Irreducible characters of large degree of Sylow \(p\)-subgroups of classical groups. (Q1014617)

Let \(p\) be an odd prime, and let \(G\) be a Sylow \(p\)-subgroup of one of the classical groups over a field of size \(q\) and characteristic \(p\). As the author notes, the characters of the Sylow \(p\)-subgroup for the full linear group are well studied (see, for example, \textit{C. A. M. André} and \textit{A. M. Neto}, [J. Algebra 305, No. 1, 394-429 (2006; Zbl 1104.20041)]), but only partial results for the other classical groups have been previously obtained. In the present paper the author uses Kirillov's method of coadjoint orbits to describe all irreducible characters of sufficiently large degree for the Sylow \(p\)-subgroups of the classical groups, and uses these results to compute the largest degree \(q^{f(n)}\) of an irreducible character of \(G\) and the number \(d_n\) of characters of this degree. Specifically: for \(Sp_{2n}(q)\), \(f(n)=\tfrac 12n(n-1)\) with \(d_1=q\), \(d_2=q^2-1\) and \(d_n=(q-1)(d_{n-1}+d_{n-2})\) for \(n\geq 3\); for \(O_{2n}^+(q)\), \(f(n)=\tfrac 12n(n-2)\) with \(d_n=q^{(n+2)/2}(q-1)^{(n-2)/2}\) when \(n\) is even, and \(f(n)=\tfrac 12(n-1)^2\) with \(d_n=q^{(n-1)/2}(q-1)^{(n-1)/2}\) when \(n\) is odd; for \(O_{2n+1}(q)\), \(f(n)=\tfrac 12n(n-1)\) with \(d_n=q^{(n-2)/2}(q+1)(q-1)^{n/2}\) when \(n\) is even, and \(d_n=q^{(n+1)/2}(q-1)^{(n-1)/2}\) when \(n\) is odd; for \(O_{2n+2}^-(q)\), \(f(n)\) = \(\tfrac 12n^2\) with \(d_n=q^{n/2}(q-1)^{n/2}\) when \(n\) is even, and \(f(n)=\tfrac 12(n^2-1)\) with \(d_n=q^{(n+3)/2}(q-1)^{(n-1)/2}\) when \(n\) is odd; for \(U_{2n}(q^2)\), \(f(n)=n(n-1)\) with \(d_n=q(q-1)^{n-1}\); and for \(U_{2n+1}(q^2)\), \(f(n)=n^2\) with \(d_n=(q-1)^n\).