The 3- and 5-modular characters of the covering and the automorphism groups of the Higman-Sims group (Q1188135)

The 3- and 5-modular characters and decomposition matrices of the double cover \(2\cdot HS\) of the Higman-Sims group and of the (isoclinic) covers \(2\cdot HS:2\) of its automorphism group are determined. While the 3- modular case can be handled by hand, computer calculations are necessary for the prime 5 in the following steps. 1. Find via R. Parker's Meat-Axe irreducible constituents of tensor products of the 28-dimensional matrix representation of \(2\cdot HS\) over \(GF(5)\) (see the preceding review Zbl 0783.20010) and test for equivalence of the resulting matrix representations. 2. Use trial and error to obtain a presentation for \(2\cdot HS\) from Norton's presentation for \(HS\). Find via coset enumeration with respect to a certain subgroup isomorphic to \(A_ 8\) the permutation representation for \(2\cdot HS\) on 4400 points. 3. The corresponding matrix representation \(P\) over \(GF(5)\) is too big for the Meat-Axe programs; the method of condensation reduces this to a 400-dimensional representation for the ``Hecke algebra'' which yields irreducible constituents for \(P\).