Lifting representations of finite reductive groups I: Semisimple conjugacy classes

TL;DR

This paper studies the relationship between fixed-point subgroups of reductive groups under automorphisms and their dual groups, providing explicit formulas for maps between semisimple conjugacy classes, with implications for representation theory.

Contribution

It axiomatizes the connection between fixed-point groups and original groups under automorphisms, and constructs explicit maps between semisimple conjugacy classes of dual groups.

Findings

Established conditions under which fixed-point groups are reductive.

Derived explicit formulas for maps between semisimple classes.

Applied results to finite fields, relating conjugacy classes and representation packets.

Abstract

Suppose that $\tilde{G}$ is a connected reductive group defined over a field $k$, and $\Gamma$ is a finite group acting via $k$-automorphisms of $\tilde{G}$ satisfying a certain quasi-semisimplicity condition. Then the connected part of the group of $\Gamma$-fixed points in $\tilde{G}$ is reductive. We axiomatize the main features of the relationship between this fixed-point group and the pair $(\tilde{G},\Gamma)$, and consider any group $G$, not just the $\Gamma$-fixed points of $\tilde{G}$, satisfying the axioms. (In fact, the axioms do not require $\Gamma$ to act on all of $\tilde{G}$.) If both $\tilde{G}$ and $G$ are $k$-quasisplit, then we can consider their duals $\tilde{G}^*$ and $G^*$. We show the existence of and give an explicit formula for a natural map from semisimple stable conjugacy classes in $G^*(k)$ to those in $\tilde{G}^*(k)$. If $k$ is finite, then our groups are automatically quasisplit, and our result specializes to give a map from semisimple conjugacy classes in $G^*(k)$ to those in $\tilde{G}^*(k)$. Since such classes parametrize packets of irreducible representations of $G(k)$ and $\tilde{G}(k)$, one obtains a mapping of such packets.