Dual pairs and contragredients of irreducible representations (Q627408)

This paper gives an extension of a result for classical groups to covering groups. Let \(G\) be \(GL(n)\), \(U(n)\), \(O(n)\) or \(Sp(2n)\) over a nonarchimedean local field of characteristic zero. It is well known that the contragredient of an irreducible admissible smooth representation of \(G\) is isomorphic to a twist of it by an automorphism of \(G\). In this paper, the author proves a similar result for metaplectic groups and for dual pairs. We state the result for metaplectic groups. Let \(E\) be a symplectic space and \[ 1 \to \{\pm 1\} \to \widetilde{Sp}(E) \to Sp(E) \to 1 \] the metaplectic cover of the symplectic group \(Sp(E)\). We denote by \(\breve{Sp}(E)\) the subgroup of \(GSp(E)\) with similitudes \(\pm 1\). Let \(\breve{g}\in \breve{Sp}(E) \setminus Sp(E)\) and let \(\pi\) be a genuine irreducible admissible smooth representation of \(\widetilde{Sp}(E)\). Then the contragredient \(\pi^\vee\) is isomorphic to \(\pi^{\breve{g}}\).