The D π-property of linear and unitary groups

The spectrum of a finite group is the set of its element orders. An arithmetic criterion determining whether a given natural number belongs to a spectrum of a given group is furnished for all finite special, projective general, and projective special linear and unitary groups.

By the methods used heretofore for the determination of the automorphisms of certain families of linear groups, for example, the (projective) unimodular, orthogonal, symplectic, and unitary groups (7, 8), it has been necessary to consider the various families separately and to give many case-by-case discussions, especially when the underlying vector space has few elements, even though the final results are very much the same for all of the groups. The purpose of this article is to give a completely uniform treatment of this problem for all the known finite simple linear groups (listed in §2 below). Besides the * ‘classical groups” mentioned above, these include the “exceptional groups,” considered over the complex field by Cartan and over an arbitrary field by Dickson, Chevalley, Hertzig, and the author (3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15). The automorphisms of the latter groups are given here for the first time.

This chapter presents a theory of unitary groups over rings parallel to that which Chapter 1 develops for the linear groups. We will introduce the concept of a form ring which will allow for the definition of generalized quadratic forms. The unitary groups — i.e. isometry groups—of these generalized quadratic forms contain as special cases all the usual classical groups. They include in fact the linear groups of Chapter 1. However the proofs of the central theorems of this chapter make important use of the linear results already established. Therefore from a practical point of view, this approach will include all the classical groups, with the exception of the linear groups, under a single umbrella.

We are concerned with finite-dimensional classical groups over arbitrary commutative fields. In an orthogonal group a Siegel transvection, that is, an element centralizing l⊥ for some totally singular 2-dimensional subspace l, plays the same role as a transvection in the linear, symplectic or unitary groups. The Main Theorem of this paper describes the possible embeddings of classical groups in classical groups such that (Siegel) transvections act as (Siegel) transvections.

Let G be a finite group and let cd (G) be the set of irreducible character degrees of G. The degree graph Δ(G) is the graph whose set of vertices is the set of primes that divide degrees in cd (G), with an edge between p and q if pq divides a for some degree a ∈ cd (G). We determine the graph Δ(G) for the finite simple groups of types A ℓ(q) and 2 A ℓ (q 2), that is, for the simple linear and unitary groups.

We show a connection between Lusztig induction operators in finite general linear and unitary groups and parabolic induction in cyclotomic rational double affine Hecke algebras. Two applications are given: an explanation of a bijection result of Broue, Malle and Michel, and some results on modular decomposition numbers of finite general groups. 2010 AMS Subject Classification: 20C33 Dedicated to the memory of Robert Steinberg

Maximal Overgroups of Singer Elements in Classical Groups

On the Number of Generators and Composition Length of Finite Linear Groups

Let M denote the set of the simple 3-dimensional unitary groups U3 and the simple linear groups L2 over finite fields of odd characteristic.We prove that each periodic group saturated with groups in M is locally finite and isomorphic to either U3(Q) or L2(Q) for a suitable locally finite field Q of odd characteristic.

We introduce a technique for proving quantitative representation stability theorems for sequences of representations of certain finite linear groups over a field of characteristic zero. In particular, we prove a vanishing result for higher syzygies of VIC- and SI-modules, which can be thought of as a weaker version of a regularity theorem of Church-Ellenberg in the context of FI-modules. We apply these techniques to the rational homology of congruence subgroups of mapping class groups and congruence subgroups of automorphism groups of free groups. This partially resolves a question raised by Church and Putman-Sam. We also prove new homological stability results for mapping class groups and automorphism groups of free groups with twisted coefficients.

Finite groups are isospectral if they have the same sets of element orders. We complete the description of the finite groups isospectral to the simple groups $ U_{5}(q) $ , $ L_{6}(q) $ , and $ U_{6}(q) $ , with $ q $ odd. We also prove that the exceptional groups of Lie type do not occur among the composition factors of finite groups isospectral to simple classical groups.

