Weight Parameterization of Simple Modules for p-Solvable Groups

Abstract

The weights for a finite group G with respect to a prime number p were introduced by Jon Alperin, in order to formulate his celebrated conjecture affirming that the number of G-conjugacy classes of weights of G coincides with the number of isomorphism classes of simple kG-modules, where k is an algebraically closed field of characteristic p. Thirty years ago, Tetsuro Okuyama already proved that in the class of p-solvable groups this conjecture holds. In this paper, for the p-solvable groups, on the one hand we exhibit a natural bijection — namely compatible with the action of the group of outer automorphisms of G — between the sets of isomorphism classes of simple kG-modules M and of G-conjugacy classes of weights (R,Y), up to the choice of a polarization. On the other hand, we determine the relationship between a multiplicity module of M and Y. In an Appendix, we show that the bijection defined by Gabriel Navarro for the groups of odd order coincides with our bijection for a particular choice of the polarization.