Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 2 2 b i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Suppose first that is the Frobenius kernel. An element fixes a point in the Frobenius action. If , then maps that point to another point fixed by . Since has only one fixed point and acts regularly, . ThusNo nonidentity conjugacy class of can be fixed by such a . If the class of were fixed, for some , so would centralize , a contradiction. Conjugation by consequently fixes just the identity class. By Brauer's permutation lemma it fixes just one irreducible character, necessarily .
For every nonprincipal , its inertia group of a character is therefore . Since is normal, the restriction of the induced character is the sum of its conjugates, counted over :Frobenius reciprocity and character orthogonality giveAn actual character of norm one is irreducible. Every nonprincipal irreducible character of therefore induces irreducibly to .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 4 1 v Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Because is an abelian group, every is a linear character, hence a homomorphism to . Its inertia group of a character contains , whose inner conjugations act trivially on . Write an arbitrary as with and , using . Conjugation by does not affect , so stabilizes if and only if does.
Suppose stabilizes . Then for every , and its multiplicativity givesPart (iv) makes surjective onto , so for every . This would be the trivial character, contrary to the hypothesis. Therefore no nonidentity stabilizes , andThe argument uses both abelianness, to make multiplicative, and the fixed-point-free commutator bijection.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 4 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
We use complex representations. By Maschke's theorem, restriction to any finite subgroup is a semisimple module, so it has a canonical isotypic decomposition. In particular, the -isotypic component is the sum of all copies of the irreducible -module with character . The central character idempotentprojects onto this component. These projections preserve every -submodule, which consequently decomposes as the direct sum of its intersections with the isotypic components.
Let afford . The component is nonzero. Since fixes , it preserves . Irreducibility of as a -module therefore gives : its restriction to consists entirely of copies of .
Form the induced representationwhere represents the left cosets . Because , for we haveThus is -isotypic of type , where . These types are distinct for distinct cosets , precisely by the definition of the inertia group of a character .
Let be a nonzero -submodule of . Its isotypic decomposition as an -module shows that it meets some nontrivially. Acting by gives . This intersection is a -submodule of the irreducible , hence equals . The -translates of that component span , so . The induced representation is therefore irreducible, and its restriction contains . Its induced character satisfiesThis proves the irreducibility assertion directly from isotypic components; no form of the correspondence being proved has been assumed.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 4 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Let be an irreducible -module with character , and let be its -isotypic component. It is invariant under the inertia group of a character . The sum of its -translates is a nonzero -submodule, so irreducibility makes it all of . Translates associated with different cosets have distinct -types and hence form a direct sum:To see that is irreducible over , let be a -submodule. Then is a nonzero -submodule of , hence equals . Its -isotypic part is exactly , whereas the corresponding part of is . Thus .
Let be the irreducible character of as a -module. It lies over , and the natural map of induced representationsis an isomorphism: it identifies each summand with the corresponding , and these summands are direct and exhaust . Consequently , proving surjectivity of induction on the stated sets.
For injectivity, the construction in (a) shows that the -isotypic component of is exactly , with its original -action. Isomorphic induced -modules therefore have isomorphic intrinsic -components as -modules. Since complex representations with the same character are isomorphic, forces . Hence the Clifford correspondence is the bijectionwhose inverse takes the character of the -isotypic component.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 4 2 Solution 2026-10-14
An M-group is a finite group for which every irreducible character is induced from a linear character of some subgroup. Let have both and abelian, and fix an irreducible -module with character . Since is abelian, has a linear constituent. Choose, among all pairs with and a linear character occurring in , one for which is maximal.
Every subgroup containing is normal in : its image in the abelian quotient is normal, and it is the full preimage of that image. Thus , so the inertia group of a character is defined and contains .
Suppose . The nonzero -isotypic component is preserved by , and every acts there as the scalar because . The finite-order operator representing is diagonalizable over ; choose an eigenvector . Then is invariant under both and , hence under . This line affords a linear character of with . Since it is a subrepresentation of , it is a constituent of . But strictly contains and still contains , contradicting maximality.
Therefore . Apply the Clifford correspondence with normal subgroup . Its inertia group is itself, and , so the unique irreducible -character lying over is . In particular,Since was arbitrary, every irreducible character is a monomial character, proving that finite metabelian groups are monomial: