Interpret as a continuous finite-dimensional complex group representation, so its values lie in , and interpret approximation in the uniform norm. Assume the usual Hausdorff convention for the compact topological group. The following argument proves the required form of the Peter-Weyl theorem without first assuming that is a Lie group.
Start with normalized Haar measure. It is both left- and right-invariant on a compact group. Average any Hermitian inner product to make a finite-dimensional representation unitary. The left regular action is already unitary on .
Choose a continuous nonnegative function supported in a small symmetric identity neighbourhood, with and . Such functions are obtained from a nonzero continuous bump near the identity, symmetrizing and normalizing. Define
The convolution operator commutes with left translations. Its continuous kernel is Hermitian, hence it is self-adjoint. It is compact on : approximate the continuous kernel uniformly by finite sums of separated functions of and , using the Stone-Weierstrass theorem on the compact product. The corresponding operators have finite rank and converge in operator norm. It also maps into and satisfies
by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality; continuity follows from the uniform continuity of the translated kernel.
The spectral theorem for compact self-adjoint operators decomposes the orthogonal complement of its kernel into finite-dimensional eigenspaces with nonzero eigenvalues. Every such eigenspace is left-translation invariant, and all its elements are continuous, since there. If is one of these invariant spaces, write . Evaluation at the identity gives
Thus is a matrix coefficient of the dual representation. This identifies each finite spectral sum with finite-dimensional representation data.
To get uniform rather than just approximation, let project onto increasing finite sums of the nonzero eigenspaces. For , is orthogonal to the kernel, so in . Applying the displayed smoothing bound gives
Meanwhile, choosing the support of sufficiently small makes uniformly close to , by uniform continuity under small translations. Since , it also makes uniformly close to . Every belongs to a finite sum of invariant eigenspaces, hence is a finite sum of matrix coefficients. This completes the convolution proof of uniform Peter-Weyl approximation.
A coefficient equals for the rank-one endomorphism . Finite sums of coefficients can be combined using a direct-sum representation and a block-diagonal . Therefore the conclusion has exactly the requested form:
For a class function , apply conjugation averaging on a compact group,
It fixes and is a contraction in the uniform norm, so averaging an approximation preserves its error bound. A trace coefficient averages to , where
This endomorphism commutes with the representation. A finite-dimensional unitary representation splits into irreducibles by repeatedly taking invariant orthogonal complements. On each irreducible diagonal block, Schur lemma makes its average a scalar multiple of the identity, namely its trace divided by the block dimension. Off-diagonal blocks do not contribute to the total trace. Thus the averaged coefficient is a finite linear combination of irreducible characters. Consequently irreducible complex characters span a uniformly dense subspace of the continuous class functions.
A rim hook is a connected skew diagram containing no square, whose removal leaves a partition of an integer diagram. Its leg length is its number of occupied rows minus one. The Murnaghan–Nakayama rule states that, if a permutation has cycle type , then
Iteration removes one hook for each cycle length; the empty diagram has character one at the empty cycle type.
For shape and cycle type , there are exactly two removable four-cell rim hooks. The remaining shapes are and ; the removed hooks have leg lengths one and two respectively. In shape the only removable three-cell rim hook leaves and has leg length one. In shape the only such hook leaves and again has leg length one. Since the characters of and at a transposition are and , we obtain
and hence
The cycle lengths can be taken in any order; using makes the two branches of the computation explicit.
Now consider the ordinary induction product . A hook partition is , equivalently a partition of an integer whose second row has length at most one. If a hook shape occurs in the Littlewood–Richardson rule, then , forcing itself to be a hook. In the skew hook , the new cells consist of a segment in the first row and a segment down the first column, with no shared column between those two segments. Every first-row entry must be : its rightmost entry is the first letter of the lattice word, hence is , and weak row increase forces all entries to its left to be too. The column segment has strictly increasing entries. Thus only can be repeated, forcing the content to be a hook as well. This also proves the assertion when the top segment is empty, since then every entry lies in a strictly increasing column.
Write the two nonempty hook factors as and , with and . Let the prospective resulting hook have top-row length and leg length . Its new top segment has cells and its new column segment has cells. The content consists of ones and the single letters . All those larger letters must be in the new column; its strict increase allows either no or exactly one . There are therefore only two possibilities:
In the first case fill the top segment with ones and the column with . In the second, use top ones and column . Each filling is unique and has a lattice word, including the case with an empty top segment in the second filling. This proves
Both displayed multiplicities are one.
