A twisted version of the Frobenius-Schur indicator and multiplicity-free permutation representations (Q1173862)

Let \(G\) be a finite group, and \(\tau: g\to g^ \tau\), \(g\in G\) an automorphism of \(G\) such that \(\tau^ 2 = 1\). For a complex irreducible character \(\chi\) of \(G\), we define the twisted Frobenius-Schur indicator \(c_ \tau(\chi)\) by \(c_ \tau(\chi) = | G|^{-1} \sum_{g\in G}\chi (gg^ \tau)\). When the \(\tau\)-action is trivial, this is nothing but the classical Frobenius-Schur indicator, which we denote by \(c(\chi)\). The purpose of this paper is to show that some of the standard properties of \(c(\cdot)\) can naturally be generalized to those of \(c_ \tau(\cdot)\). Partly this was also observed by R. Gow.