Abstract

We introduce the notion of modular symmetry classes of tensors and give a necessary and sufficient condition for a modular symmetry class of tensors associated with the full symmetric group to be non-zero. Then we use modular symmetry classes of tensors to study the polynomial representations of $GL(V)$, where $V$ is a vector space over a field of characterisitic $p$. At the end we introduce a non-degenerate bilinear form on a modular symmetry class. Some problems are also given.