Paper 4, Section II, F

Representation Theory
Part II, 2020

(a) State and prove Burnside's lemma. Deduce that if a finite group GG acts 2transitively on a set XX then the corresponding permutation character has precisely two (distinct) irreducible summands.

(b) Suppose that Fq\mathbb{F}_{q} is a field with qq elements. Write down a list of conjugacy class representatives for GL2(Fq)G L_{2}\left(\mathbb{F}_{q}\right). Consider the natural action of GL2(Fq)G L_{2}\left(\mathbb{F}_{q}\right) on the set of lines through the origin in Fq2\mathbb{F}_{q}^{2}. What values does the corresponding permutation character take on each conjugacy class representative in your list? Decompose this permutation character into irreducible characters.