Modular plethystic isomorphisms for two-dimensional linear groups

Abstract

Let $E$ be the natural representation of the special linear group $\mathrm{SL}_2(K)$ over an arbitrary field $K$. We use the two dual constructions of the symmetric power when $K$ has prime characteristic to construct an explicit isomorphism $\mathrm{Sym}_m \mathrm{Sym}^\ell E \cong \mathrm{Sym}_\ell \mathrm{Sym}^m E$. This generalises Hermite reciprocity to arbitrary fields. We prove a similar explicit generalisation of the classical Wronskian isomorphism, namely $\mathrm{Sym}_m \mathrm{Sym}^\ell E \cong \bigwedge^m \mathrm{Sym}^{\ell+m-1} E$. We also generalise a result first proved by King, by showing that if $\nabla^\lambda$ is the Schur functor for the partition $\lambda$ and $\lambda^\circ$ is the complement of $\lambda$ in a rectangle with $\ell+1$ rows, then $\nabla^\lambda \mathrm{Sym}^\ell E \cong \nabla^{\lambda^\circ} \mathrm{Sym}_\ell E$. To illustrate that the existence of such `plethystic isomorphisms' is far from obvious, we end by proving that the generalisation $\nabla^\lambda \mathrm{Sym}^\ell E \cong \nabla^{\lambda'} \mathrm{Sym}^{\ell + \ell(\lambda') - \ell(\lambda)}E$ of the Wronskian isomorphism, known to hold for a large class of partitions over the complex field, does not generalise to fields of prime characteristic, even after considering all possible dualities.