The twining character formula for reductive groups

Abstract

Let $\widehat{G}$ be a connected reductive group over an algebraically closed field with a pinning-preserving outer automorphism $\sigma$. Jantzen's twining character formula relates the trace of the action of $\sigma$ on a highest-weight representation $V_{\mu}$ of $\widehat{G}$ to the character of a corresponding highest-weight representation $(V_{\sigma})_{\mu}$ of a related group $\widehat{G^{\sigma, \circ}}$. This paper extends the methods of Hong's geometric proof for the case $\widehat{G}$ is adjoint, to prove that the formula holds for all connected reductive groups, and examines the role of additional hypotheses. In the final section, it is explained how these results can be used to draw conclusions about quasi-split groups over a non-Archimedean local field. This paper thus provides a more general geometric proof of the Jantzen twining character formula and provides some apparently new results of independent interest along the way.