Character value estimates for groups of Lie type (Q1183121)

Let \(G\) be a finite group of Lie-type defined over a field with \(q\) elements, let \(\chi\) be a non-linear irreducible character over the complex numbers and let \(x\in G\) be semisimple of prime order modulo \(Z(G)\). Apart from some exceptions in characteristic 2 and 3 the author establishes a universal bound \(C\) independent of \(G\), \(\chi\) and \(x\) such that \(| \chi(x)/\chi(1)|\leq C/q\). If \(\chi\) is the doubly transitive permutation character of \(GL(n,q)\) and \(x\) centralizes a hyperplane in the projective space \(PG(n-1,q)\), then \(| \chi(x)/\chi(1)|\) approaches \(1/q\) for \(n\) large which shows that the order of the bound in \(q\) is best possible. The proof which does not use Deligne-Lusztig's character theory runs the following way. If \(x\) is not contained in a proper parabolic subgroup, then by orthogonality \(|\chi(x)|\leq| C_ G(x)|^{1/2}\) which leads to a constant \(C\) applying Landazuri-Seitz's result on minimal degrees and the fact that \(C_ G(x)\) is essentially a torus. In the more difficult case, when \(x\) is contained in a proper maximal parabolic subgroup \(P_ J\), the author splits \(\chi_{P_ J}=\chi_ 1+\chi_ 2+\chi_ 3+\chi_ 4\) where \(\chi_ 1\) contains linear characters of \(P_ J\), \(\chi_ 2\) non-linear irreducible characters of \(P_ J\) containing the unipotent radical \(U_ J\) in its kernel, \(\chi_ 3\) resp. \(\chi_ 4\) irreducible characters lying over non- trivial characters of \(U_ J\) and invariant (resp. non-invariant) under the commutator group of the Levi complement \(L_ J\). A very careful analysis is then done to get upper bounds for the occuring multiplicities and the absolute character values in each case. Sharper bounds, which the author has obtained in the meantime, will appear in the Journal of Algebra.