To deduce the full-cycle value from this product result, rather than quote the Murnaghan–Nakayama rule again, form the virtual character
For every proper Young subgroup and every pair of its irreducible characters, the hook-product calculation gives
If a factor is not a hook there are no hook constituents; if both are hooks, their two consecutive leg lengths cancel in this alternating inner product. By Frobenius reciprocity and the completeness of the product irreducible characters, restricts to zero on every such subgroup. Any permutation with more than one cycle preserves a nonempty proper subset and is conjugate into one of these subgroups. Thus is supported only on the class of -cycles.
Its inner product with the trivial character is one, since only the one-row hook contributes. That class has size , so , giving . For any irreducible character, the support calculation then yields
By character orthogonality, the left side is for and zero otherwise. These are real integers, proving
For the same conclusion holds directly. This derives the requested special case from the Littlewood–Richardson rule and Frobenius reciprocity.
A partition of an integer is a finite weakly decreasing sequence of positive integers of sum , extended by zero parts when convenient. Its Young diagram has cells in row ; its conjugate partition has cells in column . Conjugacy classes of are indexed by cycle lengths, hence by partitions of an integer. The number of ordinary irreducible characters equals the number of conjugacy classes; we now construct that many mutually distinct representations over the rational numbers.
A Young tableau of shape bijectively labels its cells by . Its tabloid remembers the set of labels in each distinguished row, not their order. The Young permutation module is the vector space on these tabloids, with acting by relabeling. Its tabloid bilinear form makes the tabloid basis orthonormal. Let be the subgroup permuting labels within each column and put
Thus is a polytabloid and is a Specht module. Relabeling takes to , so any polytabloid generates the module. It is nonzero over every field: the coefficient of in is one, since the row and column stabilizers of a Young tableau intersect trivially.
Here is the elementary identity behind irreducibility. If a row of a tabloid contains two entries from one column of , their transposition pairs and cancels the terms in , including in characteristic two. Otherwise, for a tabloid of the same shape, its rows can be matched to those of by a column permutation, and . Looking at the coefficient of gives, for every ,
Consequently a submodule of either contains , if one of these pairings is nonzero, or lies in . This proves the James submodule theorem used below.
Over , the restricted form on is positive definite, so its Gram determinant in a rational basis is nonzero. Extending scalars to any characteristic-zero field preserves that nonzero determinant and hence keeps the restricted form a nondegenerate bilinear form. The James submodule theorem applied to a submodule of now forces it to be zero or the whole module. Therefore is absolutely irreducible, not merely irreducible over .
To distinguish shapes, the cancellation argument above works for a -tabloid too. If , its first rows contain at most entries from column , so
Thus dominates . The operator acts nontrivially on because the restricted form is a nondegenerate bilinear form. An isomorphism would therefore imply , and reversing the roles gives equality of the partitions of an integer. Counting conjugacy classes proves exhaustion. All matrices in a rational polytabloid basis have rational entries, giving the requested representations over the rational numbers.
For positive characteristic , call a partition of an integer a regular partition if no part is repeated or more times. Define
The James submodule theorem shows that every proper submodule of lies in . Whenever the restricted form is nonzero, is proper and its quotient is simple.
We verify exactly when this happens. Let be the number of rows of length . In the integral pairing , common tabloids are acted on freely by permutations of equal-length rows. Such a row permutation has sign in both polytabloids, so its contribution to the product of coefficients is unchanged. Each orbit has size . Thus that integer divides every pairing. On the other hand, reverse each row of to obtain . A tabloid common to and can only interchange entries between rows of equal length. There are independent choices in each of their columns, and the two signs agree. Hence
These two products have exactly the same prime divisors. All pairings vanish modulo precisely when some . Therefore exactly for -regular .
For such a shape, the displayed pairing gives with , and has nonzero image in . If , the same operator must act nontrivially on a quotient of , forcing by the cancellation argument. Interchanging the shapes proves .
For exhaustion over an algebraic closure use the general Brauer character basis theorem: the number of simple modules over an algebraically closed field of characteristic is the number of conjugacy classes of elements of order prime to . Here these are the cycle partitions of an integer with no part divisible by . The generating-function identity
shows that their number equals the number of -regular partitions of an integer. We have already constructed that many distinct simple modules, so they exhaust all simples. The form, its radical and its quotient commute with field extension, and the same simplicity proof holds after every extension. The modules defined over the prime field are therefore absolutely irreducible and form a split complete list over arbitrary as well. In summary,
For characteristic zero the list is instead all . In positive characteristic a Specht module itself need not be irreducible; the radical quotient is essential.
