On Kaplansky's fifth conjecture (Q1270991)

Kaplansky conjectured that the antipode of a semisimple Hopf algebra is an involution. In the case that the ground field is of characteristic zero, this conjecture was confirmed by \textit{R. G. Larson} and \textit{D. E. Radford} [Am. J. Math. 110, No. 1, 187-195 (1988; Zbl 0637.16006) and J. Algebra 117, No. 2, 267-289 (1988; Zbl 0649.16005)] (cf. also \textit{D. S. Passman} and \textit{D. Quinn} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 347, No. 7, 2657-2668 (1995; Zbl 0836.16025)] for a more direct proof using only minimal prerequisites). The main goal of the paper under review is to extend this to fields of large prime characteristic (or more precisely, to fields of characteristic \(p>m^{m-4}\), where \(m\) is twice the dimension of the semisimple Hopf algebra under consideration). In a first step the author shows that every finite-dimensional Hopf algebra can be embedded into another finite-dimensional Hopf algebra for which the square of the antipode is just conjugation with a group-like element. (Note that in the semisimple case the square of the antipode is always an inner automorphism, i.e., conjugation with an arbitrary element.) The main ingredient in the second step is an analysis of the character ring of a semisimple Hopf algebra. Techniques relying on investigating the structure of the character ring were also employed by other authors in studying Kaplansly's sixth and eighth conjecture, respectively. Most of the rest of the paper is then devoted to study the character of the (left) adjoint representation of a semisimple Hopf algebra over an algebraically closed field since it comes from the Casimir element of the character ring. Hence the invertibility of the character of the adjoint representation will imply that the character ring is separable. In a concluding short last section the author uses a combination of the criterion for the invertibility of the character of the adjoint representation with the embedding from the first step and results obtained by R. G. Larson and D. E. Radford in the papers cited above to prove that every semisimple Hopf algebra \(H\) over an arbitrary field of characteristic \(p>m^{m-4}\), where \(m:=2\cdot\dim H\), is cosemisimple and thus as a consequence also is involutory (i.e., the antipode of \(H\) is an involution).