Modulo $\ell$ distinction problems
Let $F$ be a non-archimedean local field of characteristic different from 2 and residual characteristic $p$. This paper concerns the $\ell$-modular representations of a connected reductive group $G$ distinguished by a Galois involution, with $\ell$ an odd prime different from $p$. We start by proving a general theorem allowing to lift supercuspidal $\overline{\mathbb{F}}_{\ell}$-representations of $\mathrm{GL}_n(F)$ distinguished by an arbitrary closed subgroup $H$ to a distinguished supercuspidal $\overline{\mathbb{Q}}_{\ell}$-representation. Given a quadratic field extension $E/F$ and an irreducible $\overline{\mathbb{F}}_{\ell}$-representation $π$ of $\mathrm{GL}_n(E)$, we verify the Jacquet conjecture in the modular setting that if the Langlands parameter $ϕ_π$ is irreducible and conjugate-self-dual, then $π$ is either $\mathrm{GL}_n(F)$-distinguished or $(\mathrm{GL}_n(F),ω_{E/F})$-distinguished (where $ω_{E/F}$ is the quadratic character of $F^\times$ associated to the quadratic field extension $E/F$ by the local class field theory), but not both, which extends one result of Sécherre to the case $p=2$. We give another application of our lifting theorem for supercuspidal representations distinguished by a unitary involution, extending one result of Zou to $p=2$. After that, we give a complete classification of the $\mathrm{GL}_2(F)$-distinguished representations of $\mathrm{GL}_2(E)$. Using this classification we discuss a modular version of the Prasad conjecture for $\mathrm{PGL}_2$. We show that the "classical" Prasad conjecture fails in the modular setting. We propose a solution using non-nilpotent Weil-Deligne representations. Finally, we apply the restriction method of Anandavardhanan and Prasad to classify the $\mathrm{SL}_2(F)$-distinguished modular representations of $\mathrm{SL}_2(E)$.