Put . The character orthogonality for the five supplied rows say . Solving these linear equations gives
For 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, is
No identification of the group with a familiar group is needed.
There are seven irreducible characters, one for each conjugacy class. Besides the trivial character and the four supplied rows, let the remaining degrees be . The sum of squared degrees gives , whose positive integer solutions are . Complex conjugation permutes irreducible characters while preserving degree; the known rows are real and each unknown degree occurs just once among the remaining characters, so the two missing characters are real.
Call their entries , with degrees five and nine. Orthogonality with the regular character gives for . Column norms give . These equations yield two possible rational pairs in some columns. For this integral character reconstruction from column orthogonality, a further constraint is essential: character values are algebraic integers, so rational candidates must be integers. For example at , and allow and ; the second pair is not integral. The integral choices complete the table:
Every nontrivial row has for . In a unitary realization, exactly when all eigenvalues of the representing matrix are one, so each nontrivial irreducible representation is faithful. If a nontrivial proper normal subgroup existed, a nontrivial irreducible representation of the nontrivial quotient would pull back to a nontrivial representation with that subgroup in its kernel. This contradicts faithfulness. The group is simple.
Let afford the irreducible character . The positive character inner product is the multiplicity of the trivial representation in restricted to , so there is a nonzero vector fixed by every element of . Since , every element of acts as the identity on all of . By , every element of therefore fixes .
The line is a nonzero invariant subspace of the irreducible representation , so it must equal . The action on this line is trivial, proving
The hypothesis on the kernel of a character is what makes an -fixed vector into a -fixed vector.
We prove closure of through character kernels, rather than assuming that a conjugacy-invariant set is a subgroup. Let , write , and define the generalised character
Here are the trivial characters. Since , part (i) gives and . Put . By Frobenius reciprocity and character orthogonality,
Consequently
To justify the resulting irreducibility, write any generalised character as an integer combination of irreducible characters. Its squared norm is , so norm one makes it or for one irreducible . Positive degree rules out the negative sign. Thus is an irreducible character, an instance of the fact that positive-degree norm-one virtual characters are irreducible.
If , no conjugate of lies in , so the induction formula gives . At it is also zero. Hence for all . For a finite-group representation we may choose an invariant positive Hermitian form, making every representing matrix unitary. Its trace equals its dimension only when all its unit-modulus eigenvalues are . Thus the kernel of a character is , and .
Conversely, if , then is conjugate to some . The character of the regular representation of is
If every nontrivial satisfied , the sum at would instead equal , a contradiction. Choose an for which these values differ. Since restricts to , it has , so . Therefore
This proves the Frobenius kernel theorem's subgroup assertion. The definition also gives . Using the permitted cardinality , normality ensures is a subgroup and
Thus is the Frobenius kernel, and supplies the complementary factor.
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 representations
is 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 bijection
whose inverse takes the character of the -isotypic component.
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:
The preceding parts give a simple Specht module for each partition and show that different partitions give nonisomorphic simples. The conjugacy classes of are indexed by partitions of , namely cycle types. We use the standard finite-group character theorem: the number of irreducible complex characters equals the number of conjugacy classes, and they form an orthonormal basis of complex class functions. Consequently the are the complete list of irreducible characters of .
By Maschke's theorem, the Young permutation module decomposes as a direct sum of these simple modules. For a semisimple complex module, Schur lemma makes the multiplicity of a simple module equal to the dimension of the homomorphism space from that simple; character orthogonality identifies the same number with the character inner product. Hence
Part (ii) makes unless , and gives . Taking characters proves
Thus the permutation-character decomposition is triangular in the dominance order on partitions, with diagonal multiplicity one. These are the dominance and diagonal-multiplicity consequences of Young's rule, obtained here without assuming its full multiplicity formula.
Take . Since is odd, its sign is , so . Define to fix and reverse the other cyclic labels: it interchanges with , with , and so on. Then , while
The centralizer of an -cycle in is : a commuting permutation is determined by the image of one point, and that image fixes the corresponding power of the cycle. All its elements are even, because is even. Any other conjugator taking to differs from by a centralizer element and therefore remains odd. Thus and are not conjugate in . This is the parity obstruction described by inversion of an odd cycle in an alternating group.
