Tensor products as induced representations: the case of finite \(\mathrm{GL}(3)\). (Q2435967)

For a finite group \(G\) and irreducible complex representations \(V_1,V_2\) a central problem is to determine the Clebsch-Gordan decomposition for \(V_1\otimes V_2=\sum_{j\in\widehat G}n_jW_j\). For the groups \(\mathrm{GL}(2,\mathbb F_q)\), \(\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb F_q)\) the Clebsch-Gordan decomposition has been carried out by the authors of this note [in \textit{L. Aburto-Hageman} and \textit{J. Pantoja}, Commun. Algebra 28, No. 5, 2507-2514 (2000; Zbl 0958.20035)]. In this note the authors present results for the group \(\mathrm{GL}(3,\mathbb F_q) \) and present a conjecture for the general linear group. More precisely, it is shown that tensor products of two irreducible representations of the group \(\mathrm{GL}(3,\mathbb F_q)\) are equal to a sum of induced representations by linear characters from tori of \(G\), up to adequate lower dimensional correcting terms. The authors consider generic irreducible representations, since the nongeneric or degenerate lower dimensional irreducible representations may be obtained from limiting cases of the generic ones. They show an algorithm which allows to obtain results for the nongeneric representations from the generic ones. Depending on the series of representations to which an irreducible representation belongs, a torus is associated in the natural way. When the authors deal with two irreducible representations of the same series, they use the corresponding torus to induce. When the two irreducible representations belong to different series, they obtain two descriptions, one in terms of each torus. However, another approach is also possible. Another result describes the sum of these two Gelfand-Graev representations, as the tensor product of a discrete series representation and a principal series representation of \(G\). The authors conjecture that similar result should hold in the general case of dimension \(n\). Finally, the authors compute the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients for the tensor product of two cuspidal representations of \(G\). The introduction of the note presents an excellent up to date of the status of the Clebsch-Gordan problem for real Lie groups, \(p\)-adic groups, as well as connections of the Clebsch-Gordan problem with special functions, Gelfand-models and other areas of representation theory.