Vanishing evaluations of simple functors (Q392400): Difference between revisions

Recall that for two finite groups \(G\) and \(H\), the Burnside group \(B(G, H)\) is the Grothendieck group of the category of finite \((G, H)\)-bisets and, for a field \(k\), denote \(kB(G,H) =k \otimes_{\mathbb Z}B(G, H)\). The biset category \(k{\mathcal C}\) is the \(k\)-linear category whose objects are finite groups, with morphisms \(\text{Hom}kC(H, G) = kB(G, H)\). The composition is given by the products \(U \times_H V\) of bisets. A biset functor is a \(k\)-linear functor from \(k{\mathcal C}\) to the category of \(k\)-vector spaces. A biset functor is called simple if it is non-zero and has no proper non-zero subfunctor. The simple biset functors are parametrized by equivalence classes of pairs \((H, V)\), where \(H\) is a finite group and \(V\) is a simple \(k\text{Out}(H)\)-module. This paper is devoted to the problem of describing the evaluation of simple functors at specific finite groups, more specifically, whether such evaluations are vanishing or non-vanishing. These questions appear to be quite difficult, as no closed formula for the evaluation of a simple functor is known. The authors give several conditions which guarantee the non-vanishing of the evaluation \(S_{H,V} (G)\) of the simple functor \(S_{H,V}\) at the finite group \(G\). Then they provide a closed formula for the evaluation \(S_{H,V}(G)\) under some restrictive conditions on \(G\), formula which implies a criterion for the vanishing of this evaluation. Various examples are also presented.