1. Introduction
Computing the Cartan invariant matrix
for a finite group of Lie type is an important research subject in the representation theory. One has made many great efforts for this.
Firstly, let finite group be of type
.
for
and
are treated combinatorially by Alperin [1] [2] and Upadhyaya [3] that almost all Cartan invariants are powers of 2 but some exceptional ones for the form
. Benson, Martin [4] and Humphreys [5] exhibit
for
and
.
for
is given by Humphreys [6] when 
and by Ye [7] when
. Zaslawsky [8] computes
for
when
and for
when
.
for
and
is computed by Benson [9] and Du [10] .
for
has been computed independently by Jantzen (unpublished work) and Ye [11] .
Secondly, let finite group be of type
and
. Humphreys [6] and Thackray [12] work out independently
for
. Similar computations for
are summarized in [13] but
is not exhibited. Ye [14] , Ye and Zhou [15] , Y. Cheng (unpublished work), Liu and Ye [16] , Hu and Xu [17] compute
for
, 
,
, 
, 
, respectively.
At last, let finite group be of type
.
for
has been computed by Mertens [18] when
and Hu, Ye [19] when
. In the present note, we shall compute
for the finite group
of type
over a field
with
elements. Some computations involved in this paper were done by using a computer and the MATLAB software. We shall freely use the notations in [15] without further comments.
2. Preliminaries
Let
be a simply-connected semisimple algebraic group of type
over an algebraically closed field
with characteristic
. Take a maximal torus
of
such that
is the weight lattice of
with respect to
. Let
be the root system associated to
with the two simple roots
, where
is the long simple root, then
is the set of positive roots, and
be root lattice in
. Let
be the set of dominant weights with the corresponding fundamental weights
satisfying
, and denote by
the weight
with
. Then

It is well known that
with
is the Weyl module of the highest weight
with the unique simple quotient module
. In this way,
parameterizes the finite dimensional simple
-modules.
Let
denote the scheme-theoretic kernel of the
-th Frobenius morphism
of
and
the Frobenius twist for any
-module
. It is well known that
is trivial as a
-module. Moreover, any
-module that becomes trivial upon restriction to
is of this form. Let
be the set of restricted dominant weights, then the simple
-modules
’s with
remain simple regarded as the
-modules. On the other hand, any simple
- module is isomorphic to exactly one of them. Denote by
the simple
-modules with
, whose projective cover is
. Then
is an index set of isomorphic classes of simple
-modules. Let
be the finite subgroup consisting of all fixed points of
in
, which is called the finite group of type
. The following facts are well known. For
, the restriction of the simple
-module
to
, denoted by
, remains simple. Furthermore, any simple
-module is isomorphic to exactly one
with
. We denote by
the projective indecomposable
-module (or
-PIM, for short), which has
as its top and bottom composition factors.
Moreover, the restriction
is also a projective
-module and it is decomposed into a direct sum of
-PIM’s such that
occurs exactly once.
is also an index set of isomorphic classes of simple
-modules
and of projective indecomposable
-modules
.
By the definition, the Cartan invariant
of
is the multiplicity of the simple
-module
occurring as a
-composition factor of the projective indecomposable
-module
, i.e.
. Symmetric matrix
is called the Cartan invariant matrix, it is of
order.
From now on, we assume
. For any
, write
,
,
. And for any
, write
,
.
3. G-Composition Factors of 
Let
be the affine Weyl group of
, which is generated by all affine reflections
with
, where
sends
to
. Dot action
of
on 
is defined as follows:
for
and
. For this dot action, the origin of
is placed at
, and
is partitioned into alcoves, whose closures are fundamental domains for the action of
on the euclidean space
. In case of this paper,
lie in a parallelogram with lowest point
and highest point
, which is a union of 12 restricted alcoves (see Figure 1). Following [20] , any
-translate of this parallelogram is called a “box”; highest point of every box is a special point (intersection of all possible types of affine reflecting hyperplanes). We number some of the dominant alcoves as in Figure 2 for easy reference. We say that an alcove is of type 1 if it is a
-translate of the alcove marked 1, and so on, for the various restricted alcoves marked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16.
consists of highest weight
, weights inside
alcoves and weights on
walls. Let
be any positive integer. We denote by
the set of all weights
inside the alcove marked
. Then weights inside 12 restricted alcoves can be represented as follows:
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;

