Branching rules in the ring of superclass functions of unipotent upper-triangular matrices

It is becoming increasingly clear that the supercharacter theory of the finite group of unipotent upper-triangular matrices has a rich combinatorial structure built on set-partitions that is analogous to the partition combinatorics of the classical representation theory of the symmetric group. This paper begins by exploring a connection to the ring of symmetric functions in non-commuting variables that mirrors the symmetric group's relationship with the ring of symmetric functions. It then also investigates some of the representation theoretic structure constants arising from the restriction, tensor products and superinduction of supercharacters in this context.Comment: 24 page

Supercharacter theories of type AA unipotent radicals and unipotent polytopes

Even with the introduction of supercharacter theories, the representation theory of many unipotent groups remains mysterious. This paper constructs a family of supercharacter theories for normal pattern groups in a way that exhibit many of the combinatorial properties of the set partition combinatorics of the full uni-triangular groups, including combinatorial indexing sets, dimensions, and computable character formulas. Associated with these supercharacter theories is also a family of polytopes whose integer lattice points give the theories geometric underpinnings

Supercharacter formulas for pattern groups

C. Andre and N. Yan introduced the idea of a supercharacter theory to give a tractable substitute for character theory in wild groups such as the unipotent uppertriangular group $U_n(F_q)$. In this theory superclasses are certain unions of conjugacy classes, and supercharacters are a set of characters which are constant on superclasses. This paper gives a character formula for a supercharacter evaluated at a superclass for pattern groups and more generally for algebra groups

Restricting supercharacters of the finite group of unipotent uppertriangular matrices

It is well-known that the representation theory of the finite group of unipotent upper-triangular matrices $U_n$ over a finite field is a wild problem. By instead considering approximately irreducible representations (supercharacters), one obtains a rich combinatorial theory analogous to that of the symmetric group, where we replace partition combinatorics with set-partitions. This paper studies the supercharacter theory of a family of subgroups that interpolate between $U_{n-1}$ and $U_n$. We supply several combinatorial indexing sets for the supercharacters, supercharacter formulas for these indexing sets, and a combinatorial rule for restricting supercharacters from one group to another. A consequence of this analysis is a Pieri-like restriction rule from $U_n$ to $U_{n-1}$ that can be described on set-partitions (analogous to the corresponding symmetric group rule on partitions)

The combinatorics of GLn\mathrm{GL}_n generalized Gelfand--Graev characters

Introduced by Kawanaka in order to find the unipotent representations of finite groups of Lie type, generalized Gelfand--Graev characters have remained somewhat mysterious. Even in the case of the finite general linear groups, the combinatorics of their decompositions has not been worked out. This paper re-interprets Kawanaka's definition in type $A$ in a way that gives far more flexibility in computations. We use these alternate constructions to show how to obtain generalized Gelfand--Graev representations directly from the maximal unipotent subgroups. We also explicitly decompose the corresponding generalized Gelfand--Graev characters in terms of unipotent representations, thereby recovering the Kostka--Foulkes polynomials as multiplicities

Restrictions of rainbow supercharacters

The maximal subgroup of unipotent upper-triangular matrices of the finite general linear groups are a fundamental family of $p$-groups. Their representation theory is well-known to be wild, but there is a standard supercharacter theory, replacing irreducible representations by super-representations, that gives us some control over its representation theory. While this theory has a beautiful underlying combinatorics built on set partitions, the structure constants of restricted super-representations remain mysterious. This paper proposes a new approach to solving the restriction problem by constructing natural intermediate modules that help "factor" the computation of the structure constants. We illustrate the technique by solving the problem completely in the case of rainbow supercharacters (and some generalizations). Along the way we introduce a new $q$-analogue of the binomial coefficients that depend on an underlying poset

Nonzero coefficients in restrictions and tensor products of supercharacters of Un(q)U_n(q)

The standard supercharacter theory of the finite unipotent upper-triangular matrices $U_n(q)$ gives rise to a beautiful combinatorics based on set partitions. As with the representation theory of the symmetric group, embeddings of $U_m(q)\subseteq U_n(q)$ for $m\leq n$ lead to branching rules. Diaconis and Isaacs established that the restriction of a supercharacter of $U_n(q)$ is a nonnegative integer linear combination of supercharacters of $U_m(q)$ (in fact, it is polynomial in $q$). In a first step towards understanding the combinatorics of coefficients in the branching rules of the supercharacters of $U_n(q)$, this paper characterizes when a given coefficient is nonzero in the restriction of a supercharacter and the tensor product of two supercharacters. These conditions are given uniformly in terms of complete matchings in bipartite graphs.Comment: 28 page

Gelfand-Graev characters of the finite unitary groups

Gelfand-Graev characters and their degenerate counterparts have an important role in the representation theory of finite groups of Lie type. Using a characteristic map to translate the character theory of the finite unitary groups into the language of symmetric functions, we study degenerate Gelfand-Graev characters of the finite unitary group from a combinatorial point of view. In particular, we give the values of Gelfand-Graev characters at arbitrary elements, recover the decomposition multiplicities of degenerate Gelfand-Graev characters in terms of tableau combinatorics, and conclude with some multiplicity consequences

On the characteristic map of finite unitary groups

In his classic book on symmetric functions, Macdonald describes a remarkable result by Green relating the character theory of the finite general linear group to transition matrices between bases of symmetric functions. This connection allows us to analyze the representation theory of the general linear group via symmetric group combinatorics. Using the work of Ennola, Kawanaka, Lusztig and Srinivasan, this paper describes the analogous setting for the finite unitary group. In particular, we explain the connection between Deligne-Lusztig theory and Ennola's efforts to generalize Green's work, and deduce various representation theoretic results from these results. Applications include finding certain sums of character degrees, and a model of Deligne-Lusztig type for the finite unitary group, which parallels results of Klyachko and Inglis and Saxl for the finite general linear group

Values of characters sums for finite unitary groups

A known result for the finite general linear group \GL(n,\FF_q) and for the finite unitary group \U(n,\FF_{q^2}) posits that the sum of the irreducible character degrees is equal to the number of symmetric matrices in the group. Fulman and Guralnick extended this result by considering sums of irreducible characters evaluated at an arbitrary conjugacy class of \GL(n,\FF_q). We develop an explicit formula for the value of the permutation character of \U(2n,\FF_{q^2}) over \Sp(2n,\FF_q) evaluated an an arbitrary conjugacy class and use results concerning Gelfand-Graev characters to obtain an analogous formula for \U(n,\FF_{q^2}) in the case where $q$ is an odd prime. These results are also given as probabilistic statements