On zeta functions of modular representations of a discrete group. (Q934059)

Let \(G\) be a finitely generated group. The authors study the zeta functions \[ Z(G,T)=\exp\left(\sum_{n=1}^\infty\tfrac{N_n}{n}T^n\right), \] associated to the ``mass'' \(N_n\) of the set of a certain class of representations \(\rho\colon G\to\text{GL}(d,\mathbb{F}_{q^n})\), for fixed \(d\) and \(q\). The first result concerns the zeta function \(Z_{\text{ai}}(G,T)\) defined considering the number \(N_n^{\text{ai}}\) of isomorphism classes of absolutely irreducible representations of \(G\) into \(\text{GL}(d,\mathbb{F}_{q^n})\). The authors prove that \(Z_{\text{ai}}(G,T)\) is a rational function in \(T\), employing the theory of Procesi concerning absolutely irreducible representations of a ring into Azumaya algebras. Another main result is on the zeta function \(Z_{\text{wt}}(G,T)\) defined by the weighted sums of isomorphism class of representations. In this case one cannot expect in general that \(Z_{\text{wt}}(G,T)\) is rational (some examples are explicitly calculated in the paper), however the authors prove that it is meromorphic over both the complex numbers and the \(p\)-adic complex numbers. In the \(p\)-adic case, this is proved by showing that \(Z_{\text{wt}}(G,T)\) is in fact an infinite product of rational functions. In the complex case, the authors employ Behrend's trace formula for algebraic stacks.