And, we denote by
,
,
the sets of all weights on the short right-angled edge, the long right-angled
edge, the incline edge of the right triangle which circles the above marked
, respectively, then we can describe weights on
walls. For example,
,
,
, and so on. It is well known that Weyl group
of
is a Coxeter group generated by
and
. Write
, then
, where
. And, the dot action of
on
induces the dot action of
on
.
, saying that
is linked in
means that there exists
such that
, and write
.
Recall some results of Jantzen [21] or Humphreys [22] on the generic decomposition patterns of Weyl modules, limiting ourselves to weights which lie in the lowest
-alcove (an alcove for the affine Weyl group relative to
). When a dominant weight
lies inside an alcove sufficiently far from the walls of the dominant Weyl chamber, the pattern of
-composition factors of
depends only on the type of alcove in which
lies. The corresponding “generic decomposition pattern” consists of the alcoves which contain reflected weights
for which
occurs as a
-composition factor of
; each such alcove is labelled with the multiplicity of
as a
-composition factor. For type
there are 12 type of alcoves, corresponding to the 12 alcoves in the restricted box; hence there are 12 generic patterns. In particular, all patterns involve the same number of alcoves and the same distribution of multiplicities. For type
the total number of composition factors is 119. Figure 3 shows generic decomposition pattern of
with
lying inside alcove of type 1. Here the bold alcove marked
means the alcove in which the highest weight of
lies, and
appears once as
-composition factor of
, other alcoves marked digits 1 to 4 refer to those alcoves in which the remaining
-composition factors
’s with the corresponding multiplicities 1 to 4 of
except
lie.
Now we determine the
-composition factors of
with
. If
lies inside an alcove, we consider each alcove in the generic pattern which lie outside the dominant chamber. Find the special point at the top of the unique box in which that alcove lies. If that point lies on a reflecting hyperplane through
, discard the alcove. Otherwise there is a unique element
taking that point to the special point at the top of a box in the dominant chamber. Find the alcove in this box corresponding to the given alcove, and attach to it the multiplicity in the given alcove, with a sign equal to det
. After carrying out this process for all alcoves, and cancelling multiplicities if necessary, the end result is the pattern of
-composition factors of
with
. Figure 4 illustrates this algorithm when
is inside alcove 25 (marked
) which is of type 11. The two long bold lines indicate the walls of the dominant chamber, i.e.,
-wall and
-wall. The bold alcoves marked digits 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 to the right of the
-wall correspond to the dominant alcoves marked digits 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1, 2, respectively. A single reflection
is involved here, so there are some multiplicity cancellations of alcoves marked digits 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1, 2 from the figure. All other alcoves to the right of the
- wall disappear, since the special points at the tops of their boxes lie on reflecting hyperplanes through
. Similarly, The bold alcoves marked digits 1, 1, 1, 1 to the left of the
-wall correspond to the dominant alcoves marked digits 4, 3, 3, 3, respectively. A single reflection
is involved here, so there are some multiplicity cancellations of alcoves marked digits 4, 3, 3, 3 from the figure. All other alcoves to the left of the
-wall also disappear, since the special points at the tops of their boxes lie also on reflecting hyperplanes through
. So the end result is that
will have 27
-composition factors, corresponding to
inside alcove
Figure 3. General decomposition pattern for alcove of type 1.
Figure 4. Patterns of G-composition factors of alcove 25.
25 and the reflected weights inside alcoves 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12(twice), 13, 14(twice), 15, 16, 17(twice), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.
For a weight
not lying inside an alcove, the
-composition factors of
are obtained by using Jantzen’s translation principle (cf. [23] ). Find the alcove in whose “upper closure”
lies and compute the pattern as above for an interior weight of this alcove. Then translate all weights involved to the type of wall in which
lies; only those in upper closures of alcoves survive to give composition factors of
. For example, when
,
will have 13
-composition factors, corresponding to
on wall
and the reflected weights on walls
,
,
,
,
(twice),
,
,
(twice),
,
.
In particular, we have the following Proposition.
Proposition 3.1 The decomposition patterns of
-composition factors
’s of
with
are listed as follows (Table 1). Here
’s are the reflected weights of
under
.
4. Weyl Filtrations of
Module 
Jantzen [24] shows that when
, principal indecomposable
-module
admits a
-module filtration with Weyl
-modules as subquotients so called Weyl filtration, and the times of Weyl
-module
appearing as a subquotient in Weyl filtration of
equals to the multiplicity of the simple
-module
occurring as a
-composition factor of Weyl
-module
, i.e.,
. In the case of this paper,
. By a lots of concrete computations, we find that when
, there are at most 80 dominant alcoves corresponding to the highest weights of Weyl
-modules occurring as subquotients in Weyl filtration of
with
, these 80 dominant alcoves are figured in Figure 2. So we can get Weyl
-modules
’s occurring as subquotients in Weyl filtration of
with
from decomposition patterns described in
. For
lying inside restricted dominant alcoves, we have the following Proposition 4.1.
Proposition 4.1 Assume that digit 1 denotes a typical weight inside the alcove 1, digits
denote the reflected weights inside the alcoves
under W13, then we have the following Table 2. Here the first column denotes the principal indecomposable
-modules
, the second column denotes the corresponding Weyl Gmodules
’s, and n2 means that
occurs twice.
Similarly, we can obtain Weyl
-modules
’s occurring as subquotients in Weyl filtration of
with
on walls, i.e., upper closures of restricted dominant alcoves.
For example,
lying inside alcove 16, we can get from the last row of Table 2 that

