Representation of finite groups: conjectures, reductions, and applications. (Q490006)

This survey article discusses some important problems in the representation theory of finite groups, including conjectures of Alperin, Brauer, and others, such as the McKay Conjecture, the Alperin Weight Conjecture, Brauer's Height Zero Conjecture, and the classification of low-dimensional representations. A possible approach to some of these problems is to use the Classification of Finite Simple Groups to reduce the problem to some more specific questions about simple groups. This kind of approach has been very successful in recent years, and the author discusses the most recent advances in this area. Applications of these results to various problems in group theory, number theory, and algebraic geometry are also described.