Irreducibility of infinite dimensional Steinberg modules of reductive groups with Frobenius maps (Q1999779)

Let \(G\) be the group of \(\bar{\mathbb F}_q\)-rational points in a connected reductive group defined over the finite field \({\mathbb F}_q\). In this paper, it is proved that the infinite dimensional Steinberg module of \(kG\) defined by \textit{N. Xi} [Sci. China, Math. 57, No. 6, 1109--1120 (2014; Zbl 1312.20041)] is irreducible when \(k\) is a field of positive characteristic and \(\mathrm{char}\; k \neq \mathrm{char}\; {\mathbb F}_q\). Together with the earlier work of Xi [loc. cit.] this means that the Steinberg module is irreducible for any field \(k\). While there are standard ways to view \(G\) as a filtering limit of finite subgroups, it is shown that the Steinberg module cannot always be viewed as a corresponding limit of irreducible submodules for the chosen subgroups.