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We classify all $2$-blocks with abelian defect groups of rank $4$ up to Morita equivalence. The classification holds for blocks over a suitable discrete valuation ring as well as for those over an algebraically closed field. An application is that Brou\'{e}'s abelian defect group conjecture holds for all blocks under consideration here., Comment: 29 pages

Recently the authors proved the existence of RoCK blocks for double covers of symmetric groups over an algebraically closed field of odd characteristic. In this paper we prove that these blocks lift to RoCK blocks over a suitably defined discrete valuation ring. Such a lift is even splendidly derived equivalent to its Brauer correspondent. We note that the techniques used in the current article are almost completely independent from those previously used by the authors. In particular, we do not make use of quiver Hecke superalgebras and the main result is proved using methods solely from the theory of representations of finite groups. Therefore, this paper much more resembles the work of Chuang and Kessar, where RoCK blocks for symmetric groups were constructed.

We define and study RoCK blocks for double covers of symmetric groups. We prove that RoCK blocks of double covers are Morita equivalent to standard `local' blocks. The analogous result for blocks of symmetric groups, a theorem of Chuang and Kessar, was an important step in Chuang and Rouquier ultimately proving Brou\'e's abelian defect group conjecture for symmetric groups. Indeed we prove Brou\'e's conjecture for the RoCK blocks defined in this article. Our methods involve translation into the quiver Hecke superalgebras setting using the Kang-Kashiwara-Tsuchioka isomorphism and categorification methods of Kang-Kashiwara-Oh. As a consequence we construct Morita equivalences between more general objects than blocks of finite groups. In particular, our results extend to certain blocks of level one cyclotomic Hecke-Clifford superalgebras. We also study imaginary cuspidal categories of quiver Hecke superalgebras and classify irreducible representations of quiver Hecke superalgebras in terms of cuspidal systems.

It is an open problem as to whether any bimodule inducing a Morita auto-equivalence of a block must have endopermutation source. We prove that, for blocks $b$ with normal defect groups in odd characteristic, a stronger result holds, namely that all such bimodules have linear source. We also prove the analogous result in characteristic $2$, provided that the defect group is of a specific, slightly restrictive, form.

We construct blocks of finite groups with arbitrarily large Morita Frobenius numbers, an invariant which determines the size of the minimal field of definition of the associated basic algebra. This answers a question of Benson and Kessar. This also improves upon a result of the second author where arbitrarily large $\mathcal{O}$-Morita Frobenius numbers are constructed.

We consider Donovan's conjecture in the context of blocks of groups $G$ with defect group $D$ and normal subgroups $N \lhd G$ such that $G=C_D(D\cap N)N$, extending similar results for blocks with abelian defect groups. As an application we show that Donovan's conjecture holds for blocks with defect groups of the form $Q_8 \times C_{2^n}$ or $Q_8 \times Q_8$ defined over a discrete valuation ring.

We show that the Green correspondence induces an injective group homomorphism from the linear source Picard group $\mathcal{L}(B)$ of a block $B$ of a finite group algebra to the linear source Picard group $\mathcal{L}(C)$, where $C$ is the Brauer correspondent of $B$. This homomorphism maps the trivial source Picard group $\mathcal{T}(B)$ to the trivial source Picard group $\mathcal{T}(C)$. We show further that the endopermutation source Picard group $\mathcal{E}(B)$ is bounded in terms of the defect groups of $B$ and that when $B$ has a normal defect group $\mathcal{E}(B)=\mathcal{L}(B)$. Finally we prove that the rank of any invertible $B$-bimodule is bounded by that of $B$.

We prove that if $b$ is a block of a finite group with normal abelian defect group and inertial quotient a direct product of elementary abelian groups, then $\operatorname{Picent}(b)$ is trivial. We also provide examples of blocks $b$ of finite groups with non-trivial $\operatorname{Picent}(b)$. We even have examples with normal abelian defect group and abelian inertial quotient.

We construct blocks of finite groups with arbitrarily large $\mathcal{O}$-Morita Frobenius numbers. There are no known examples of two blocks defined over $\mathcal{O}$ that are not Morita equivalent but the corresponding blocks defined over $k$ are. Therefore, the above strongly suggests that Morita Frobenius numbers are also unbounded, which would answer a question of Benson and Kessar.

Let $b$ be a block with normal abelian defect group and abelian inertial quotient. We prove that every Morita auto-equivalence of $b$ has linear source. We note that this improves upon results of Zhou and also Boltje, Kessar and Linckelmann.