For any complex character of a finite group, a unitary realization gives
If every had real value at , all these characters would take equal values on and . But irreducible characters separate conjugacy classes: they form a basis of class functions, so equality of every irreducible value would also give equality of the class indicator functions. The two distinct conjugacy classes cannot have that property. Consequently
In other words, these alternating groups are not ambivalent groups, even though all symmetric-group irreducible characters are integer-valued.
If affords an irreducible character , entrywise complex conjugation gives a representation with character . An invariant complex subspace for the conjugate representation conjugates back to one for , so irreducibility is preserved. If representations afford , their tensor product has trace , proving that their product is a character.
With the usual character inner product,
The character orthogonality and the first assertion therefore make this equal to one if and zero otherwise. This also counts the invariant vectors in the tensor-product representation.
The induced character construction extends any class function on by
Frobenius reciprocity for class functions is . It follows directly by substituting this sum into the left inner product, writing , and using the conjugacy invariance of . If is a character, its inner product with every restricted irreducible character is a nonnegative integer, a multiplicity in its complete reducible decomposition. Expanding in the orthonormal irreducible-character basis therefore makes a nonnegative integer sum of irreducible characters: it is a character of .
If affords , a concrete induced representation is , with acting by left multiplication on the first factor. Choosing coset representatives decomposes it into copies of . An element permutes these copies; only fixed cosets contribute trace, and the contribution from is . Summing fixed cosets gives exactly the displayed induced class function.
We use the Dirichlet density form of the Chebotarev density theorem, the version directly proved by the permitted information at . If is a finite Galois extension of number fields with group and is a conjugacy class, let be the unramified prime ideals of whose Frobenius conjugacy class is . Then
The same conclusion holds for a union of conjugacy classes, replacing by the size of that union. The denominator may equivalently be the sum over all primes of . Here and below is real. This specifies the density being proved; an unweighted prime-counting asymptotic is a stronger formulation and is not being inferred merely from a limit at one.
First establish the necessary pole for a general base field. The Dedekind zeta function as a permutation Artin L-function gives it using exactly the allowed assumptions. Take a finite normal closure of , and let be the permutation representation on . Its trivial constituent has multiplicity one: an invariant function on the transitive set of embeddings is constant. At a rational prime, a basis of consists of the sums over inertia orbits of embeddings. Frobenius automorphism permutes these orbit sums. Within the decomposition-group orbit belonging to a prime of , the resulting cycle has length , because the residue embeddings are permuted cyclically by finite-field Frobenius. A cycle of length has determinant . Consequently the local factor of an Artin L-function gives
including at ramified primes. Decomposing gives
All factors after are holomorphic and nonzero at one by the allowed hypothesis. Thus has a simple pole there and
This argument also explains why the trivial relative Artin L-function is , rather than always the Riemann zeta function.
Now let be an irreducible character of , of degree . At an unramified prime the Euler product has local factor , where is a Frobenius representative. The eigenvalues of are roots of unity, since has finite order. Expanding the logarithm for therefore gives
where the finitely many ramified local factors contribute a function bounded as . They are nonzero and finite near one because their eigenvalues have modulus one while .
The terms are uniformly bounded. Indeed , and for and ,
There are at most primes of above each rational prime and each has norm at least that prime. Hence . Isolating proves the character prime sums in the Chebotarev proof identity
For nontrivial , the allowed holomorphy and nonvanishing at one give a local holomorphic logarithm and a bounded right side. The logarithm specified by the Euler series differs from that local branch by a constant multiple of on the real interval near one, so it too is bounded. For the trivial character, the right side is by the pole of . Thus
Expand the conjugacy-class indicator by character orthogonality. For ,
To see the coefficient, take its inner product with : . The irreducible characters form an orthonormal basis of class functions, so this is the full expansion. Substituting the prime-sum estimates leaves only the trivial character's logarithmic term:
Division by the diverging logarithm proves the theorem. The same trivial-character calculation shows that all primes of have density one; adding or removing finitely many primes does not change a Dirichlet density.
There is a necessary qualification for the final polynomial application: the printed claim is false for degree one. For example, is monic and irreducible in , yet has the root zero modulo every prime. We prove the intended assertion for degree .
Let be the splitting field of the monic irreducible polynomial over , and let be its roots. The Galois group acts transitively on . There is a derangement in a transitive group action: count the pairs satisfying . The orbit-stabilizer theorem gives
If every fixed at least one root, the identity, which fixes , would make this sum at least , a contradiction. Therefore some fixes no root, and neither does any conjugate of .
