The regular irreducible components of induced cuspidal characters (Q1895582)

Let \(G\) be a connected reductive algebraic group over an algebraically closed field \(k\) of characteristic \(p>0\) defined over a finite field \(\mathbb{F}_q\) of \(q\) elements with Frobenius map \(F\). Let \(G=G_F\) be the finite subgroup of \(G\) consisting of all \(\mathbb{F}_q\)-rational points. The paper deals with the irreducible components of the Gelfand-Graev characters of \(G\). These were described, for groups with connected center, by Deligne and Lusztig in terms of the virtual characters \(\{R^G_{T,\theta}\}\); and in the general case by the \textit{F. Digne} and \textit{J. Michel} [in Representations of finite groups of Lie type (Lond. Math. Soc. Stud. Texts 21, 1991; Zbl 0815.20014), Sect. 14]. Curtis described these components in terms of homomorphisms from the corresponding Hecke algebra into \(\mathbb{C}\). In the paper under review the author describes the irreducible components of the Gelfand-Graev characters in another way, in terms of their Harish-Chandra series in the theory of Howlett and Lehrer [see \textit{R. B. Howlett} and \textit{G. I. Lehrer}, Invent. Math. 58, 37-64 (1980; Zbl 0435.20023)] on the decomposition of induced characters \(R^G_{L_I} \lambda\), where \(\lambda\) is an irreducible cuspidal character of the standard Levi subgroup \(L_I\) of \(G\). The main result of the paper states that the irreducible components of \(R^G_{L_I} \lambda\) that are also components of Gelfand-Graev characters (i.e., those that are regular characters) correspond, under the Howlett-Lehrer character correspondence, to certain irreducible characters of the ramification group \(W(\lambda)\), which can be viewed as generalized sign characters. This extends a result of Kilmoyer for the principal series case (that is, when \(L_I\) is a torus). Along the way the author generalizes other results of Howlett, Howlett and Kilmoyer, and Curtis, which were originally obtained for the principal series case.