A Family of Complex Irreducible Characters Possessed by Unitary and Special Unitary Groups Defined over Local Rings (Q4807587)

The Weil representations of the finite symplectic and unitary groups have been studied in great detail in the past 30 years, and these representations play a special role in the general representation theory of the two families of groups. The relevant groups are of course defined over finite fields. The author of the paper under review, together with G. Cliff and D. McNeilly, has begun a study into corresponding Weil representations defined for symplectic and unitary groups over finite local rings. See, for example, \textit{G. Cliff, D. McNeilly} and \textit{F. Szechtman} [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 62, No. 2, 423-436 (2000; see the preceding review Zbl 1027.20021)], and later papers in the series. Such finite groups and their representations arise in the study of classical groups over \(p\)-adic fields and rings. To define the required unitary group, we need a quadratic extension \(\mathbf R\) of a finite, commutative, local and principal ring \(R\) of odd characteristic. The corresponding unitary group of degree \(n\) over \(\mathbf R\) is denoted by \(\text{U}_n({\mathbf R})\). The Weil representation of \(\text{U}_n({\mathbf R})\) is a complex representation of degree \(|R|^n\) obtained by embedding the unitary group in a symplectic group over \(R\) and restricting the Weil representation of the symplectic group, as defined by Cliff, McNeilly and Szechtman, to the unitary group. The author undertakes an analysis of the irreducible constituents of this Weil representation of \(\text{U}_n({\mathbf R})\). In doing this, he uses the unitary geometry of a free module of rank \(n\) over \(\mathbf R\). Among other results, he shows the following. Let \(|R|=q^l\), where \(q\) is a power of an odd prime, and let \(\Psi\) denote the character of the Weil representation of \(\text{U}_n({\mathbf R})\). Then, provided \(n>1\), \(\Psi\) is the sum of \((q^{l+1}-1)/(q-1)\) different irreducible characters (when \(n=1\), the unitary group is Abelian and there are \(q^l\) different irreducible constituents). The degrees of the irreducible constituents are also determined. It should be noted that an inductive approach is available for the construction of certain constituents of \(\Psi\), as one may inflate the Weil character from a homomorphic image of \(\text{U}_n({\mathbf R})\) that is itself a unitary group of degree \(n\) over a quotient ring of \(\mathbf R\).