Characterization of supercuspidal representations and very regular elements

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that regular supercuspidal representations of p-adic groups are uniquely identified by their character values on very regular elements, providing new insights into their classification and connections to Langlands' theory.

Contribution

It introduces a novel characterization of supercuspidal representations via very regular elements and resolves a question of Kaletha regarding L-packets, extending Lusztig's finite field results to p-adic groups.

Findings

Unique determination of regular supercuspidal representations by character values on very regular elements

Description of Kaletha's L-packets mirroring Langlands' construction for real groups

Characterization of unipotent supercuspidal representations for large residue fields

Abstract

We prove that regular supercuspidal representations of $p$-adic groups are uniquely determined by their character values on very regular elements -- a special class of regular semisimple elements on which character formulae are very simple -- provided that this locus is sufficiently large. As a consequence, we resolve a question of Kaletha by giving a description of Kaletha's $L$-packets of regular supercuspidal representations which mirrors Langlands' construction for real groups following Harish-Chandra's characterization theorem for discrete series representations. Our techniques additionally characterize supercuspidal representations in general, giving $p$-adic analogues of results of Lusztig on reductive groups over finite fields. In particular, we establish an easy, non-cohomological characterization of unipotent supercuspidal representations when the residue field of the base field is sufficiently large.