We prove that if H is a semisimple Hopf algebra, then the action of the Drinfeld double D(H) on H and the action of the character algebra on H form a commuting pair. This result and a result of G. I. Kats imply that the dimension of every simple D(H)-submodule of H is a divisor of dim (H). Let H be a finite dimensional semisimple Hopf algebra over an algebraically closed field k of characteristic 0, D(H) be the Drinfeld double of H, and C(H) be the character algebra of H. C(H) is spanned by the characters of H-modules and is an associative subalgebra of H*. It is known that D(H) acts on H and that C(H) acts on H by the restriction of the action - of H* on H (these actions will be recalled below). The purpose of this note is to prove that these two actions form a commuting pair. Using this result, we prove that the dimension of every simple D(H)-submodule of H is a divisor of dim(H). It would be interesting if there exists an analog of this commuting pair in the context of Poisson Lie groups. We first recall the construction of the Drinfeld double (cf. [D], [M]) and fix necessary notations. Let H be a finite dimensional Hopf algebra over a field k (here we do not need any additional assumptions on H and k). The Drinfeld double of H, denoted by D(H), as a vector space, is the tensor space H* 0 H. The comultiplication of D(A) is given by A(f 0 a)= S (f(2) 0 a(,)) 0 (.f(i) 0 a(2)) E D(H) 0 D(H), where Af = f(l) (0 f(2), Aa =a(l) ( a(2) are comultiplictions in H and H* respectively. The multiplication in D(H) is defined as follows: for f 0 a and g 0 b in D(H), (1) (f oa)(gob) f (a(,) D 9(2)) 0 (a(2) g is the action of H on H* given by a > g = a(l)' 9 -Sla(2) and a <g is the right action of H* on H given by a< g = S-l19(l) a9(2) The notations and mean the usual left and right actions of H on H*, i.e., for a E H and g E H*, a _ gvl .2 a) LT*, .a / 2 (g_ ) Received by the editors December 6, 1995 and, in revised form, April 30, 1996. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 16W30. ( 1997 American Mathematical Society 2847 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.128 on Tue, 06 Sep 2016 06:06:51 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms