Restrictions of characters in \(p\)-solvable groups (Q1984344)

The decomposition into irreducible characters of the restriction \(\chi_P\) of an irreducible character \(\chi\) of a finite group \(G\) to \(P\) a Sylow \(p\)-subgroup is a flourishing topic in finite group representation theory. If \(\chi\) has degree coprime to \(p\), then in \(\chi_P\) appears some linear character of \(P\). In fact, if \(P\) is self-normalizing and \(G\) is \(p\)-solvable or \(p\) odd then such a linear constituent is unique and it can be used to define bijections in the context of the McKay(-Navarro) conjecture, see [\textit{G. Navarro} et al., Algebra Number Theory 8, No. 8, 1839--1856 (2014; Zbl 1320.20010)]. If \(\chi\) has degree divisible by \(p\), then it is in general not true that \(\chi_P\) contains a linear constituent. \textit{E. Giannelli} and \textit{G. Navarro} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 146, No. 5, 1963--1976 (2018; Zbl 1403.20011)] studied the decomposition of the restriction \(\chi_P\) of characters of degree divisible by \(p\). They proved that, in symmetric groups, \(\chi_P\) has at least \(p\) different linear constituents. For \(p\)-solvable groups, they proved that if \(\chi_P\) contains a linear constituent \(\lambda\) then \(\chi_P\) contains the character \((\lambda_U)^P\) for some subgroup \(U \leq P\) of index \(p\). Moreover, they conjectured that if \(\chi_P\) contains a linear constituent, then it contains at least \(p\). \textit{E. Giannelli} and \textit{B. Sambale} later refined this conjecture introducing \(p\)-blocks [J. Algebra 558, 423--433 (2020; Zbl 1453.20012)]. More precisely, they proposed that if the restriction \(\chi_D\) of a character \(\chi\) of positive height lying in a \(p\)-block \(B\) to a defect group \(D\) of \(B\) has a linear constituent then, it has at least \(p\). The main contribution of the paper under review is to prove the above stated Giannelli-Sambale conjecture for \(p\)-solvable groups (Corollary 4). The authors obtain their Corollary 4 as a consequence of a more general result not involving blocks nor defect groups but restriction to Sylow subgroups and positive integer sums of characters induced from \(p\)-subgroups (Theorem 1). As they point out, the statement of Theorem 1 does not hold outside \(p\)-solvable groups. The authors propose instead a version of Theorem 1 involving integral sums of induced characters (Conjecture 5).