Grothendieck rings of periplectic Lie superalgebras (Q2053659)

The Grothendieck ring of a Lie (super) group or algebra is the \(\mathbb Z\)-module generated by its irreducible representations, modulo extensions, in the sense that direct sums and extensions have the same image within it. It may be thought as the \(\mathbb Z\)-module generated by the irreducible characters. For example, the Grothendieck ring of \(\mathrm{GL}(m)\) is \[ K \big(\mathrm{GL}(m) \big) \cong {\mathbb Z} \big[x_1^{\pm 1}, \ldots, x_m^{\pm 1} \big]^{\mathrm S_m}. \] The Grothendieck rings of the basic classical Lie superalgebras were described by Sergeev and Veselov in 2007. For example, the supercharacter ring of \(\mathrm{GL}(m|n)\) is the subring of \[ {\mathbb Z} \big[x_1^{\pm 1}, \ldots, x_m^{\pm 1}, y_1^{\pm 1}, \ldots, y_n^{\pm 1} \big]^{{\mathrm S}_m \times {\mathrm S}_n} \] of elements \(f\) such that \(f(t, x_2, \ldots, x_m, t, y_2, \ldots, y_n)\) is independent of \(t\). Here \textit{super}character means that the parity functor is taken to act by \(-1\) on the ring, as opposed to the character ring, where it acts by~\(1\). This article describes the supercharacter rings of the \textit{periplectic} Lie supergroup \(\mathrm P_n\) and superalgebra \(\mathfrak p(n)\), which preserve an odd symmetric non-degenerate form on an \((n|n)\)-dimensional superspace. The periplectic case is not basic classical: there is no invariant form on \(\mathfrak p(n)\). The main result is that the supercharacter ring of \(\mathrm{P}(n)\) is \[ \big\{ f \in {\mathbb Z} \big[x_1^{\pm 1}, \ldots, x_n^{\pm 1} \big]^{{\mathrm S}_n}: f(t, t^{-1}, x_3, \ldots, x_n) \mathrm{\ is\ independent\ of\ } t \big\}. \] The supercharacter rings of \(\mathfrak p(n)\) and the special cases \(\mathrm{SP}(n)\) and \(\mathfrak{sp}(n)\) are also given. Some important concepts are the Duflo-Serganova functor, translation functors, thin Kac modules, and the Weyl groupoid.