On the irreducible characters of a Sylow 2-subgroup of the finite symplectic group in characteristic 2 (Q5946423)

Let \(P_m\) be a Sylow 2-subgroup of the symplectic group of \(\text{SP}_{2m}(q)\), \(q\) a power of 2. Then \(|P_m|=q^{m^2}\) and \(P_m\) is the semi-direct product of an elementary Abelian group \(N_m\) of order \(q^{\tfrac{m(m+1)}2}\) with a group of order \(q^{\tfrac{m(m-1)}2}\). In this paper the authors first prove that for each \(t\), \(0\leq t\leq[m/2]\), there is a linear complex character \(\lambda_t\) of \(N_m\) whose stabilizer in \(T_m\) is elementary Abelian of order \(2^t\). Then they use Clifford theory to prove the existence of irreducible complex characters of \(P_m\) with degrees \(2^{-t}q^{\tfrac{m(m-1)}2}\) for each \(0\leq t\leq[m/2]\). Therefore, in the case of \(q\) even, the authors show that \(P_m\) has many irreducible complex characters whose degrees are not powers of \(q\). In the case of \(q\) a power of an odd prime \(p\), previous works of \textit{A. Previtali} [Arch. Math. 65, No. 5, 375-378 (1995; Zbl 0860.20013) and J. Algebra 177, No. 3, 658-675 (1995; Zbl 0851.20007)] established the fact that the degree of each nonlinear irreducible character of a Sylow \(p\)-subgroup of \(\text{SP}_{2m}(q)\) is a power of \(q\). In this paper, the authors also obtain some results about the degrees of irreducible charaters of the special orthogonal group \(\text{SO}^+_{2m}(q)\).