Equivariance and extendibility in finite reductive groups with connected center. (Q2435104)

The McKay conjecture for a given finite group \(G\) and a prime number \(\ell\) asserts that, if \(M\) is the stabilizer of a Sylow \(\ell\)-subgroup in \(G\), then the numbers of irreducible characters with degree prime to \(\ell\) are the same in \(G\) and \(M\). Although this has been confirmed for large numbers of groups, including, for example, all solvable groups and all symmetric groups, no general proof has yet been found. \textit{I. M. Isaacs, G. Malle} and \textit{G. Navarro} have reduced [in Invent. Math. 170, No. 1, 33-101 (2007; Zbl 1138.20010)] the McKay conjecture to a question about simple groups: they have given a list of conditions, known as ``the inductive McKay condition'', that they hope all simple groups will satisfy, and showed that the McKay conjecture will hold for a finite group \(G\) if every simple group involved in \(G\) satisfies these conditions. A key ingredient in these conditions is the existence of bijections, that have to be equivariant with respect to the action of certain automorphisms. This brings forth the question of checking equivariance for several correspondences of characters occurring in the representation theory of quasi-simple groups of Lie type, like for instance the Jordan decomposition of irreducible characters and the \(d\)-Harish-Chandra theory of unipotent characters. In the article under review, the authors establish and prove equivariance results about those correspondences to show the following result: the finite simple groups of types \(^3D_4\), \(E_8\), \(^2F_4\) and \(G_e\) satisfy the inductive McKay condition for all primes. The article contains also results on a corresponding inductive condition for the blockwise version of the Alperin weight conjecture.