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added a remark on Lie - Kolchin
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Victor Protsak
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Even when viewed as an additive category, Rep(G) is not semisimple, so it's not really clear to me what such a description would entail... But simple objects in it are (in a different language) irreducible representations of a semidirect product of groups and Mackey theory was invented precisely with the goal of determining them. The answer, in short, is that each simple G-module has the form $\operatorname{Ind}_{L}^{G}(\sigma^{\prime})$, where $\sigma$ is a simple $H$-module, $K_\sigma$ is the stabilizer of $\sigma$ in $K$ (i.e. consists of all elements $k\in K$ s.t. the action of $k$ on $H$ conjugates $\sigma$ into an isomorphic module), $L=K_{\sigma}H<G$ and $\sigma^{\prime}$ is the natural extension of $\sigma$ to $L$. The catch is that the usual Mackey theory applies to unitary representations (which can be infinite-dimensional) of topological groups. Nevertheless, induction functor is defined in the algebraic setting and I think that the "Mackey machine" works for formal reasons (this must be described in Jantzen, but I don't have it close at hand to check).

Returning to the full category Rep(G), there are various filtrations of finite-length representations with simple quotients, and one can take tensor products of filtered objects. However, in general one doesn't expect a manageable description of Rep(G) even in the special situation of a semidirect product of a unipotent group and a torus: this already includes the case when G is the Borel subgroup of a semisimple algebraic group, which has been studied but is not completely understood. Good luck!

Addendum Of course, if G is a solvable connected algebraic group, by Lie – Kolchin every irreducible representation is one-dimensional, so simple G-modules are the same as simple G/[G,G]-modules, which have an easy description.

Even when viewed as an additive category, Rep(G) is not semisimple, so it's not really clear to me what such a description would entail... But simple objects in it are (in a different language) irreducible representations of a semidirect product of groups and Mackey theory was invented precisely with the goal of determining them. The answer, in short, is that each simple G-module has the form $\operatorname{Ind}_{L}^{G}(\sigma^{\prime})$, where $\sigma$ is a simple $H$-module, $K_\sigma$ is the stabilizer of $\sigma$ in $K$ (i.e. consists of all elements $k\in K$ s.t. the action of $k$ on $H$ conjugates $\sigma$ into an isomorphic module), $L=K_{\sigma}H<G$ and $\sigma^{\prime}$ is the natural extension of $\sigma$ to $L$. The catch is that the usual Mackey theory applies to unitary representations (which can be infinite-dimensional) of topological groups. Nevertheless, induction functor is defined in the algebraic setting and I think that the "Mackey machine" works for formal reasons (this must be described in Jantzen, but I don't have it close at hand to check).

Returning to the full category Rep(G), there are various filtrations of finite-length representations with simple quotients, and one can take tensor products of filtered objects. However, in general one doesn't expect a manageable description of Rep(G) even in the special situation of a semidirect product of a unipotent group and a torus: this already includes the case when G is the Borel subgroup of a semisimple algebraic group, which has been studied but is not completely understood. Good luck!

Even when viewed as an additive category, Rep(G) is not semisimple, so it's not really clear to me what such a description would entail... But simple objects in it are (in a different language) irreducible representations of a semidirect product of groups and Mackey theory was invented precisely with the goal of determining them. The answer, in short, is that each simple G-module has the form $\operatorname{Ind}_{L}^{G}(\sigma^{\prime})$, where $\sigma$ is a simple $H$-module, $K_\sigma$ is the stabilizer of $\sigma$ in $K$ (i.e. consists of all elements $k\in K$ s.t. the action of $k$ on $H$ conjugates $\sigma$ into an isomorphic module), $L=K_{\sigma}H<G$ and $\sigma^{\prime}$ is the natural extension of $\sigma$ to $L$. The catch is that the usual Mackey theory applies to unitary representations (which can be infinite-dimensional) of topological groups. Nevertheless, induction functor is defined in the algebraic setting and I think that the "Mackey machine" works for formal reasons (this must be described in Jantzen, but I don't have it close at hand to check).

Returning to the full category Rep(G), there are various filtrations of finite-length representations with simple quotients, and one can take tensor products of filtered objects. However, in general one doesn't expect a manageable description of Rep(G) even in the special situation of a semidirect product of a unipotent group and a torus: this already includes the case when G is the Borel subgroup of a semisimple algebraic group, which has been studied but is not completely understood. Good luck!

Addendum Of course, if G is a solvable connected algebraic group, by Lie – Kolchin every irreducible representation is one-dimensional, so simple G-modules are the same as simple G/[G,G]-modules, which have an easy description.

Source Link
Victor Protsak
  • 14.5k
  • 4
  • 68
  • 94

Even when viewed as an additive category, Rep(G) is not semisimple, so it's not really clear to me what such a description would entail... But simple objects in it are (in a different language) irreducible representations of a semidirect product of groups and Mackey theory was invented precisely with the goal of determining them. The answer, in short, is that each simple G-module has the form $\operatorname{Ind}_{L}^{G}(\sigma^{\prime})$, where $\sigma$ is a simple $H$-module, $K_\sigma$ is the stabilizer of $\sigma$ in $K$ (i.e. consists of all elements $k\in K$ s.t. the action of $k$ on $H$ conjugates $\sigma$ into an isomorphic module), $L=K_{\sigma}H<G$ and $\sigma^{\prime}$ is the natural extension of $\sigma$ to $L$. The catch is that the usual Mackey theory applies to unitary representations (which can be infinite-dimensional) of topological groups. Nevertheless, induction functor is defined in the algebraic setting and I think that the "Mackey machine" works for formal reasons (this must be described in Jantzen, but I don't have it close at hand to check).

Returning to the full category Rep(G), there are various filtrations of finite-length representations with simple quotients, and one can take tensor products of filtered objects. However, in general one doesn't expect a manageable description of Rep(G) even in the special situation of a semidirect product of a unipotent group and a torus: this already includes the case when G is the Borel subgroup of a semisimple algebraic group, which has been studied but is not completely understood. Good luck!