Decomposing modular tensor products: `Jordan partitions', their parts and p-parts

Abstract

Determining the Jordan canonical form of the tensor product of Jordan blocks has many applications including to the representation theory of algebraic groups, and to tilting modules. Although there are several algorithms for computing this decomposition in literature, it is difficult to predict the output of these algorithms. We call a decomposition of the form $J_r\otimes J_s=J_{\lambda_1}\oplus\cdots\oplus J_{\lambda_b}$ a `Jordan partition'. We prove several deep results concerning the $p$-parts of the $\lambda_i$ where $p$ is the characteristic of the underlying field. Our main results include the proof of two conjectures made by McFall in 1980, and the proof that ${\rm lcm}(r,s)$ and $\gcd(\lambda_1,\dots,\lambda_b)$ have equal $p$-parts. Finally, we establish some explicit formulas for Jordan partitions when $p=2$.