Stability of the centers of group algebras of \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) (Q2419278)

Stability properties for symmetric groups and wreath products have been established by \textit{H. K. Farahat} and \textit{G. Higman} [Proc. R. Soc. Lond., Ser. A 250, 212--221 (1959; Zbl 0084.03004)] and \textit{W. Wang} [Adv. Math. 187, No. 2, 417--446 (2004; Zbl 1112.19001)], respectively. In algebraic geometry, similar stability results have been verified for the Hilbert schemes of points on algebraic surfaces by Wei-Ping Li, the reviewer, and Weiqiang Wang [\textit{W.-P. Li} et al., Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 356, No. 1, 245--265 (2004; Zbl 1023.14001)]. In this paper, the authors formulate and establish a stability result for the centers of the integral group algebras of general linear groups over finite fields. Let \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) be the general linear group over a finite field \(\mathbb F_q\). An element in \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) is called a reflection if its fixed point subspace in \(\mathbb F_q^n\) has co-dimension one. The set of reflections in \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) forms a generating set for \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\), and the reflection length of a general element \(g \in \mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) is by definition the length of any reduced word of \(g\) in terms of the reflections. The center \(\mathcal Z_n(q)\) of the integral group algebra of \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) is a filtered algebra with a basis of conjugacy class sums with respect to the reflection length. It is known that the conjugacy classes of \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) are parametrized by the types \(\boldsymbol \lambda = (\boldsymbol \lambda(f))_{f \in \Phi}\) where \(\Phi\) is the set of monic irreducible polynomials (other than \(t\)) in \(\mathbb F_q[t]\) of degree \(n\) and each \(\boldsymbol \lambda(f)\) is a partition. For a modified type \(\boldsymbol \lambda\) with \(\Vert \boldsymbol \lambda \Vert + \ell(\boldsymbol \lambda(t-1)) \le n\), let \(K_{\boldsymbol \lambda}(n)\) be the corresponding conjugacy class sum in \(\mathrm{GL}_n(q)\). The main theorem asserts that if \(\Vert \boldsymbol \nu \Vert = \Vert \boldsymbol \lambda \Vert + \Vert \boldsymbol \mu \Vert\), then the coefficient \(a_{\boldsymbol \lambda \boldsymbol \mu}^{\boldsymbol \nu}(n)\) of \(K_{\boldsymbol \nu}(n)\) in the product \(K_{\boldsymbol \lambda}(n) K_{\boldsymbol \mu}(n) \in \mathcal Z_n(q)\) is independent of \(n\). A key ingredient in the proof is the existence of a certain normal form for a triple \((g, h, gh) \in \mathrm{GL}_\infty(q)\) of modified types \(\boldsymbol \lambda, \boldsymbol \mu, \boldsymbol \nu\) satisfying \(\Vert \boldsymbol \nu \Vert = \Vert \boldsymbol \lambda \Vert + \Vert \boldsymbol \mu \Vert\). It follows that the associated graded algebra \(\mathcal G_n(q)\) of \(\mathcal Z_n(q)\) has structure constants independent of \(n\). Moreover, the authors are able to introduce a graded \(\mathbb Z\)-algebra \(\mathcal G(q)\) with a basis given by the symbols \(K_{\boldsymbol \lambda}\) indexed by \(\boldsymbol \lambda\), whose multiplication has structure constants \(a_{\boldsymbol \lambda \boldsymbol \mu}^{\boldsymbol \nu}\) for \(\Vert \boldsymbol \nu \Vert = \Vert \boldsymbol \lambda \Vert + \Vert \boldsymbol \mu \Vert\). The paper ends with some explicit calculations of the structure constants and with a few conjectures and further research directions.