Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2013 / iii / Paper 8 / 3 / b

Write the finite abelian group additively. A character of a finite abelian group is a group homomorphism $\chi :G\to \{z:|z|=1\}$. We first prove that there are exactly $|G|$ such characters of a finite abelian group, without assuming a structure theorem.

Use extension of a character across a cyclic quotient. Given a subgroup $H$ and $a\notin H$, let $k$ be the least positive integer with $ka\in H$. The subgroup $K=H+⟨a⟩$ has $k$ cosets of $H$. If $\varphi$ is a character of a finite abelian group on $H$, choose any of the $k$ roots ${\lambda }^k=\varphi (ka)$ and defineThis is well-defined: two representations differ by an integer multiple of $ka$, and the root equation exactly cancels that difference. It is a character of a finite abelian group, and every extension arises from one of the $k$ choices of $\lambda$. Build a chain from the trivial subgroup to $G$ by adjoining elements. The character of a finite abelian group count multiplies by the same factor as the subgroup order at every step, so $|\hat{G}|=|G|$.

For a nontrivial character of a finite abelian group $\eta$, choose $a$ with $\eta (a)\ne 1$. Translating the group sum showsso the sum is zero. Applied to $\chi \overline{\psi }$, this provesThe $|G|$ orthogonal nonzero characters of a finite abelian group therefore form a basis of all complex functions on $G$, a vector space of dimension $|G|$.

With the unnormalized Fourier coefficients $\hat{f}(\chi )={\sum }_{x\in G}f(x)\overline{\chi (x)}$, expansion in that basis gives the Fourier inversion on a finite groupUnder a normalized forward-transform convention the prefactor would instead be one. Thus the unspecified constant is determined by the convention, and the inversion itself follows directly from character of a finite abelian group counting and orthogonality.