Supercuspidal representations of $\mathrm{GL}_{n}(F)$ distinguished by a unitary involution (1909.10450v4)

Abstract: Let $F/F_{0}$ be a quadratic extension of non-archimedean locally compact fields of residue characteristic $p\neq 2$. Let $R$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic different from $p$. For $\pi$ a supercuspidal representation of $G=\mathrm{GL}{n}(F)$ over $R$ and $G^{\tau}$ a unitary group in $n$ variables contained in $G$, we prove that $\pi$ is distinguished by $G^{\tau}$ if and only if $\pi$ is Galois invariant. When $R=\mathbb{C}$ and $F$ is a $p$-adic field, this result first as a conjecture proposed by Jacquet was proved in 2010's by Feigon-Lapid-Offen by using global method. Our proof is local which works for both complex case and $l$-modular case with $l\neq p$. We further study the dimension of $\mathrm{Hom}{G^{\tau}}(\pi,1)$ and show that it is at most one.