Augmentation quotients for complex representation rings of dihedral groups. (Q1758567)

Let \(G\) be a finite group and \(\mathrm{GL}_d(\mathbb C)\) be the complex linear group of rank \(d\). The complex representation ring \(R(G)\) is defined in the following way. Every group homomorphism \(\rho\colon G\to\mathrm{GL}_d(\mathbb C)\) is said to be a complex matrix representation of \(G\) in \(\mathrm{GL}_d(\mathbb C)\) of degree \(d\). Two representations \(\rho\) and \(\sigma\) of \(G\) are similar if there exists an invertible matrix \(P\) such that \(\sigma(g)=P^{-1}\rho(g)P\) for all elements \(g\in G\). Since the similarity of representations is an equivalence relation, let \(\overline\rho\) be the similarity class of \(\rho\). Then the complex representation ring \(R(G)\) is the set of all classes \(\overline\rho\), where the addition and the multiplication are induced by the direct sum and the tensor product of matrices, respectively. If \(G\) is a finite Abelian group, then \(R(G)\cong\mathbb ZG\), where \(\mathbb ZG\) is the integral group ring of \(G\). The notion of degree of a representation induces a ring homomorphism \(\Phi\colon R(G)\to\mathbb Z\) with kernel \(\Delta(G)\). Let \(\Delta^n(G)\) and \(Q_n(G)\) denote the \(n\)-th power of \(\Delta(G)\) and \(n\)-th consecutive quotient group \(\Delta^n(G)/\Delta^{n+1}(G)\), respectively. For any natural number \(n\) the authors show that \(Q_n(G)\) is a finite Abelian \(|G|\)-torsion group and \(\Delta^n(G)\) has rank \(c(G)-1\), where \(c(G)\) is the number of conjugacy classes of \(G\). Moreover, if \(G\) is a finite Abelian group, then \(Q_n(G)\cong I^n/I^{n+1}\), where \(I\) is the augmentation ideal of \(\mathbb ZG\). The main results are for the dihedral group \(D_m\) of order \(2m\). In this case the authors determine \(Q_n(D_m)\) as direct sum of cyclic groups for each positive integer \(n\).