An analog of nilpotence arising from supercharacter theory (Q2193227)

This paper generalizes certain group theoretic concepts, such as the center and nilpotence, to a supercharacter theoretic setting. A supercharacter theory on a finite group \(G\) is a pair \(\mathsf{S}= (\mathcal{X},\mathcal{K})\), where \(\mathcal{X}\) is a partition of the set of irreducible characters of \(G\), and \(\mathcal{K}\) is a partition of the group \(G\), such that \(\vert\mathcal{X}\vert=\vert\mathcal{K}\vert\), and such that for every part \(X\in \mathcal{X}\), the basic \(\mathsf{S}\)-character \(\sigma_X= \sum_{\chi\in X} \chi(1)\chi \) is constant on every member of \(\mathcal{K}\). The members of \(\mathcal{K}\) are called \(\mathsf{S}\)-classes, and are unions of conjugacy classes of \(G\). The ordinary character theory of \(G\) is a trivial example of a supercharacter theory, where every member of \(\mathcal{X}\) is a singleton, and every member of \(\mathcal{K}\) is a conjugacy class of \(G\). The author studies \(\mathsf{S}\)-analogues of the center, the commutator subgroup, and the upper and lower central series of a group, and finally \(\mathsf{S}\)-nilpotence. When \(\mathsf{S}\) is the ordinary character theory, these concepts reduce to the corresponding concepts from group theory. For example, the \(\mathsf{S}\)-center of \(G\) is defined to be the set of all elements \(g\in G\) such that \(\{g\}\) is an \(\mathsf{S}\)-class. When \(\mathsf{S}\) is the ordinary character theory, this is just the center of \(G\) in the usual sense. One of the main results of the paper is that when a group is \(\mathsf{S}\)-nilpotent, then \(\sigma(1)\) divides \(\vert G:\ker \sigma\vert\) for each basic \(\mathsf{S}\)-character \(\sigma\), and \(\vert K\vert\) divides \(\vert G\vert\) for each \(\mathsf{S}\)-class \(K\). For \(p\)-groups, a converse is shown to hold. (A \(p\)-group may or may not be \(\mathsf{S}\)-nilpotent with respect to a given supercharacter theory \(\mathsf{S}\).) The author also applies his results to the particular supercharacter theory on algebra groups that was defined by \textit{P. Diaconis} and \textit{I. M. Isaacs} [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 360, No. 5, 2359--2392 (2008; Zbl 1137.20008)]. Reviewer's remark: There is also a concept of nilpotence for based rings defined by \textit{S. Gelaki} and \textit{D. Nikshych} [Adv. Math. 217, No. 3, 1053--1071 (2008; Zbl 1168.18004)]. The based ring of characters constant on \(\mathsf{S}\)-classes, as well as the based ring generated by the \(\mathsf{S}\)-class sums, is nilpotent in the sense of Gelaki and Nikshych [loc. cit.] if and only if \(G\) is \(\mathsf{S}\)-nilpotent in the sense of the paper under review.