Supercuspidal characters of $\operatorname{SL}_2$ over a $p$-adic field

Abstract

The character formulas of Sally and Shalika are an early triumph in $p$-adic harmonic analysis, but, to date, the calculations underlying the formulas have not been available. In this paper, which should be viewed as a precursor of the forthcoming volume by the authors and Alan Roche, we leverage modern technology (for example, the Moy-Prasad theory) to compute explicit character tables. An interesting highlight is the computation of the 'exceptional' supercuspidal characters, i.e., those depth-zero representations not arising by inflation-induction from a Deligne-Lusztig representation of finite $\operatorname{SL}_2$; this provides a concrete application for the recent work of DeBacker and Kazhdan.