Sign conjugacy classes of the symmetric groups.

MaRDI QIDQ2517658zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Lucia Morotti

Publication date 27 August 2015

Published in The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.4990, http://www.combinatorics.org/ojs/index.php/eljc/article/view/v22i3p12

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zbMATH Keywords

irreducible complex charactersMurnaghan-Nakayama ruleordinary characterssign conjugacy classessign partitionssymmetric groups

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of representation theory (05E10) Representations of finite symmetric groups (20C30) Conjugacy classes for groups (20E45)

Abstract: A conjugacy class $C$ of a finite group $G$ is a sign conjugacy class if every irreducible character of $G$ takes value 0, 1 or -1 on $C$. In this paper we classify the sign conjugacy classes of the symmetric groups and thereby verify a conjecture of Olsson.

Review text

This paper is concerned with ordinary character theory of finite groups. A conjugacy class in a finite group \(G\) is called a \textit{sign conjugacy class} if every ordinary irreducible character takes the value \(0\) or \(\pm 1\) on that class. The object of the paper is to determine the sign conjugacy classes in the symmetric groups; the main theorem verifies a conjecture of Olsson. With the natural labelling of conjugacy classes in \(S_n\) by partitions, we can define a \textit{sign partition} to be a partition for which the corresponding conjugacy class is a sign class. Two important results from Olsson's prior work are used: a sign partition cannot have repeated parts, except possibly for the part \(1\) which may appear twice, and if \(\lambda=(\lambda_1,\ldots,\lambda_r)\) is a partition of \(n\) with \(\lambda_1>n/2\), then \(\lambda\) is a sign partition if and only if \((\lambda_2,\ldots,\lambda_r)\) is. Otherwise, the main tool used is the Murnaghan-Nakayama rule, which is a very helpful rule for calculating character values for the symmetric groups. The paper consists entirely of the proof of the main theorem. This is carefully broken down into sections and is very easy to follow. However, there is essentially no introduction to the paper, and the non-expert is left to refer to the references to discover why sign conjugacy classes might be interesting. It would have been nicer if the paper could have included a little background (perhaps with a reminder of the details of the Murnaghan-Nakayama rule); on the other hand, the compactness of the paper is an asset, and other researchers working in this area will find it useful when trying to prove other results in this immediate area.

Recommendations

• Sign conjugacy classes in symmetric groups.
• Sign conjugacy classes of the alternating groups
• Zeros in tables of characters for the groups Sn and An
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Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3771876 (Why is no real title available?)
• Sign conjugacy classes in symmetric groups.

Cited in

(9)

• Sign conjugacy classes in symmetric groups.
• The sign representation for Shephard groups.
• Classifications of the self-conjugate partitions
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5670208 (Why is no real title available?)
• Symmetric groups and conjugacy classes
• A generalization of the sign character.
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1504587 (Why is no real title available?)
• A note on the signature representations of the symmetric groups
• Sign conjugacy classes of the alternating groups

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