We calculate examples of Picard groups for 2-blocks with abelian defect groups with respect to a complete discrete valuation ring. These include all blocks with abelian 2-groups of 2-rank at most three with the exception of the principal block of J1. In particular this shows directly that all such Picard groups are finite and Picent, the group of Morita auto-equivalences fixing the centre, is trivial. These are amongst the first calculations of this kind. Further we prove some general results concerning Picard groups of blocks with normal defect groups as well as some other cases., Comment: 21 pages

We give a reduction to quasisimple groups for Donovan's conjecture for blocks with abelian defect groups defined with respect to a suitable discrete valuation ring $\mathcal{O}$. Consequences are that Donovan's conjecture holds for $\mathcal{O}$-blocks with abelian defect groups for the prime two, and that, using recent work of Farrell and Kessar, for arbitrary primes Donovan's conjecture for $\mathcal{O}$-blocks with abelian defect groups reduces to bounding the Cartan invariants of blocks of quasisimple groups in terms of the defect. A result of independent interest is that in general (i.e. for arbitrary defect groups) Donovan's conjecture for $\mathcal{O}$-blocks is a consequence of conjectures predicting bounds on the $\mathcal{O}$-Frobenius number and on the Cartan invariants, as was proved by Kessar for blocks defined over an algebraically closed field., Comment: 16 pages

We give a reduction of Donovan's conjecture for abelian groups to a similar statement for quasisimple groups. Consequently we show that Donovan's conjecture holds for abelian $2$-groups., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1711.05357

We define a new invariant for a $p$-block, the strong Frobenius number, which we use to address the problem of reducing Donovan's conjecture to normal subgroups of index p. As an application we use the strong Frobenius number to complete the proof of Donovan's conjecture for 2-blocks with abelian defect groups of rank at most 4 and for 2-blocks with abelian defect groups of order at most 64.

In this paper we classify all blocks with defect group $C_{2^n}\times C_2\times C_2$ up to Morita equivalence. Together with a recent paper of Wu, Zhang and Zhou, this completes the classification of Morita equivalence classes of $2$-blocks with abelian defect groups of rank at most $3$. The classification holds for blocks over a suitable discrete valuation ring as well as for those over an algebraically closed field. The case considered in this paper is significant because it involves comparison of Morita equivalence classes between a group and a normal subgroup of index $2$, so requires novel reduction techniques which we hope will be of wider interest. We note that this also completes the classification of blocks with abelian defect groups of order dividing $16$ up to Morita equivalence. A consequence is that Broue's abelian defect group conjecture holds for all blocks mentioned above.

We consider $p$-blocks with abelian defect groups and in the first part prove a relationship between its Loewy length and that for blocks of normal subgroups of index $p$. Using this, we show that if $B$ is a $2$-block of a finite group with abelian defect group $D \cong C_{2^{a_1}} \times \cdots \times C_{2^{a_r}} \times (C_2)^s$, where $a_i > 1$ for all $i$ and $r \geq 0$, then $d < LL(B) \leq 2^{a_1}+\cdots+2^{a_r}+2s-r+1$, where $|D|=2^d$. When $s=1$ the upper bound can be improved to $2^{a_1}+\cdots+2^{a_r}+2-r$. Together these give sharp upper bounds for every isomorphism type of $D$. A consequence is that when $D$ is an abelian $2$-group the Loewy length is bounded above by $|D|$ except when $D$ is a Klein-four group and $B$ is Morita equivalent to the principal block of $A_5$. We conjecture similar bounds for arbitrary primes and give evidence that it holds for principal $3$-blocks.

Let $q$ be a power of a prime, $l$ a prime not dividing $q$, $d$ a positive integer coprime to both $l$ and the multiplicative order of $q\mod l$ and $n$ a positive integer. A. Watanabe proved that there is a perfect isometry between the principal $l-$blocks of $GL_n(q)$ and $GL_n(q^d)$ where the correspondence of characters is give by Shintani descent. In the same paper Watanabe also prove that if $l$ and $q$ are odd and $l$ does not divide $GL_n(q^2)|/|U_n(q)|$ then there is a perfect isometry between the principal $l-$blocks of $U_n(q)$ and $GL_n(q^2)$ with the correspondence of characters also given by Shintani descent. R. Kessar extended this first result to all unipotent blocks of $GL_n(q)$ and $GL_n(q^d)$. In this paper we extend this second result to all unipotent blocks of $U_n(q)$ and $GL_n(q^2)$. In particular this proves that any two unipotent blocks of $U_n(q)$ at unitary primes (for possibly different $n$) with the same weight are perfectly isometric. We also prove that this perfect isometry commutes with Deligne-Lusztig induction at the level of characters., Comment: 11 pages

O. Brunat and J. Gramain recently proved that any two blocks of double covers of symmetric groups are Brou\'{e} perfectly isometric provided they have the same weight and sign. They also proved a corresponding statement for double covers of alternating groups and Brou\'{e} perfect isometries between double covers of symmetric and alternating groups when the blocks have opposite signs. Using both the results and methods of O. Brunat and J. Gramain in this paper we prove that when the weight of a block of a double cover of a symmetric or alternating group is less than $p$ then the block is Brou\'{e} perfectly isometric to its Brauer correspondent. This means that Brou\'{e}'s perfect isometry conjecture holds for the double covers of the symmetric and alternating groups. We also explicitly construct the characters of these Brauer correspondents which may be of independent interest to the reader., Comment: 44 pages

H. Miyachi and W. Turner have independently proved that Broue's Abelian Defect Group Conjecture holds for certain unipotent blocks of the finite general linear group, the so-called Rouquier blocks. This together with A. Marcus and J. Chuang and R. Rouquier proves that the conjecture holds for all blocks of such groups. We prove that other finite classical groups also possess unipotent Rouquier blocks at linear primes., Comment: 40 pages