Paper 1, Section II, I

Representation Theory
Part II, 2021

(a) What does it mean to say that a representation of a group is completely reducible? State Maschke's theorem for representations of finite groups over fields of characteristic 0 . State and prove Schur's lemma. Deduce that if there exists a faithful irreducible complex representation of GG, then Z(G)Z(G) is cyclic.

(b) If GG is any finite group, show that the regular representation CG\mathbb{C} G is faithful. Show further that for every finite simple group GG, there exists a faithful irreducible complex representation of GG.

(c) Which of the following groups have a faithful irreducible representation? Give brief justification of your answers.

(i) the cyclic groups Cn(nC_{n}(n a positive integer ));

(ii) the dihedral group D8D_{8};

(iii) the direct product C2×D8C_{2} \times D_{8}.