Vanishing evaluations of simple functors (Q392400)

Recall that for two finite groups \(G\) and \(H\), the Burnside group \(B(G, H)\) is the Grothendieck group of the category of finite \((G, H)\)-bisets and, for a field \(k\), denote \(kB(G,H) =k \otimes_{\mathbb Z}B(G, H)\). The biset category \(k{\mathcal C}\) is the \(k\)-linear category whose objects are finite groups, with morphisms \(\text{Hom}kC(H, G) = kB(G, H)\). The composition is given by the products \(U \times_H V\) of bisets. A biset functor is a \(k\)-linear functor from \(k{\mathcal C}\) to the category of \(k\)-vector spaces. A biset functor is called simple if it is non-zero and has no proper non-zero subfunctor. The simple biset functors are parametrized by equivalence classes of pairs \((H, V)\), where \(H\) is a finite group and \(V\) is a simple \(k\text{Out}(H)\)-module. This paper is devoted to the problem of describing the evaluation of simple functors at specific finite groups, more specifically, whether such evaluations are vanishing or non-vanishing. These questions appear to be quite difficult, as no closed formula for the evaluation of a simple functor is known. The authors give several conditions which guarantee the non-vanishing of the evaluation \(S_{H,V} (G)\) of the simple functor \(S_{H,V}\) at the finite group \(G\). Then they provide a closed formula for the evaluation \(S_{H,V}(G)\) under some restrictive conditions on \(G\), formula which implies a criterion for the vanishing of this evaluation. Various examples are also presented.