Mass formulas for local Galois representations to wreath products and cross products (Q1005870)

Using \textit{J.-P. Serre}'s mass formula [C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris, Sér. A 286, 1031--1036 (1978; Zbl 0388.12005)] which counts totally ramified extensions of degree \(n\) of a local field \(K\), \textit{M. Bhargava} proved a mass formula which counts isomorphism classes of étale extensions of degree \(n\) over \(K\) [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2007, No. 17, Article ID rnm052, 20 p. (2007; Zbl 1145.11080)]. This was translated by \textit{K. S. Kedlaya} into a formula for counting Galois representations to \(S_n\) [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2007, No. 17, Article ID rnm021, 25 p. (2007; Zbl 1175.11071)]. More precisely: \[ \displaystyle{ 1 \over n!} \;\displaystyle\mathop\sum_\rho\;\displaystyle{1 \over q^{c(\rho)}} = \displaystyle\sum^{n-1}_{k = 0}\;p(k, n-k)\;q^{-k}_K, \] where \(\rho\) runs over all representations \(\text{Gal}\;(K^{\text{sep}}/K) \to S_n\), \(c(\rho)\) denotes the Artin conductor of \(\rho\) composed with the standard representation \(S_n \to \text{GL}_N({\mathbb C}),\) \(q_K\) is the cardinal of the residual field of \(K\) and \(p (k, n-k)\) is the number of partitions of \(k\) into at most \((n-k)\) parts. This motivates the following definitions: for a finite group \(\Gamma\), let \(S_{K, \Gamma}\) denote the set of continuous homomorphisms \(\text{Gal}(K^{\text{sep}}/K) \to \Gamma\); given a function \(c: S_{K, \Gamma} \to \mathbb N\), define the total mass of \((K, \Gamma, c)\) to be \[ M (K, \Gamma, c)\;:=\;\displaystyle\sum_{\rho \in S_{K, \Gamma}} \;\displaystyle{1 \over q_K^{c(\rho)}}\qquad \text{(this sum could diverge)}; \] a counting function for \(\Gamma\) is any function \(c: \displaystyle\mathop\bigcup_{K} S_{K, \Gamma} \to {\mathbb N}\) such that \(c(\rho) = c (\gamma \rho \gamma^{-1})\) for any \(\gamma \in \Gamma\). Let \(S\) be an isomorphism class of local fields. One says that \((\Gamma, c)\) has a mass formula for \(S\) if there exists \(f(X) \in \mathbb Z[X]\) such that for all \(K \in S\) one has \(M(K, \Gamma, c) = f \Bigl( {\displaystyle 1 \over q_K}\Bigl),\) and \(\Gamma\) has a mass formula for \(S\) if there is a \(c\) such that \((\Gamma, c)\) has a mass formula for \(S\). The main result of this paper says that any permutation group that can be constructed from symmetric groups using wreath products and cross products has a mass formula for all local fields. Actually, if groups \(A\) and \(B\) have certain refined mass formulas, then \(A \wr B\) and \(A \times B\) have also such refined mass formulas, and the main result is proved inductively. The Barghava-Kedlaya mass formula for \(S_n\) is a basic case. A corollary is that any group formed from symmetric groups as above has a rational character table.