For completeness, relate this group action to reduction without assuming the desired splitting result. All roots are algebraic integers, since the polynomial is monic. Exclude the finitely many primes ramifying in or dividing the nonzero polynomial discriminant. At a prime over any remaining , the roots reduce to distinct elements of and give all roots of the reduced polynomial. Arithmetic Frobenius permutes them by . A reduced root belongs to exactly when it is fixed by this map. Because reduction is injective on the original root set, this happens exactly when the Frobenius permutation fixes an original root. This proves the Frobenius permutation and roots modulo a prime criterion.
The Chebotarev density theorem assigns the conjugacy class of our fixed-point-free the positive Dirichlet density . All but finitely many of these primes have rootless reduction, so there are infinitely many. More precisely, applying the same argument to the union of all fixed-point-free classes gives
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 consequently
In the same class order, all five induced irreducible characters are
We use the standard facts that finite complex representations are completely reducible, irreducible characters are orthonormal, the regular character is , and the number of irreducible characters equals the number of conjugacy classes. We also use Schur's lemma, Sylow's theorem and the nontrivial center of a nontrivial finite -group.
For an irreducible character of degree , a conjugacy-class sum acts as the scalar by Schur's lemma and taking traces. This scalar is an algebraic integer: class sums form an integral basis of the center of the integral group algebra, their multiplication has integer structure constants, and multiplication by satisfies its monic integer characteristic polynomial. That same polynomial annihilates its image in any irreducible representation. Character values are also algebraic integers, since they are sums of roots of unity. Character orthogonality now gives
This is a rational algebraic integer, hence an integer. Therefore divides .
The Burnside's pa qb theorem states that every finite group of order is soluble. We prove its character-theoretic ingredient. If a class has size coprime to , integers with give
an algebraic integer. Every algebraic conjugate of this number is the average of roots of unity and has modulus at most one. If it is nonzero, its algebraic norm is a nonzero integer of absolute value at least one; since every factor has modulus at most one, all must have modulus one. In particular . Equality in the triangle inequality for the unit-modulus eigenvalues implies that is scalar. Thus if , either or is scalar.
Suppose a group of order were nonabelian simple, with both primes present. Choose a nonidentity in the center of a Sylow -subgroup. Its centralizer contains that Sylow subgroup, so its class size is a power of . Every nontrivial irreducible representation is faithful by simplicity. If it sent to a scalar, faithfulness would make central in the group, impossible in a nonabelian simple group. The ingredient above therefore gives for every nontrivial character with degree coprime to . Evaluating the regular character at gives
The right side is an algebraic integer, but is not, a contradiction. A group of prime-power order cannot be nonabelian simple either, by its nontrivial center. Induct on the order: every nonsimple group has a proper nontrivial normal subgroup, and that subgroup and the quotient have smaller orders with at most these two prime divisors. By induction both are soluble; their derived-series extensions make the original group soluble. Simple abelian groups have prime order and start the induction. This proves Burnside's theorem.
For the final divisibility, let be odd and let be its number of conjugacy classes. All irreducible degrees are odd by the divisibility just proved. We use the standard Frobenius-Schur indicator theorem: is zero precisely for an irreducible character not equal to its conjugate, and is otherwise. Squaring is a bijection on an odd-order group: for each , its unique square root is , since every element order divides . For every nontrivial irreducible character, orthogonality to the trivial character consequently gives . The nontrivial characters therefore occur in distinct conjugate pairs of equal odd degree. Since an odd square is one modulo eight,
is a sum of pairs , each divisible by sixteen; the trivial character contributes zero. Hence
Let be the character of a representation of . The character orthogonality identity for an irreducible character is . For , the scalar formula from part (i) gives . Keeping these nonnegative summands yields
We prove the Dirichlet density form of the Chebotarev density theorem. Let be a finite Galois extension with Galois group , let be a conjugacy class in , and let consist of the unramified prime ideals of whose Frobenius conjugacy class is . The assertion is
The same result holds for any union of conjugacy classes, by addition. The following proof uses exactly the allowed one-dimensional Artin L-function behavior at and the permitted induction and Euler-product properties.
