[GAP Forum] Computational speed of irreducible characters

[Joseph Timmer]

Dear GAP forum,

My question is about how GAP computes irreducible characters and if there
are specific methods to use that will speed up computations.

The groups are permutation groups and I give GAP a list of generators.   I
then need to know the irreducible characters of these groups.  The groups
are typically one of two types:

(1) Small (order is less than 2000) and not a power of 2

(2) Small index inside Alternating or Symmetric Groups, so usually
themselves are symmetric or alternating

With these considerations, are there any "tricks" to speed up computations?


Would it be faster to try and "identify" the group first, using
StructureDescription (as the small index groups have very nice
descriptions) for example, and then using group libraries?

Thank you for any advice or feedback I may receive.

Best,
Joseph Timmer
University of Southern California