A note on Steinberg modules and Frobenius splitting (Q1922549)

By using that flag manifolds are Frobenius split the authors prove in this note that the Steinberg modules, i.e. the modules consisting of global sections of the line bundles induced by the characters \((p^n-1)\rho\), are self dual (and hence irreducible). Of course there are by now many proofs of this result. My own favorite is to obain it as a consequence of (a very special case of) the strong linkage principle.