Poincaré series for the occurrence of certain modular representations of GL(n,p) in the symmetric algebra

Abstract

SynopsisThe number of occurrences of the Steinberg representation St of GL(n, p) as a composition factor in the symmetric algebra Fp[x1, … xn] has been determined by several authors. We extend this result to the representations of GL(n, p) which are the closest neighbours of St in the SL(n, p) weight diagram. The method is to play off duality for GL(n, p)-modules against connectivity for M(n, p)-modules. The result is equivalent to determining the cohomology groups of the corresponding indecomposable stable summands of the localisation of an n-fold product of complex projective spaces at the prime p.