Restrictions of irreducible characters of finite groups of Lie type to derived subgroups and regular semisimple elements

Abstract

In this note, we formulate an observation that "almost all" irreducible ordinary characters of finite groups of Lie type remain irreducible when restricted to the derived subgroups. To see this, key ingredients are some asymptotic results for conjugacy classes of finite groups of Lie type and strongly regular semisimple elements in dual groups.