Any irreducible representation of a $p$-group over a field of characteristic $p$ is trivial.

In general, we know that if $G$ is a finite group and $K$ is a field, then $K[G]$ (the group algebra) is semisimple whenever $\operatorname{char}(K)$ does not divide the order of $G$. However, this result does not hold when we have a $p$-group and a finite field of characteristic $p$.

How would I go about showing that an irreducible representation of a $p$-group $G$ over a field $K$ of characteristic $p$ must be the trivial representation?

It seems like this would perhaps entail some sort of application of Maschke's Theorem to get a contradiction. I know that $|G| = \sum_i \operatorname{dim}(V_i)^2$, where $V_i$ is an irreducible representation. But it seems like that does not help me much here.

Any thoughts as to how to approach this question?

Solution 1:

Hint. Let $G$ act on the representation (minus $0$) and use an orbit counting argument to find a copy of the trivial representation.

Let $V$ be a nontrivial irreducible representation. Note that $V$ must be finite dimensional since $G$ is finite. Write $V^\circ = V\setminus\{0\}$ and let $G$ act on $V^\circ$. By orbit stabilizer, $\left| \mathcal{O}_x \right|$ divides $|G|$ for any $x\in V^\circ$, so all $G$-orbits have prime power (more precisely, power of $p$) size. Since these all need to sum to $\left|V^\circ\right|=p^n-1$, there is at least one orbit of size $1$. This orbit is a $G$-invariant one-dimensional subspace, and thus is an isomorphic copy of the trivial representation. But this contradicts that $V$ is irreducible.