Nagao module theorem states that if is a central idempotent, , and , then is central in and
Every indecomposable summand of the second term is relatively projective for some subgroup of not containing . In particular, if , the error term has no summand with module vertex containing . This is the Nagao version of the second main theorem; it identifies the modular block of a module vertex- Green correspondent.
Let be the identity of , , and its Brauer correspondent of a block in . Because , the ideal is nilpotent: normality allows moving past and the augmentation ideal of the p-group is nilpotent. Hence has nonzero image in . Choose an indecomposable summand of . It is projective over and belongs to modular block after inflation.
Since is a permutation module, its summand has trivial module source and module vertex contained in . As acts trivially, all its proper-subgroup traces vanish and its Brauer quotient of a module is . The module vertex must also contain , so it is exactly . This is inflated quotient projectives have trivial source.
Let be the Green correspondent of in , using the theorem proved in the next solution. It has module vertex and the same trivial module source. For a normal p-subgroup, each central block idempotent of equals its Brauer image: the two central idempotents agree modulo the nilpotent ideal , because nonfixed conjugation-orbit sums map to zero in ; central idempotents congruent modulo a nilpotent ideal coincide. The first main theorem therefore gives .
Let be the block identity acting on . Nagao's theorem forces , since has module vertex . But , and for orthogonality would give . Therefore belongs to , has module vertex and has trivial module source. For , this supplies an indecomposable projective in the defect-zero modular block.
For the representation-type deduction, modules in a block are projective relative to its defect group: the block trace identity acts as a relative trace equal to the module identity, so D. Higman criterion gives split induction from . If is cyclic of order , then , whose indecomposable modules are the nilpotent Jordan chains , . Each indecomposable in is a summand of the module induction of its module restriction to , and hence occurs among the summands of these finitely many fixed induced modules. Their finite Krull-Schmidt decompositions give finite representation type.
Conversely, the regular defect-group bimodule inside a block gives
Indeed this module restriction is a permutation summand. Its Brauer quotient at is nonzero, because on the fixed group-basis elements the block projection becomes multiplication by . Every transitive orbit in has stabilizer of order at most . A summand with a nonzero quotient at must therefore have stabilizer exactly up to conjugacy, and is the regular bimodule. Tensoring this split inclusion on the right with an arbitrary -module yields
If has only finitely many indecomposable modules, their restrictions contain only finitely many indecomposable summands. The displayed inclusion puts every indecomposable on that finite list, so has finite representation type too.
A noncyclic finite p-group has a quotient , by the Burnside basis theorem for its Frattini quotient. Here is an explicit infinite family over any field, including a finite field. For , take basis and operators , defined by
and . All products of vanish, so satisfy the group relations in characteristic . The radical is . An endomorphism preserves , and commuting with the two shift maps forces its induced maps on and to be the same scalar. To see this, write the shift matrices as and : the equations , force the off-diagonal entries of to vanish and all diagonal entries to agree, by comparing successive rows, including the zero first column of and zero last column of . The remaining linear map sends the top into and has square zero. Thus the endomorphism ring is a scalar algebra with square-zero radical, hence local; the module is indecomposable. Inflation to preserves that ring. Its dimensions are unbounded, contradicting finite representation type. Therefore has finite representation type if and only if is cyclic, including trivial defect.