Character products of association schemes. (Q1763741)

Let \(X\) be a finite set, and \(G\subset X\times X\) an association scheme. For any \(g\in G\) we denote the adjacency matrix of \(g\) by \(\sigma_g\). Let \(\mathbb{C} G=\bigoplus_{g\in G}\mathbb{C}\sigma_g\) -- this is called the adjacency algebra of \(G\) (over \(\mathbb{C}\)). A matrix representation of \(\mathbb{C} G\) is called a representation of \(G\), and a character of \(G\) is the character of a representation of \(\mathbb{C} G\). It is known that, unlike the case where \(G\) is a finite group, the set of characters of \(G\) is in general not closed under multiplication. Here the product of two characters \(\chi,\varphi\) is given by \(\chi\varphi(\sigma_g)=n_g^{-1}\chi(\sigma_g)\varphi(\sigma_g)\), where \(n_g\) is the valency of \(g\). Let \(H\) be the intersection of all strongly normal closed subsets of \(G\) -- this is called the thin residue of \(G\). The irreducible characters of the factor scheme \(G//H\) can be viewed as irreducible characters of \(G\). The main result of this paper states that if \(\chi\in\text{Irr}(G//H)\) and \(\varphi\) is a character of \(G\) then the product \(\chi\varphi\) is also a character of \(G\). Furthermore, if \(\varphi\) is irreducible, so is \(\chi\varphi\), and \(\varphi\) and \(\chi\varphi\) have the same multiplicities. The adjacency algebra \(\mathbb{C} G\) is closed under the Hadamard (entrywise) product. It is shown that the character product described above is a natural generalization of the Hadamard product on primitive idempotents.