Weil representations of unitary groups (Q1818833)

It is well known that the finite unitary group \(\text{U}_n(q)\), where \(q\) is a positive integral power of a prime \(p\), has a complex representation of degree \(q^n\). This representation may be normalized so that it has determinant \(1\) on each group element. The resulting representation is called a Weil representation of the unitary group (the name also applies to representations obtained by multiplying the determinant \(1\) representation by linear characters). The Weil representation is usually constructed by letting the unitary group act on a certain \(p\)-group and obtaining thereby a projective representation of degree \(q^n\), which is then shown to be equivalent to an ordinary representation. The Weil representation has \(q+1\) different irreducible constituents, each occurring with multiplicity \(1\), which may be labelled by the \(q+1\) different irreducible representations of the centre of the unitary group, which is cyclic of order \(q+1\). The paper under review undertakes to give reasonably explicit constructions of the irreducible constituents of the Weil representation and to realize them where possible over their character fields (when the Schur index is \(1\)). The author confines his attention to the cases where \(q\) is odd, so as to exploit the Weil representation of the symplectic group, and where \(n\) is even. In the latter case, there is a convenient maximal parabolic subgroup with abelian unipotent radical that may be exploited. The author tries to give explicit matrices that will conjugate the irreducible constituents into representations defined over minimal fields and so finds the Schur indices of these constituents. As the author explains, it is also possible to obtain most of his results by indirect methods, by taking into account the way in which the Weil representation splits into irreducible constituents when restricted to naturally occurring direct products of smaller unitary groups.