New refinements of the McKay conjecture for arbitrary finite groups (Q1852710)

Let \(G\) be a finite group, \(p\) a prime, \(B\) a \(p\)-block of \(G\) with defect group \(D\) and \(b\) the Brauer correspondent of \(B\) in \(N_G(D)\). For an integer \(k\) not divisible by \(p\), let \(M_k(B)\) denote the number of irreducible characters \(\chi\) of height zero in \(B\) such that \(\chi(1)_{p'}\equiv\pm k\pmod p\). The authors conjecture that \(M_{ck}(B)=M_k(b)\) where \(c=|G:N_G(D)|_{p'}\). This is an important new idea which refines the well-known Alperin-McKay conjecture. The new conjecture has already been verified for \(p\)-solvable groups, for symmetric groups and for blocks with cyclic defect groups. It is also related to Broué's Abelian defect group conjecture. The authors offer an additional refinement of the Alperin-McKay conjecture in a different direction: Let \(\sigma\) be an automorphism of the cyclotomic field \(\mathbb{Q}_{|G|}\) which has \(p\)-power order and which fixes all \(p'\)-roots of unity in \(\mathbb{Q}_{|G|}\). Then they predict that \(\sigma\) fixes the same number of irreducible characters of height zero in \(B\) and in \(b\).