Galois group action and Jordan decomposition of characters of finite reductive groups with connected center (Q2182372)

This paper concerns the ordinary representation theory of finite reductive groups. If we take a finite reductive group \(\mathbf{G}^F\) and let \(m\) be its exponent and \(\zeta\) a primitive complex \(m\)th root of unity, then the ordinary irreducible characters of \(\mathbf{G}^F\) are defined over \(\mathbb Q(\zeta)\), and the Galois group of this field naturally acts on the irreducible characters. The aim of the paper is to determine this action in terms of the labelling of a character by its Jordan decomposition \((s_0,\nu)\), where \(s_0\) is a semisimple element in the dual group \((\mathbf G^\ast)^{F^\ast}\) and \(\nu\) is a unipotent characterof \(C_{\mathbf G^\ast}(s_0)^{F^\ast}\). The main result says that provided \(\mathbf G\) is connected with connected centre, the action has a natural description: the element of the Galois group defined by \(\zeta\mapsto\zeta^r\) sends the character with Jordan decomposition \((s_0,\nu)\) to the character with Jordan decomposition \((s_0^r,{}^\sigma\nu)\). The proof is well-organised, and the authors do not often have to resort to case-by-case analysis. The paper ends with two corollaries on the field of definition of a character, including a simple sufficient condition for a character to be rational-valued.