Sheaves on buildings and modular representations of Chevalley groups (Q1083545): Difference between revisions

Let \(\Delta\) be a building for a Chevalley group G of rank n, in the sense of \textit{J. Tits} [Buildings of spherical type and finite BN-pairs (Lect. Notes Math. 386, 1974; Zbl 0295.20047)]. For buildings of type \(A_ n\), discrete series representations were constructed by \textit{G. Lusztig} [The discrete series of \(GL_ n\) over a finite field (Ann. Math. Stud. 81, 1974; Zbl 0293.20038)] by means of homology of the (n-1)- dimensional simplicial complex \(\Delta\) with a special system of coefficients, in the natural characteristic p. \textit{P. Deligne} and \textit{G. Lusztig} [J. Algebra 74, 284-291 (1982; Zbl 0482.20027)] obtained a duality between certain representations by means of coefficient homology. The coefficient systems can be described as fixed point sheaves \(F_ V\) introduced in the present paper, where V is a G-module. The authors work over the natural field k of definition of G rather than in characteristic 0. Their approach associates to a given kG module V the fixed point sheaf \(F_ V\) by attaching to each parabolic subgroup P of G the subspace \(V^ U\) fixed by the unipotent radical U of P. The paper focuses attention on the zero-homology of natural irreducible sheaves \(F_ V.\) It is shown that the homology module may be reducible but is indecomposable with a unique maximal submodule S whose quotient is isomorphic to V. This is used to formulate an algorithm for constructing V from \(H_ 0(F_ V)\). For W a quotient of the latter, the space \(W^ U\) is computed in terms of \(F_ W\). Then \(S^ U\) is computed, where \(W^ U=V^ U\oplus S^ U\) and the submodule \(S'=<F_ S>\) of S is generated by the \(S^ U\). One then iterates with W/S' in place of W. While the precise nature of S is not as yet very well understood, it is 0 for minimal weight modules, which are the subject of the paper's main result. Let M be an irreducible minimal weight module. Then \(H_ 0(F_ M)\) is isomorphic to M, except when G is of type \(C_ n\) and k is of characteristic 2. In the latter case, M is 2n-dimensional but \(H_ 0(F_ M)\) is isomorphic to the orthogonal module of dimension \(2n+1\). A uniform geometric proof based on roots and apartments is given for all but the exceptional case, in which calculations inside the modules are needed.