Basic characters of the unitriangular group (Q1895621)

Let \(U_n(q)\) be the unitriangular group of degree \(n\) over the finite field \(\mathbb{F}_q\) with \(q\) elements, \(q=p^e\), \(p\geq n\). The notions of elementary and basic characters are introduced. The elementary characters are parametrized by pairs from \(\Phi(n)=\{(i,j);\;1\leq i<j\leq n\}\) and by non-zero elements of the field \(\mathbb{F}_q\). A subset \(D\) of \(\Phi(n)\) is said to be basic if \(D\) contains at most one element from each row and at most one element from each column. The basic characters are in one-to-one correspondence with pairs \((D,\phi)\), where \(D\) is a basic subset of \(\Phi(n)\) and \(\phi:D\to\mathbb{F}^*_q\) is a map. Any product of elementary characters can be reduced to a sum of basic characters. If \(\chi\) is an irreducible character of \(U_n(q)\) then \(\chi\) is a constituent of a unique basic character of \(U_n(q)\). Similar results were obtained by \textit{A. Yu. Okun'kov} [Usp. Mat. Nauk 49, No. 4(298), 147-148 (1994; Zbl 0834.22014)] without restriction on the characteristic of the field.