Representation varieties of solvable groups (Q916789)

This paper sets out to generalize the results of \textit{A. Lubotzky} and \textit{A. Magid} [in Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 336 (1985; Zbl 0598.14042)] from nilpotent to solvable groups. In that paper a construction is described assigning to a finitely generated group \(\Gamma\) an algebraic variety \(S_ n(\Gamma)\) parametrizing equivalence classes of irreducible representations \(\rho\) : \(\Gamma\to GL_ n(k)\), where k is an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. Lubotzky and Magid prove that for \(\Gamma\) nilpotent, \(S_ n(\Gamma)\) is a finite union of `twist-classes': \[ S_ n(\Gamma)=\cup_{i}C_{\tau}(\rho_ i)\text{ with } C_{\tau}(\rho)=\{\lambda \otimes \rho | \quad \lambda \in Hom(\Gamma,GL_ 1(k)\}. \] Moreover, the representations \(\rho_ i\) may be taken to have finite image and these `twist-classes' are open, non- singular and of dimension \(rk(\Gamma^{ab})\)- the torsion-free rank of \(\Gamma\) made Abelian. For solvable groups all this is no longer true; however, we do prove Theorem 2.4, which asserts roughly that for \(\Gamma\) solvable, \(S_ n(\Gamma)\) is a finite union of `induced-twist classes'. While for \(\Gamma\) nilpotent \(S_ n(\Gamma)\) is non-singular, we give an example of a solvable group \(\Gamma\) for which \(S_ n(\Gamma)\) has singularities. This answers a question posed in [loc. cit.] and in fact is the first example known to the author of singularities in \(S_ n(\Gamma)\).