Rationality of extended unipotent characters (Q6633583)

Let \({\mathbf G}\) be a connected reductive linear algebraic group with a Frobenius endomorphism \(F: {\mathbf G} \rightarrow {\mathbf G}\) defiing an \(\mathbb F_q\)-structure, where \(\mathbb F_q\) is the finite field of \(q\) elements. Let \(G:={\mathbf G}^F\) be the finite group of \(F\)-fixed points of \(\mathbf G\), and assume that \(\mathbf G\) has a graph automorphism \(\sigma\) commuting with \(F\). Set \(\widehat{\mathbf G}:= \mathbf G\rtimes\langle\sigma\rangle\) (the semidirect product) and \(\widehat G:=\widehat{\mathbf G}^F:=G\rtimes\langle\sigma\rangle\). The authors of the paper under review are interested in the rationality properties of unipotent characters of finite groups \(G\) of Lie type. Since unipotent characters play a very important role in the representation theory of finite groups of Lie type, it is quite natural to want to know what happens on the field values\N\(\mathbb Q(\rho)\) of a unipotent character \(\rho\) of \(G\). The first main result is the following:\N\N\textbf{Theorem}: Assume further that \(\mathbf G\) is a simple algebraic group and \(\sigma\,{\not =}\,1\).\NLet \(\rho\) be a cuspidal unipotent character of \(G\). Then one of the following two cases occurs: (1) \(\rho\) has an extension \(\widehat\rho\) to \(\widehat G\) such that \(\mathbb Q(\widehat\rho)=\mathbb Q(\rho)\);\N(2) If it is not the case (1), then \(G= {^2}\!A_{n-1}(q)\) where \(n:=\binom{t}{2} \equiv 2, 3\) (mod 4) for some integer \(t\geq 3\) and \(\mathbb Q(\widehat\rho) = \mathbb Q(\sqrt{-q})\).\N\N\textbf{Corollary}: In the situation of the theorem, \(\rho\) has a rational extension to \(\widehat G\) if and only if the Frobenius-Schur indicator of \(\rho\) is \(+ 1\). The authors prove also an interesting theorem that is for arbitrary unipotent characters. The proofs of the results use realization of characters in \(\ell\)-adic cohomology groups,\Nwhere \(\ell\) is a prime with \(\ell{\not |}\,q\), of Deligne-Lusztig varieties and block theory of finite groups.