and
, so we have

By Proposition 4.1, we get Weyl
-module
’s decompositions of
with
, and by the methods given in
, we obtain
-composition factors of Weyl
-module
’s, so we can get all
- composition factors of
with
. For example
Table 1. G-composition factors L(μ)’s of
.

5.
-Composition Factors of 
Let
be the set of all weights of
for
, and
for
, i.e., the multiplicity of
in
. Some values of
are determined in Table 3, where the first row contains the weights
each of which labels the corresponding column, and the first column contains the wights
each of which labels the corresponding row. The number lying in the intersection of the
-row and
-column is just
.
For
, let
, then we have
, where
if
lie on wall of
chamber or
if
do not lie on wall of
chamber and
. By using Table 3, we have
, for all
.
For
, by
and Proposition 4.1, we have
, where
,
is the weight linked to
;
and
. As
-module, we
have
, so can determine
as follows. In case of this paper,
. If
, then
, i.e.,
, we get all
-composition factors of
; if
, which
is maximal one in weights less than
linked to
in
, then we have
. But weights less than
linked to
in
have at most 12, and the Weyl module corresponding to the smallest one is simple. Repeatedly, we have
, where
.
If
, then
; if
, then
,
or
, so
, return to the above case. In the end, we have
, where
. so determine all
-composition factors
’s
of
.
For example, we have the following expression:

6.
-Decomposition of 
For any
, restriction of
-module
on
is projective
-module, and can be decomposed into the direct sum of the principal indecomposable
-module
, Chastkofsky [25] and Jantzen [26] show the decomposition formula, i.e.,

Using this formula and the knowledge of decomposition of tensor products of two simple
-modules in the above section, and by a series of complicated computations, we have the following Proposition 6.1.
Proposition 6.1 The character
of
for
can be expressed as a sum of character
of
with
as in the following Table 4.
By the Proposition 6.1 and the above
, we can get all the Cartan invariants of 
. For example, since
, from the above 4.3, we have
, and so on.
7. Main Results
Let us arrange the row indices from left to right and the column indices from top to bottom in the following order:
for
taking
, successively;
for
taking
, successively;
for
taking
, successively;
for
taking
, successively; (12,12). Then, we write the Cartan invariant matrix
for the finite group
of type
as
. For convenience, we block
into
, where
with
is square matrix of
order, and
,
with
are
matrices, and
,
are square matrices of
order. We list all matrices
in Table 5, where the elements below diagonal are omitted for
, the elements above diagonal are omitted for
.
By MATLAB soft, we have
, which is also known by a general result in the representation theory of finite groups on the determinant of the Cartan invariant matrix.
Acknowledgements
The first version of this paper was done during the first named author visited the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy from 1, July, 2009 to 31, August, 2009. He would like to thank the ICTP for the financial support during his stay. He would also like to thank the Commission on Development and Exchanges of the International Mathematical Union for the financial support of the travel expenses in connection with his visiting to the ICTP.
NOTES
*Supported by the Science Foundation for the Excellent Youth Scholars of Henan Province (Grant No. [2005]461).
#Corresponding author.