Characters of unipotent groups over finite fields. (Q607473)

Let \(G\) be a connected unipotent group over a finite field \(\mathbb F_q\). In this paper, the author proposes a definition of \(L\)-packets of complex irreducible representations of the finite group \(G(\mathbb F_q)\) and gives an explicit description of \(L\)-packets in terms of the so-called admissible pairs for \(G\). He shows that for every geometric conjugacy class \(\mathcal C\) of admissible pairs for \(G\), the set \(L(\mathcal C)\) is an \(L\)-packet, and conversely, every \(L\)-packet of irreducible representations of \(G(\mathbb F_q)\) is of the form \(L(\mathcal C)\) for some geometric conjugacy class \(\mathcal C\) of admissible pairs. Then he applies his results to show that if the centralizer of every geometric point of \(G\) is connected, then the dimension of every complex irreducible representation of \(G(\mathbb F_q)\) is a power of \(q\), confirming a conjecture of Drinfeld. This paper is the first in a series of three papers exploring the relationship between representations of a group of the form \(G(\mathbb F_q)\) (where \(G\) is a unipotent algebraic group over \(\mathbb F_q\)), the geometry of \(G\), and the theory of character sheaves.