheaves on G, the functions defined by the corresponding perverse sheaves M_0 form a basis of the space of conjugation-invariant functions on the finite group G_0(F_q), which is orthonormal with respect to the standard unnormalized Hermitian inner product. The matrix relating this basis to the basis formed by irreducible characters of G_0(F_q) is block-diagonal, with blocks corresponding to the L-packets (of characters, or, equivalently, of character sheaves). We also formulate and prove a suitable generalization of this result to the case where G_0 is a possibly disconnected unipotent group over F_q. (In general, Frobenius-invariant character sheaves on G are related to the irreducible characters of the groups of F_q-points of all pure inner forms of G_0.)Comment: 56 pages, LaTe

Representations of unipotent groups over local fields and Gutkin's conjecture

Let F be a finite field or a local field of any characteristic. If A is a finite dimensional associative nilpotent algebra over F, the set 1+A of all formal expressions of the form 1+x, where x ranges over the elements of A, is a locally compact group with the topology induced by the standard one on F and the multiplication given by (1+x)(1+y)=1+(x+y+xy). We prove a result conjectured by Eugene Gutkin in 1973: every unitary irreducible representation of 1+A can be obtained by unitary induction from a 1-dimensional unitary character of a subgroup of the form 1+B, where B is an F-subalgebra of A. In the case where F is local and nonarchimedean we also establish an analogous result for smooth irreducible representations of 1+A over the field of complex numbers and show that every such representation is admissible and carries an invariant Hermitian inner product.Comment: 20 pages, LaTe

Base change maps for unipotent algebra groups

If A is a finite dimensional nilpotent associative algebra over a finite field k, the set G=1+A of all formal expressions of the form 1+a, where a is an element of A, has a natural group structure, given by (1+a)(1+b)=1+(a+b+ab). A finite group arising in this way is called an algebra group. One can also consider G as a unipotent algebraic group over k. We study representations of G from the point of view of ``geometric character theory'' for algebraic groups over finite fields (cf. G. Lusztig, ``Character sheaves and generalizations'', math.RT/0309134). The main result of this paper is a construction of canonical injective ``base change maps'' between - the set of isomorphism classes of complex irreducible representations of G', and - the set of isomorphism classes of complex irreducible representations of G'', which commute with the natural action of the Galois group Gal(k''/k), where k' is a finite extension of k and k'' is a finite extension of k', and G', G'' are the finite algebra groups obtained from G by extension of scalars.Comment: LaTeX, 19 pages, all comments are welcom

Quantization of minimal resolutions of Kleinian singularities

In this paper we prove an analogue of a recent result of Gordon and Stafford that relates the representation theory of certain noncommutative deformations of the coordinate ring of the n-th symmetric power of C^2 with the geometry of the Hilbert scheme of n points in C^2 through the formalism of Z-algebras. Our work produces, for every regular noncommutative deformation O^\lambda of a Kleinian singularity X=C^2/\Gamma, as defined by Crawley-Boevey and Holland, a filtered Z-algebra which is Morita equivalent to O^\lambda, such that the associated graded Z-algebra is Morita equivalent to the minimal resolution of X. The construction uses the description of the algebras O^\lambda as quantum Hamiltonian reductions, due to Holland, and a GIT construction of minimal resolutions of X, due to Cassens and Slodowy.Comment: LaTeX, 24 pages. Version 2 (some misprints fixed

Deligne-Lusztig constructions for unipotent and p-adic groups

In 1979 Lusztig proposed a conjectural construction of supercuspidal representations of reductive p-adic groups, which is similar to the well known construction of Deligne and Lusztig in the setting of finite reductive groups. We present a general method for explicitly calculating the representations arising from Lusztig's construction and illustrate it with several examples. The techniques we develop also provide background for the author's joint work with Weinstein on a purely local and explicit proof of the local Langlands correspondence.Comment: 50 pages, LaTe

Characters of unipotent groups over finite fields

Let G be a connected unipotent group over a finite field F_q with q elements. In this article we propose a definition of L-packets of complex irreducible representations of the finite group G(F_q) and give an explicit description of L-packets in terms of the so-called "admissible pairs" for G. We then apply our results to show that if the centralizer of every geometric point of G is connected, then the dimension of every complex irreducible representation of G(F_q) is a power of q, confirming a conjecture of V. Drinfeld. This paper is the first in a series of three papers exploring the relationship between representations of a group of the form G(F_q) (where G is a unipotent algebraic group over F_q), the geometry of G, and the theory of character sheaves.Comment: Version 4, 81 pages, LaTeX. Main change compared to the previous version: the term "$L$-packet" has been replaced with "$\mathbb{L}$-packet", which is short for "Lusztig packet" (to distinguish it from Langlands' notion of an $L$-packet

Geometric realization of special cases of local Langlands and Jacquet-Langlands correspondences

Let F be a non-Archimedean local field and let E be an unramified extension of F of degree n>1. To each sufficiently generic multiplicative character of E (the details are explained in the body of the paper) one can associate an irreducible n-dimensional representation of the Weil group W_F of F, which corresponds to an irreducible supercuspidal representation \pi\ of GL_n(F) via the local Langlands correspondence. In turn, via the Jacquet-Langlands correspondence, \pi\ corresponds to an irreducible representation \rho\ of the multiplicative group of the central division algebra over F with invariant 1/n. In this note we give a new geometric construction of the representations \pi\ and \rho, which is simpler than the existing algebraic approaches (in particular, the use of the Weil representation over finite fields is eliminated)

Character sheaves on unipotent groups in characteristic p>0

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

Centralizers of generic elements of Newton strata in the adjoint quotients of reductive groups

We study the Newton stratification of the adjoint quotient of a connected split reductive group G with simply connected derived group over the field F of formal Laurent series in one variable over the field of complex numbers. Our main result describes the centralizer of a regular semisimple element in G(F) whose image in the adjoint quotient lies in a certain generic subset of a given Newton stratum. Other noteworthy results include analogues of some results of Springer on regular elements of finite reflection groups, as well as a geometric construction of a well known homomorphism from the fundamental group of a reduced and irreducible root system to the Weyl group of the system.Comment: 22 pages, LaTe

On abstract representations of the groups of rational points of algebraic groups in positive characteristic

We analyze the structure of a large class of connected algebraic rings over an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic using Greenberg's perfectization functor. We then give applications to rigidity problems for representations of Chevalley groups, recovering, in particular, a rigidity theorem of Seitz