On the inductive blockwise Alperin weight condition for type \(\mathsf{A}\) (Q6169053)

The Alperin weight conjecture is a famous conjecture which relates information about irreducible \(\ell\)-Brauer characters of a finite group \(G\) to properties of \(\ell\)-local subgroups of \(G\). The block-free version of this conjecture was reduced to a question on simple groups in [\textit{G. Navarro} and \textit{P. H. Tiep}, Invent. Math. 184, No. 3, 529--565 (2011; Zbl 1234.20010)], while its blockwise refinement was similarly reduced in [\textit{B. Späth}, J. Group Theory 16, No. 2, 159--220 (2013; Zbl 1282.20010)]. This paper contributes towards a program to prove the blockwise Alperin weight conjecture by checking the required condition for all finite simple groups. In this instance, the authors focus on simple groups of type A. In [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 374, No. 12, 8365--8433 (2021; Zbl 07618804)], the authors verified the inductive Alperin weight condition for simple groups of type A, this paper continues that work and makes progress towards verifying the blockwise refinement of this condition (iBAW) for groups of type A. Let \(\eta = \pm 1\) and let \(\operatorname{(P)SL}_n(-q)\) denote \(\operatorname{(P)SU}_n(q)\). In particular, the authors show that the iBAW condition holds for unipotent \(\ell\)-blocks and \(\ell\)-blocks of maximal defect for \(\operatorname{SL}_n(\eta q)\) for \(\ell\) not dividing \(q\). The authors then show that the iBAW condition holds for \(\operatorname{PSL}_n(\eta q)\) provided \(\ell\) does not divide \(q\) and \(\gcd(n, q-\eta)_{\ell'}\) is square-free, this is then sufficient to prove that the iBAW condition holds for \(\operatorname{PSL}_n(\eta q)\) for \(n \leq 7\). In addition, the authors also show that the iBAW condition holds for any prime and any finite group whose Sylow 3-subgroups are abelian. Also of potential interest, in Section 6, the authors obtain a classification of the 2-blocks of the finite specal linear and unitary groups, which is summarised in Remark 6.9.