Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
In his fundamental paper [1] J. L. Alperin introduced the idea of a weight in modular representation theory of finite groups G. Let p be a prime. A p-subgroup R is called a radical subgroup of G if R = Op(NG(R)). An irreducible character φ of NG(R) is called a weight character if φ is trivial on R and belongs to a p-block of defect zero of NG(R)/R. The G-conjugacy class of the pair (R, φ) is a weight of G. Let b be the p-block of NG(R) containing φ, and let B be p-block of G. A weight (R, φ) is a B-weight for the block B of G if B = bG, which means that B and b correspond under the Brauer homomorphism. Alperin's conjecture on weights asserts that the number l*(B) of B-weights of a p-block B of a finite group G equals the number l(B) of modular characters of B.