Past exam of the groups and representations course of the University of Oxford 2023 2 d Solution 2026-10-25
Only the character of the two-dimensional irreducible representation remains unknown. Write it as . The regular representation has character zero off the identity and decomposes with multiplicities equal to the irreducible representation dimensions. Thus, for a nonidentity element ,For the four nonidentity conjugacy classes this gives , , , . The complete character table is consequentlyFor example, , agreeing with character orthogonality.
Past exam of the groups and representations course of the University of Oxford 2024 1 c Solution 2026-10-25
There is one complex irreducible representation for each conjugacy class, hence three. The trivial representation and sign representation are distinct and one-dimensional. The sum of squares of irreducible representation dimensions leavesCall the remaining irreducible representation . The permutation representation on has character equal to the number of fixed objects, namely on the ordered conjugacy classes . Removing its constant-vector trivial representation gives , whose character inner product with itself is one. This constructs and gives the character tableTo obtain every Clebsch-Gordan decomposition of group representations, multiply the characters pointwise. In particular, , andThus all ordered pairs of irreducible representations are covered by
Past exam of the groups and representations course of the University of Oxford 2025 1 d Solution 2026-10-25
Write for the trivial representation, for the sign representation, and for the given two-dimensional group representation. Their matrix representations on the generators of a group arewith . The two eigenvalues of in are distinct, and exchanges its two eigenlines; no line is invariant under both. Thus is an irreducible representation. The dimensions already exhaust the sum of squares of irreducible representation dimensions, so this is the complete list.
Since , the character table isMultiplying characters and using character orthogonality gives every tensor product of group representations:For example . Explicit Clebsch-Gordan coefficients can be read from two doublets , :The first two combinations are invariant under and respectively even and odd under ; the last transforms by the displayed doublet matrices.
Write . The relation lets every element be expressed as with and . There are 21 such expressions, so the assumption makes them distinct. In particular has order seven, has order three, and is a normal subgroup. This is the nonabelian group of order 21, the semidirect product with the action given by multiplication by two modulo seven.
Conjugation by fixes , while conjugation by sends to . The nonidentity conjugacy classes inside are thereforeFor the other elements, direct calculation givesWhen or , the coefficient is nonzero modulo seven, so letting vary gives every member of the coset . These cosets cannot merge under conjugation, since is an abelian group and conjugation acts trivially on that quotient group. Thus the five conjugacy classes have representatives and sizes
To find the linear characters, note that the commutator subgroup contains . The quotient group is abelian, so ; hence . The abelianization is . With , its three linear characters areThis exhausts the linear characters because one-dimensional characters factor through the abelianization.
For the remaining irreducible characters, put and take the linear characters of defined by . The six nontrivial linear characters form two orbits under conjugation, with exponent sets and . Define the induced charactersFor , the character formula for an induced representation givesBoth vanish outside , since no element outside a normal subgroup can be conjugate into it. This is induction from an abelian normal subgroup with a free character orbit. For completeness, its irreducibility here follows directly from Frobenius reciprocity and character orthogonality on the cyclic group :The same calculation with proves that is an irreducible character.
LetThe sum of the nontrivial seventh roots of unity gives . Squaring and reducing exponents modulo seven givesThus are the two polynomial roots of , andTo fix the signs with our specified , observe that , using the increase of sine on . These Gaussian periods for seventh roots of unity make the answer explicit.
The resulting character table isThe two degree-three irreducible characters are distinct because . Together with the three linear characters, they exhaust the irreducible characters: the sum of squares of irreducible degrees is . Equivalently, we have five distinct irreducible characters for the five conjugacy classes.
As a check on part (b), inversion interchanges and , and also interchanges the two conjugacy classes outside . Only the identity conjugacy class is real. Correspondingly is the only real-valued character among the irreducible characters; and are two conjugate pairs.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 2 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A Frobenius group is a finite transitive group action on more than one point in which a nonidentity element fixes at most one point and a point stabilizer is nontrivial. Equivalently it has a nontrivial proper subgroup with for every . The Frobenius complement is such a point stabilizer .
The Frobenius kernel is the identity together with all fixed-point-free elements in this action, equivalentlyThe Frobenius kernel theorem asserts that this set is a normal subgroup, acts regularly on the points, and gives . In particular for .
Brauer's permutation lemma states that an automorphism of a finite group fixes equally many conjugacy classes and irreducible characters. More generally a group of automorphisms has equal permutation characters on those two sets. Indeed, the character table is invertible and intertwines the two permutation matrices: simultaneous permutation of rows and columns preserves character evaluation. Similar matrices have equal traces, and a permutation-matrix trace counts its fixed points. The fixed objects on the group side are classes, not individual elements.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 ii Paper 1 19H Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Put . The character orthogonality for the five supplied rows say . Solving these linear equations givesFor example orthogonality of the two degree-four rows gives , and their norms give ; the remaining row products determine the other weights. Since , , so and the class sizes are the displayed numerators.
