Pseudocharacters of Classical Groups

TL;DR

This paper extends the concept of pseudocharacters from classical groups to general reductive groups, providing finite presentations and explicit constructions, thereby advancing the understanding of representation classification and conjugacy relations.

Contribution

It introduces FFG-algebras to generalize pseudocharacters for reductive groups, proves their finite presentation, and offers explicit invariant-theoretic descriptions for orthogonal, symplectic, and special orthogonal groups.

Findings

FFG-algebras are finitely presented for all considered groups.

Explicit finite presentations are provided for classical groups.

Results inform conjugacy and element-conjugacy distinctions in representations.

Abstract

A $GL_d$-pseudocharacter is a function from a group $\Gamma$ to a ring $k$ satisfying polynomial relations which make it "look like" the character of a representation. When $k$ is an algebraically closed field, Taylor proved that $GL_d$-pseudocharacters of $\Gamma$ are the same as degree-$d$ characters of $\Gamma$ with values in $k$, hence are in bijection with equivalence classes of semisimple representations $\Gamma \rightarrow GL_d(k)$. Recently, V. Lafforgue generalized this result by showing that, for any connected reductive group $H$ over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic 0 and for any group $\Gamma$, there exists an infinite collection of functions and relations which are naturally in bijection with $H^0(k)$-conjugacy classes of semisimple representations $\Gamma \rightarrow H(k)$. In this paper, we reformulate Lafforgue's result in terms of a new algebraic object called an FFG-algebra. We then define generating sets and generating relations for these objects and show that, for all $H$ as above, the corresponding FFG-algebra is finitely presented. Hence we can always define $H$-pseudocharacters consisting of finitely many functions satisfying finitely many relations. Next, we use invariant theory to give explicit finite presentations of the FFG-algebras for (general) orthogonal groups, (general) symplectic groups, and special orthogonal groups. Finally, we use our pseudocharacters to answer questions about conjugacy vs. element-conjugacy of representations, following Larsen.