Characters of the Borel and Sylow subgroups of classical groups (Q1403894)

Let \(p\) be a prime and let \(q=p^d\), where \(d\) is a positive integer. Let \(G\) be a finite classical group over the field of order \(q\) and let \(U\) be a Sylow \(p\)-subgroup of \(G\). In this paper, the author essentially completes an investigation into the degrees of the irreducible complex characters of \(U\) begun by \textit{I. M. Isaacs} [J. Algebra 177, No. 3, 708-730 (1995; Zbl 0839.20010)] and \textit{A. Previtali} [Arch. Math. 65, No. 5, 375-378 (1995; Zbl 0860.20013)]. His main result is that if \(p\) is odd, the degrees of the irreducible complex characters of \(U\) are powers of \(q\). In the case that the classical groups are defined with respect to an involution, the proof uses the Cayley parametrization giving a bijection between additive and multiplicative structures. Special cases of this argument had already been used by Previtali. The corresponding result on the degrees when \(p=2\) is false in general, although Isaacs showed that it holds for \(\text{GL}(n,q)\). We are not sure what happens when \(G\) is a unitary group and \(p=2\). The author next considers the characters of the normalizer \(B\) of \(U\) in \(G\), which we may identify with a Borel subgroup of \(G\). Proving most of a conjecture of M. Geck, he shows that \(B\) is an \(M\)-group provided \(p\) is odd and \(G\) is not a unitary group. This means that each irreducible complex character of \(B\) is induced from a subgroup of \(B\). He also shows that in the non-exceptional cases, the degrees of the irreducible characters of \(B\) have the form \(q^r(q-1)^s2^k\) for suitable integers \(r\), \(s\) and \(k\) (note that \(k\) can be negative for certain families of groups).