Tensoring the fifth irreducible representation with the second, one-dimensional one gives another irreducible character, with row . It differs from all five known rows. There are seven conjugacy classes, hence seven irreducible characters. The sum of squared degrees is , so the final degree is .
The regular representation has character zero off the identity and is the sum of irreducible characters weighted by their degrees. Applying this column by column determines the last row. The completed character table, in the supplied class order, isNo identification of the group with a familiar group is needed.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 ii Paper 1 19F ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Directly tracking the supplied permutations givesThus every group element reduces to or , . These are twelve distinct elements: has order six, while is not a power of because it exchanges the two six-element supports that every power of preserves. Therefore . This is the dicyclic group with parameter three; the calculations give its order-twelve dicyclic character table.
Conjugation by inverts powers of , while conjugation by changes the exponent in by two modulo six. Conjugation by preserves that exponent's parity. The complete conjugacy classes areTheir sizes are .
The normal subgroup has order three. The quotient is cyclic of order four, generated by , since . Inflating its characters gives , , for . These are all the linear characters: in any one-dimensional representation, the relation forces the image of to have square one, so is in the kernel.
In the displayed class order, the full character table isTo construct the last two rows, put and, for , setThe matrices obey all three relations. The distinct eigenlines of are exchanged by , so the representation is irreducible. Its traces on are and on are zero, producing the rows above. Their weighted inner products are orthonormal, and the degree-square sum proves completeness.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 ii Paper 2 19F ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Each -conjugacy class represented by has elements. For every element of that class, the number of conjugators from to it is . Grouping the induced character formula by these classes therefore gives
In the example, has order four, has order two, and , so . Its five conjugacy classes are , , , and , of sizes . The four one-dimensional irreducible characters are determined by and , each sign independently chosen. The remaining two-dimensional irreducible character comes from the plane action of the square:Their squared degrees sum to eight, so this is the full character table.
In , use class representatives . Their intersections with are respectively , , , the empty set, and . The corresponding centralizer orders are , while the noncentral centralizers have order four. The induced values are consequentlyIn the same class order, all five induced irreducible characters are
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 ii Paper 1 15F b iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
The conjugacy classes are , , for , and two classes containing respectively and , each of size . Conjugation by inverts powers of , while conjugation by changes the exponent of by two; these facts prove the list and sizes. The sizes total .
The complete character table is specified by the following array, with one column for every and one row for every in the indicated ranges:Here ; the four pairs are those in part (ii). In particular, this formula displays both parity cases without concealing the different values when is odd. The zero entries follow because the two-dimensional matrices representing are off-diagonal.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 1 18G c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
The identity is one conjugacy class. In , conjugation by pairs each element with its inverse, giving four classes represented by , each of size two. All nine elements of are conjugate, since conjugation by changes the reflection component by and squaring is a bijection of .
There are two linear characters: the trivial character and the character equal to one on and minus one on . Write . The remaining four irreducible characters of a representation are induced from the nontrivial characters of , pairing with . They are exactly the two-dimensional representations already proved irreducible. Taking representatives yields the character tableIndeed the induced value on is , equal to two or minus one, and is zero off . The squared dimensions sum to , so this is the complete table.
An element of centralizes only if it equals its inverse, hence only if it is the identity. No reflection centralizes . Thus is cyclic, but the two linear representations kill and each two-dimensional irreducible has a nontrivial kernel of a group homomorphism of order three. Therefore a cyclic centre does not imply a faithful irreducible representation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 3 17G b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Conjugation by partitions into orbits. Each non-singleton orbit has size divisible by , by the orbit-stabilizer theorem. The singleton orbits are exactly . Since is divisible by , . This set contains , so .
For the deduction we also give the representation-theoretic ingredient behind Burnside's theorem: a nonabelian finite simple group has no nontrivial conjugacy class of prime power size. Here is a proof, so no stronger theorem is being assumed without justification. Suppose has class size . For an irreducible character of degree coprime to , the class sum acts as the scalar , which is an algebraic integer: the class sum has an integer-entry matrix in the regular representation, which contains every irreducible representation, so this scalar is an eigenvalue of an integer-entry matrix. Also is an algebraic integer. Bezout's identity then makes an algebraic integer. All its algebraic conjugates have modulus at most , because character values of a representation are sums of roots of unity. An algebraic integer with this property is zero or a root of unity: the monic polynomials of all its powers have uniformly bounded integer coefficients, so two powers must coincide unless it is zero.
