Counting homomorphisms from surface groups to finite groups

DOI10.4153/S0008439524000420MaRDI QIDQ7021204zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Michael Klug

Publication date 28 February 2025

Published in Canadian Mathematical Bulletin (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.4153/S0008439524000420

zbMATH Keywords

compact non-orientable surfacescompact Riemann surfacescounting group homomorphismsFrobenius-Schur indicatorsurface group

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Ordinary representations and characters (20C15) Fundamental groups and their automorphisms (group-theoretic aspects) (20F34) Covering spaces and low-dimensional topology (57M10)

Review text

Let \(S_g\) be a compact non-orientable surface of genus \(g\). In a classical work, \textit{G. Frobenius} and \textit{I. Schur} [Berl. Ber. 1906, 186--208 (1906; JFM 37.0161.01)] determined the number of homomorphisms from the fundamental group of a closed non-orientable surface \(S_g\) to a finite group \(G\) in terms of certain invariants of \(G\) such as its order, the dimensions of its irreducible representations and the Frobenius-Schur indicators. Later, \textit{A. D. Mednykh} [Sov. Math., Dokl. 19, 318--320 (1978; Zbl 0395.30034); translation from Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 239, 269--271 (1978)] extended these ideas to the enumeration of non-equivalent coverings of compact Riemann surfaces.\N\NThe paper under review considers the case of compact non-orientable surfaces with boundary. The author establishes a formula that counts the number of homomorphisms from the fundamental group of such a surface to a finite group \(G\), under the constraint that the conjugacy classes of the boundary components must map to prescribed conjugacy classes in \(G\). The derived formula expresses this count as a sum over irreducible characters of \(G\), where the weights are given by the Frobenius-Schur indicators of these representations.\N\NThe author develops the proof using classical methods from character theory, following an approach that unifies results in the orientable and non-orientable cases. Furthermore, the paper discusses applications of this result to specific groups, including the symmetric group, demonstrating how representation-theoretic techniques can be used to obtain concrete counting formulas in algebraic and topological settings.

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