Rigid local systems and finite general linear groups (Q2043075)

The paper continues a program of finding simple to remember families of exponential sums whose monodromy groups are certain finite groups of Lie type (developed in previous papers of Katz, Tiep, Gros, Rojas-León and others). The authors use hypergeometric sheaves on \(\mathbb{G}_m/\mathbb{F}_q\), which are particular sorts of rigid local systems, to construct explicit local systems whose arithmetic and geometric monodromy groups are the finite general linear groups \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) for any \(n\geq 2\) and any prime power \(q\), so long as \(q>3\) when \(n=2\). The novelty of this article is obtaining \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) in this hypergeometric way. A pullback construction then yields local systems on \(\mathbb{A}^1/\mathbb{F}_q\) whose geometric monodromy groups are \(\mathrm{SL}_n(q)\) which recover a construction of \textit{S. S. Abhyankar} [Isr. J. Math. 88, No. 1--3, 1--23 (1994; Zbl 0828.14014)].