On imprimitive representations of finite reductive groups in non-defining characteristic

We develop the concept of character level for the complex irreducible characters of finite, general or special, linear and unitary groups. We give characterizations of the level of a character in terms of its Lusztig label and in terms of its degree. Then we prove explicit upper bounds for character values at elements with not-too-large centralizers and derive upper bounds on the covering number and mixing time of random walks corresponding to these conjugacy classes. We also characterize the level of the character in terms of certain dual pairs and prove explicit exponential character bounds for the character values, provided that the level is not too large. Several further applications are also provided. Related results for other finite classical groups are obtained in the sequel [Guralnicket al. ‘Character levels and character bounds for finite classical groups’, Preprint, 2019,arXiv:1904.08070] by different methods.

We consider the asymptotic complexity of manipulating matrix groups over finite fields. The question is, given a matrix group G by a list of generators, what can we say in polynomial time about the structure of G? While considerable progress has been made recently in identifying the nonabelian composition factors of a matrix group, the fundamental question of recognizing the simplicity of a non-abelian matrix group remains open. For the purposes of polynomial time computation, we reduce this problem to the following “affine case:” Let A be an elementary abelian p-group which is a non-central minimal normal subgroup of a finite group G. Assume further that the quotient G/A is a finite simple group S of Lie type of characteristic p. The algorithmic goal is to distinguish the simple group S from the nonsimple group G. Both S and G are given as “black-box groups of characteristic p.” The reduction to this basic problem involves a large number of recent techniques and results which we review along the way. We address the affine case for the groups S = PSL(2, q) where q = p , p prime. We show that PSL(2, p) can be recognized in Monte Carlo polynomial time among all black-box groups of known characteristic. The situation for f ≥ 2 seems much harder; we exhibit challenging open cases for every f ≥ 2 when q is large. Along with S = PSL(2, p), the positive result holds for all simple groups S of Lie type of characteristic p with the property that in every nontrivial S-module in characteristic p, every element of S has a fixed point. We call these groups “unisingular.” Very recently, Guralnick, Saxl, and Tiep classified these groups. They found that a large number of classes of simple groups are unisingular, including certain classes of linear and unitary groups, all symplectic groups over an odd prime field, all orthogonal groups of odd degree over an odd prime field, many orthogonal groups of even degree, and a number of classes of exceptional groups. 2 Laszlo Babai and Aner Shalev

In Aizenbud et al. (2010, Annals of Mathematics 172, 1407–1434), a multiplicity one theorem is proved for general linear groups, orthogonal groups, and unitary groups ( $GL, O,$ and U) over p-adic local fields. That is to say that when we have a pair of such groups $G_n{\subseteq } G_{n+1}$ , any restriction of an irreducible smooth representation of $G_{n+1}$ to $G_n$ is multiplicity-free. This property is already known for $GL$ over a local field of positive characteristic, and in this paper, we also give a proof for $O,U$ , and $SO$ over local fields of positive odd characteristic. These theorems are shown in Gan, Gross, and Prasad (2012, Sur les Conjectures de Gross et Prasad. I, Société Mathématique de France) to imply the uniqueness of Bessel models, and in Chen and Sun (2015, International Mathematics Research Notice 2015, 5849–5873) to imply the uniqueness of Rankin–Selberg models. We also prove simultaneously the uniqueness of Fourier–Jacobi models, following the outlines of the proof in Sun (2012, American Journal of Mathematics 134, 1655–1678).By the Gelfand–Kazhdan criterion, the multiplicity one property for a pair $H\leq G$ follows from the statement that any distribution on G invariant to conjugations by H is also invariant to some anti-involution of G preserving H. This statement for $GL, O$ , and U over p-adic local fields is proved in Aizenbud et al. (2010, Annals of Mathematics 172, 1407–1434). An adaptation of the proof for $GL$ that works over of local fields of positive odd characteristic is given in Mezer (2020, Mathematische Zeitschrift 297, 1383–1396). In this paper, we give similar adaptations of the proofs of the theorems on orthogonal and unitary groups, as well as similar theorems for special orthogonal groups and for symplectic groups. Our methods are a synergy of the methods used over characteristic 0 (Aizenbud et al. [2010, Annals of Mathematics 172, 1407–1434]; Sun [2012, American Journal of Mathematics 134, 1655–1678]; and Waldspurger [2012, Astérisque 346, 313–318]) and of those used in Mezer (2020, Mathematische Zeitschrift 297, 1383–1396).