Every nontrivial irreducible representation of a simple group is faithful. If were a root of unity, equality in the triangle inequality would force its representing matrix to be scalar, hence central, impossible. Thus whenever , except for the trivial character of a representation. Orthogonality of the identity column and the column in the character table now givesThis would make an algebraic integer, contradicting the fact that rational algebraic integers are integers. The same proof covers class size directly through triviality of the center.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 2 19F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Write the nonabelian group of order 21 asreplacing by gives the same group. Conjugation by splits the six nonidentity elements of the normal subgroup into the two classesEach of the two other cosets is one conjugacy class:Thus the class sizes are , so there are five irreducible characters.
The abelianization is , giving three linear characters. Put and , and defineThe two nontrivial orbits of characters of the normal induce two irreducible characters of degree three. Their values vanish outside , and summing each orbit gives on the two nonidentity classes. The resulting character table isThe degree checkand character orthogonality relations verify that this is the complete table.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 ii Paper 2 19H Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
Irreducible degrees divide the order of a finite -group and satisfyThe number of linear characters is . For a nontrivial finite -group this is at least unless the group is abelian, and every nonlinear degree is at least . A degree constituent is therefore impossible in the nonabelian case. If there are linear and degree-two characters, thenThus the only degree collections arewith respectively .
For , take , where
and
. On the five classesthe four linear characters of , indexed by
, and its degree-two character areThe ten classes of are and . Its full table consists ofwhere runs over the above five rows and
runs over the two characters of . This explicitly gives eight linear and two degree-two rows.
and
. On the five classesthe four linear characters of , indexed by
, and its degree-two character areThe ten classes of are and . Its full table consists ofwhere runs over the above five rows and
runs over the two characters of . This explicitly gives eight linear and two degree-two rows.
For , take the dihedral groupOrder its seven classes asThe four linear rows areThe three degree-two rows, for , areThe row norms and mutual inner products, weighted by the displayed class sizes, verify irreducibility and completeness.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 2 19H Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
Write a matrix as , where is a nonzero quadratic residue modulo . The square subgroup isMatrix multiplication becomesThus is the affine semidirect product of cyclic groups of orders eleven and fiveThere are five choices for and eleven for , so . It is nonabelian, since
LetConjugation by the complement givesHence the ten nonidentity translations split into the two orbitseach of size five. For ,Since , varying gives every . Conjugation cannot change in the abelian quotient . Therefore, withthe seven conjugacy classes areof sizes , agreeing with the conjugacy classes in the affine semidirect product of orders eleven and five.
The commutators with generate every translation because multiplication by is invertible in . Hence the commutator subgroup is , and the abelianization isPut . The one-dimensional characters factor through the abelianization, giving five characters
For the remaining characters, put and define a character of byThe complement has two free orbits on the nontrivial , indexed by and . By induction from an abelian normal subgroup with a free character orbit, the charactersare irreducible of degree five and vanish outside .
SetThe quadratic periods modulo eleven give the nonsquare sum . Multiplication by a square preserves and multiplication by a nonsquare exchanges the two square classes, so the complete character table isFinally,and there are seven rows for the seven conjugacy classes. Thus these are all irreducible characters, as described by the irreducible characters of the affine semidirect product of orders eleven and five.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2001 Paper 2 10 Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Representations. A complex group representation is a group homomorphism to the invertible linear maps on a vector space. It is an irreducible representation when and the only invariant subspaces are and .
Group table. The supplied matrices satisfy , , and . Their multiplication table isThe table proves closure and gives identity and an inverse for every element; associativity is inherited from matrix multiplication. The table is symmetric, so the group is abelian. It is the Klein four-group .
Dimensions and conjugacy. The sum of squares of irreducible representation dimensions is . A two-dimensional irreducible would alone contribute four, leaving no room for the ever-present one-dimensional trivial representation. Hence the given two-dimensional representation is reducible. Since the group is abelian, every conjugacy class is a singleton. There are therefore four inequivalent complex irreducible representations, each of dimension one:Taking the trace of the given matrices gives their character of a representation:
Irreducible characters. In a one-dimensional representation, the values on and must each be , since both elements square to . Their values determine the value on . The four choices give the complete character table:Each row is a character because it respects the generating relations, and the rows have unit norm and pairwise zero character inner product. The multiplicities of these rows in are respectively , by character orthogonality. Thus
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2002 Paper 2 10 Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Definitions and labels. A complex group representation on a vector space is a group homomorphism , so and . It is an irreducible representation if and its only invariant subspaces are and .
Read permutation matrices by their action on column basis vectors. The labels in the original PDF areIn particular, the original PDF gives the last row of as ; the provided TeX transcription's is incorrect and would not give an invertible permutation matrix.