First determine the order of vanishing at for an arbitrary character of a representation of . The Brauer induction theorem supplies subgroups , linear characters of , and integers , possibly negative, such that
Put . Compatibility of Artin L-functions with induced representations and direct sums gives, initially for ,
Each is a one-dimensional Galois representation for , so the stated analytic assumptions apply to every factor. A trivial contributes a simple pole; a nontrivial is holomorphic and nonzero at one. Thus the product is meromorphic near one and
The character inner product is . Applying Frobenius reciprocity to each induced term gives
In particular, a nontrivial irreducible character has order zero, so its Artin L-function is holomorphic and nonzero near one. For the trivial character, , the Dedekind zeta function of the base field , and its pole is simple. This argument establishes the behavior needed at one, not holomorphy everywhere for arbitrary Artin L-functions.
Next convert that order calculation into a prime sum. For an irreducible character , choose a unitary representation of dimension affording it, and choose a Frobenius automorphism at each unramified prime. The logarithm specified by the absolutely convergent Euler product gives, for real ,
Only finitely many ramified primes occur. Their Euler-factor logarithms stay bounded near one, since the relevant eigenvalues have modulus one and . Also , so the contribution with is uniformly bounded for by
Convergence follows, for example, from the convergent ideal series defining . Therefore
Writing , the order computation means , where is holomorphic and nonzero near one. Choose its local logarithm. Along the real interval approaching one, this and the Euler-product logarithm differ only by a fixed multiple of . Consequently
Only the trivial irreducible character has ; all the others have .
Finally, character orthogonality makes the irreducible characters an orthonormal basis of class functions. For , the coefficient of in the class indicator is . Hence
Sum this identity over the unramified primes with weight . The finite character sum and the boxed estimates give
Dividing by proves the asserted Dirichlet density. The same Euler-product calculation with gives , so using all primes as the denominator is equivalent. Finitely many ramified primes do not affect either limit. No prime-counting asymptotic or natural-density Tauberian step is required by this proof.
Put , and let . Sharp two-transitivity gives and . A nonidentity element fixes at most one point. Counting the nonidentity elements in the stabilizer subgroups shows that there are fixed-point-free elements. Let be this set together with the identity. We first prove it is a normal subgroup, rather than presuming that fixed-point-free elements are closed under multiplication.
For , and directly. Otherwise use complex characters of a finite group. Let be the permutation character and , the character of the permutation representation with its constant line removed. For every nontrivial irreducible character of , form the virtual character
Its values are at the identity and at every fixed-point-free element. At an element with one fixed point, conjugate it to ; induction gives , because there is exactly one fixed coset.
The identity and the fixed-point-free elements together contribute to the inner product. The remaining elements are partitioned into the nonidentity parts of the stabilizer subgroups. Hence character orthogonality gives
A virtual character of norm one is plus or minus an irreducible character: its coefficients in the irreducible-character basis are integers whose squares sum to one. Its positive degree selects the plus sign. Thus each is an actual irreducible character.
For a group representation, holds exactly on its kernel: make the representation unitary and compare the sum of its unit-modulus eigenvalues with its dimension. All of therefore lies in the intersection of the kernels of the . Conversely, a nonidentity element fixing a point gives in . Some nontrivial irreducible character of has , since otherwise the regular representation of would not vanish at . Consequently
This proves normality and subgroup closure. It has order and no nonidentity element fixing a point, so it is a regular permutation subgroup.
Now acts transitively by conjugation on : identify an element of with its image of and use transitivity of on the remaining points. Thus all nonidentity elements of have the same order. Taking a suitable power of one element shows this common order is a prime . By Cauchy's theorem no other prime divides , so is a -group. Its nontrivial center is -invariant, so transitivity forces the center to be all of . Therefore is elementary abelian of order .
Since is prime to , is the unique Sylow -subgroup of . Uniqueness makes it characteristic under every group automorphism. We have proved
The character argument supplies the regular kernel of a finite sharply two-transitive group; the final Sylow argument establishes the stronger characteristic assertion.
Suppose is an irreducible character of a group of odd order and . Write . Every nonidentity element pairs with its distinct inverse, since there is no element of order . Also . If were nontrivial, character orthogonality with the trivial character of a representation would give
where is the sum of one character of a representation value from each inverse pair. This is an algebraic integer, so is an integer. Hence is even.
But an irreducible character degree divides the group order, so must be odd. One quick justification of that divisibility is that the central class sum of a conjugacy class acts by the algebraic integer . Its integrality follows from its integer matrix on the regular group representation. Character orthogonality then gives
a rational algebraic integer, hence an integer. The parity contradiction proves : the trivial character is the only self-conjugate irreducible character of an odd-order group.