The projective representations of the hyperoctahedral group (Q1183309)

In this interesting paper the author gives a construction of all the irreducible representations and also determines the corresponding characters of the seven distinct non-split double covers of the hyperoctahedral group \(W_ n\) (for \(n\geq 4\)). This group, the Weyl group of the root system \(B_ n\), is the wreath product of a cyclic group of order 2 with the symmetric group of degree \(n\). From the introduction: ``Given the close connections between the linear representations of \(W_ n\) and the symmetric groups \(S_ n\), it is natural to expect that similar connections exist for projective representations. Indeed, the main result of this paper is the fact that the projective representations of \(W_ n\) can be explicitly constructed from the linear and projective representations of symmetric groups. To be fair, we should modify this by adding two qualifications. First, one should add to this list the representation obtained by restricting the basic spin representation of \(O_ n\) to \(W_ n\) (embedded via the reflection representation). Second, to make the constructions completely explicit, one also needs to have at hand the irreducible decomposition of each symmetric group module with respect to the alternating subgroup. In the projective case, this can be obtained as a corollary of Nazarov's work but curiously, in the linear case, there does not appear to be any known solution in the vast literature on representations of the symmetric group.'' It should be mentioned that the author as a corollary also obtains similar complete results for the Weyl group of the root system of type \(D_ n\), which is a subgroup of index 2 in \(W_ n\).