Multiplication and conjugacy. Matrix products act on columns with the right factor first. For example , , and . The complete multiplication table, with row factor multiplied by column factor, isConjugating a permutation relabels its cycles. Thus the conjugacy classes areof sizes one, two and three. These are respectively the identity, the three-cycles and the transpositions in the symmetric group on three letters.
Dimensions. The sum of squares of irreducible representation dimensions equals the group order, which here is six. A three-dimensional irreducible representation would already contribute nine, so the displayed representation is reducible. There are three inequivalent complex irreducible representations, one for each conjugacy class, including the trivial representation of dimension one. If their dimensions are , then , whose positive integer solution is . HenceOne can also see reducibility directly: every permutation matrix fixes .
Characters. The character of a representation is the trace of its representing matrix, constant on each conjugacy class. The given permutation representation has character equal to the number of fixed basis vectors:in class order . A trivial representation has character . For the second one-dimensional character, a transposition has value because its square is the identity. The two three-cycles are conjugate and inverse, so their common value obeys both and , forcing . Character orthogonality with the trivial character then requires , giving . This determines the sign representation without constructing its matrices.
Write the two-dimensional character as . Character orthogonality with the first two rows givesso , . Its squared norm is , as required. The complete character table is thereforeThe last row belongs to the standard representation of the symmetric group.
To decompose the given representation, use the character inner productIts multiplicities areThusConcretely the invariant line is spanned by and its invariant complement is . Their characters are exactly the first and third rows, agreeing with the decomposition obtained entirely from character orthogonality.
Write the finite cyclic group as , the source's . It is Abelian, so and every conjugacy class is a singleton: there are such classes.
Over the complex numbers, all its irreducible representations are one-dimensional. One direct proof is that the matrix representing has an eigenvector over ; its line is preserved by every power of that matrix and hence by the whole group. Irreducibility forces the line to be the whole representation space. Its eigenvalue must be an th root of unity.
The complex irreducible representations of a finite cyclic group are thereforeTheir generator values are distinct, so no two are equivalent. There are of them, and squared dimensions equal one, exhausting the sum of squares of irreducible representation dimensions: . Thus the list is complete.
For , let , so and . The character table isThe complex-field convention is essential. The preceding part used real matrices, but that does not make the one-dimensional classification valid over : conjugate nonreal characters combine into the two-dimensional irreducible real representations of a finite cyclic group. The character table and dimension-sum result used here have their usual complex meaning.
Use the identity relation as printed in the PDF, . Since , multiplying on the right by gives . Alsobecause are involutions. Thus and commute, and so does their product with either of them. Therefore the group is Abelian, and is the Klein four-group.
Each conjugacy class is a singleton. Over the complex numbers every irreducible representation of a finite abelian group is one-dimensional. Choose independent signs and ; the relations force and . Hence the complete character table isThese four distinct one-dimensional representations exhaust the irreducible possibilities: there are four conjugacy classes, and their squared dimensions already sum to . The rows also satisfy character orthogonality. The local transcription damages the final symbol in the defining relation; the PDF makes the identity unambiguous.
A rigid rotation of a regular tetrahedron permutes its four vertices, giving an injective group homomorphism from its rotation group to : fixing every vertex forces the rotation to be the identity. Its seven nontrivial rotation axes are four lines through a vertex and the opposite face centre, and three lines through midpoints of opposite edges.
Each vertex-face axis admits rotations by , giving eight three-cycles on the vertices. Each opposite-edge axis admits a half-turn, giving three double transpositions. Along with the identity there are twelve rotations. All their induced permutations are even, so the injective image is a twelve-element subgroup of , hence the whole group. ThereforeIts action on supplies a three-dimensional representation. To prove irreducibility even after complexification, choose verticesThe group contains the half-turns and their cyclic variants, as well as the coordinate cycle . If a nonzero invariant subspace over the complex numbers contains a vector with nonzero component, applying shows it contains the axis. If another component is nonzero, use the corresponding projection instead. The coordinate cycle then supplies the other two axes. Every nonzero invariant subspace is therefore the full space, provingThis also gives an elementary proof without presupposing the character table.
For a one-dimensional character, write and . Since , the relations require . Also gives . The four sign choices therefore supply all four linear characters.
For the remaining two-dimensional character , its value at the identity is two. Column orthogonality between the identity and gives , so . Between the identity and each of the other classes, the four linear-character values sum to zero, forcing the remaining character values to vanish. Thus the character table isHere column orthogonality is the standard finite-group character theorem for . The rows also have unit norm and are mutually orthogonal in the character inner product with the displayed class-size weights. This completes the character table of the quaternion group.