Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / iii / Paper 137 / 2 / i / Solution

Write $x=g^{-1}h$ and $S(x)={\sum }_{\chi \in \hat{G}}\chi (x)$, where $\hat{G}$ is the character group of a finite abelian group. The Fundamental theorem of finitely generated abelian groups writes the finite group $G$ as a product of cyclic groups. A character of a cyclic group factor of order $r$ is determined by an arbitrary $r$th root of unity, so $|\hat{G}|=|G|$. This description also shows that the characters separate points: if $x\ne 1$, a nonzero coordinate of $x$ is detected by a character $\psi$ with $\psi (x)\ne 1$.

Multiplication by $\psi$ permutes $\hat{G}$, soFor $x\ne 1$ this forces $S(x)=0$. For $x=1$ every summand is one. Since $\chi (g{)}^{-1}\chi (h)=\chi (g^{-1}h)$, the character-sum cancellation lemma givesAll character values are roots of unity, so inversion here is also complex conjugation. This is the finite-abelian version of character orthogonality.