Construction of irreducible unitary representations of the infinite symmetric group \({\mathfrak S}_ \infty\) (Q1181053)

Representation theory of the infinite symmetric group \(G=S_ \mathbb{N}\), the group of all finite permutations of \(\mathbb{N}\), has been a matter of interest for some time and studied by several authors. \(G\) being not of type \(I\) it is hopeless to determine all its irreducible unitary representations. In the paper under review the author applies the results of his previous work [Jap. J. Math., New Ser. 16, No. 2, 197-268 (1990; Zbl 0729.22007)] to obtain a large variety of irreducible representations of \(G\) that have not been known so far. The construction is too complicated to be outlined in detail. However, the basic idea is to consider a set \({\mathfrak H}\) of subgroups, called standard, of \(G\) and representations of \(G\) induced from finite dimensional or certain infinite dimensional irreducible unitary representations of \(H\), \(H\in{\mathfrak H}\). These standard subgroups are essentially defined by imbedding wreath products (as studied in the paper cited above) into \(G\) and taking their restricted direct products. Standard subgroups satisfy some important properties with respect to commensurability of conjugates. For \(H\in{\mathfrak H}\) and a finite dimensional irreducible representation \(\pi\) of \(H\), the induced representation \(\text{ind}^ G_ H\pi\) is irreducible, and any two such representations, \(\text{ind}^ G_ H\pi\) and \(\text{ind}^ G_{H'}\pi'\), are equivalent if and only if the pairs \((H,\pi)\) and \((H',\pi')\) are conjugate, that is, \(H'=H^ x\) and \(\pi'=\pi^ x\) for some \(x\in G\). It is worth being mentioned that all the irreducible representations of \(G\) which have previously been found arise this way. The situation becomes much more intricate when \(\pi\) is not finite dimensional anymore. Nevertheless, for certain irreducible \(\pi\) which are given as infinite tensor products on \(H\in{\mathfrak H}\), the induced representations are still irreducible. Yet, equivalence criteria turn out to be fairly complicated (compare Section 8). The author is very careful in motivating and explaining the procedure. He also remarks that the methods of the paper can well be applied to other discrete groups such as \(SL(\infty,\mathbb{F}_ q)\) and \(GL(\infty,\mathbb{F}_ q)\).