A remark on a conjecture of Derksen (Q2453705)

In [Adv. Math. 185, No. 2, 207--214 (2004; Zbl 1067.13002)], \textit{H. Derksen} made the following conjecture: suppose that \(G\) is a finite group acting linearly on a vector space \(V\) over a field \(K\) whose characteristic does not divide \(|G|\). Then the \(p\)-syzygies of the ring of invariants \(\text{Sym}(V)^G\) are generated in degree \(\leq (p+1)|G|\). In this short note the author proves that in the special case \(K = \mathbb{C}\) they are generated in degree \(\leq p|G|^3\). While this is obviously a weaker bound, it is still interesting as it is independent of \(V\). In order to prove this, the author uses the developing theory of ``twisted commutative algebras'' to describe explicitly the representation \(W_p\) of \(G\) for which the \(p\)th syzygies of \(\text{Sym}(V)^G\) have the maximum possible degree generator. In this language, a well-known result of H. Weyl states that \(W_0\) (i.e. the representation with the greatest Noether bound) is the regular represenation of \(G\); the argument used here generalises Weyl's.