Gelfand–Graev characters and their degenerate counterparts have an important role in the representation theory of finite groups of Lie type. Using a characteristic map to translate the character theory of the finite unitary groups into the language of symmetric functions, we study degenerate Gelfand–Graev characters of the finite unitary group from a combinatorial point of view. In particular, we give the values of Gelfand–Graev characters at arbitrary elements, recover the decomposition multiplicities of degenerate Gelfand–Graev characters in terms of tableau combinatorics, and conclude with some multiplicity consequences.
A sharp upper bound for the size of Lusztig series
