`Norman involutions' and tensor products of unipotent Jordan blocks

Elementary theory of partitions (11P81) Canonical forms, reductions, classification (15A21) Subgroups of symmetric groups (20B35) Linear algebraic groups over finite fields (20G40)

Abstract: A good knowledge of the Jordan canonical form (JCF) for a tensor product of `Jordan blocks' is key to understanding the actions of

p

-groups of matrices in characteristic

p

. The JCF corresponds to a certain partition which depends on the characteristic

p

, and the study of these partitions dates back to Aitken's work in 1934. Equivalently each JCF corresponds to a certain permutation

p i

introduced by Norman in 1995. These permutations

p i = p i (r, s, p)

depend on the dimensions

r

,

s

of the Jordan blocks, and on

p

. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for

p i (r, s, p)

to be trivial, building on work of M.J. Barry. We show that when

p i (r, s, p)

is nontrivial, it is an involution involving reversals. Finally, we prove that the group

G (r, p)

generated by

p i (r, s, p)

for all

s

, `factors' as a wreath product corresponding to the factorisation

r = a b

as a product of its

p^{'}

-part

a

and

p

-part

b

: precisely

G (r, p) = {s f S}_{a} w r {s f D}_{b}

where

{s f S}_{a}

is a symmetric group of degree

a

, and

{s f D}_{b}

is a dihedral group of degree

b

.

Review text

Let $N_{m}$ be the $m\times m$ nilpotent matrix over a field $F$ with entries $1$ in the $(i,i+1)$th positions ($i=1,\dots,m-1$) and $0$ elsewhere. Then, the tensor product $N_{r}\otimes N_{s}$ ($r\leq s$) has Jordan canonical form (JCF) $(s-r+1)N_{r}\oplus\bigoplus_{i}2N_{\mu_{i}}$ for some partition $(\mu_{1},\mu_{2},\dots)$ of $\frac{1}{2}r(r-1)$ which is independent of the field. In contrast, for the Jordan blocks $J_{m}:=I_{m}+N_{m}$ with eigenvalue $1$, $J_{r}\otimes J_{s}$ has JCF of the form $\bigoplus_{i}J_{\lambda_{i}}$ where the partition $\lambda(r,s,p)=(\lambda_{1},\lambda_{2}\dots)$ of $rs$ always has $r$ parts but depends on the characteristic $p$ of $F$. If $p=0$ or $p\geq r+s-1$, then it is known that: (*) $\lambda_{n}=r+s+1-2n$ for each $n$ (see Corollary 1 of \textit{B. Srinivasan} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 14, 677--688 (1964; Zbl 0123.02801)]). A partition satisfying (*) is called a standard partition. \par If $p>0$, then there are rather complicated algorithms to compute $\lambda(r,s,p)$ (see, for example, [\textit{J. C. Renaud}, J. Algebra 58, 1--11 (1979; Zbl 0406.20011)]) but dependence on $p$ is difficult to determine. The object of the present paper is to investigate combinatorics of $\lambda(r,s,p)$ which are independent of $p$. Its starting point is Theorem 2.2.9 of \textit{K.-I. Iima} and \textit{R. Iwamatsu} [Math. J. Okayama Univ. 51, 133--148 (2009; Zbl 1164.15001)], where it is shown that for all $\lambda(r,s,p)$ we have: (**) $\,\lambda_{i}-\lambda_{j}$ $\neq j-i$ (for all $i$ and $j$) and $1\leq\lambda_{n}-s+n\leq r$ (for all $n$). \par For each partition $\lambda$ of $rs$ with $r$ parts and satisfying (**), the authors define a permutation $\pi_{\lambda}$ in the symmetric group $S_{r}$ by $n^{\pi_{\lambda}}:=r+1-n+s-\lambda_{n}$ for $n=1,\dots,r$. The permutation $\pi_{\lambda}$ is called a Norman permutation associated with $\lambda$ and $\pi(r,s,p)$ denotes the Norman permutation associated with $\lambda(r,s,p)$ (see page 353 of \textit{C. W. Norman} [Linear Multilinear Algebra 38, No. 4, 351--371 (1995; Zbl 0830.15005)]). Note that $\pi_{\lambda}=1$ exactly when $\lambda$ is a standard partition. The main results of the present paper are the following. There is a new criterion for $\lambda(r,s,p)$ to be a standard permutation, expressed by inequalities between remainders of various expressions after division by $p$ and its powers (Theorem 2.3). It is also shown that $\pi_{\lambda}^{2}=1$ for every Norman permutation (Corollary 4.2) and that the subgroup $G(r,p):=\left\langle \pi(r,s,p)~|~s\geq r\right\rangle \leq S_{r}$ is a wreath product $S_{a}\wr D_{b}$ where $a$ is the $p^{\prime}$-part of $r$, $b$ is the $p$-part of $r$, and $D_{b}$ is the dihedral group of order $2b$ (Theorem 2.5).

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