TITLE: Coproduct on coordinate ring of finite algebraic group
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: I'm reading Mukai's book "An introduction to invariants and moduli", and I am having trouble understanding one of his examples.  It is example 3.49 on page 101.
The setup is as follows.  Let $G$ be a finite group, considered as an algebraic group over a field $k$.  The coordinate ring of $G$ is then just the set of functions $G \rightarrow k$ with the usual pointwise addition and multiplication.  This can be identified with the group ring $k[G]$ in the obvious way (an element $[g] \in k[G]$ corresponds to the function $G \rightarrow k$ that takes $g$ to $1$ and $h$ to $0$ for $h \neq g$).  Under this identification, it seems to me that the coproduct is the function
$$\phi : k[G] \rightarrow k[G] \otimes k[G]$$
$$\phi([g]) = \sum_{h \in G} [h] \otimes [h^{-1} g]$$
However, Mukai asserts that if $G$ is the finite cyclic group of order $n$, then the coordinate ring of $G$ is $k[t]/(t^n-1)$ with the coproduct $t \mapsto t \otimes t$.  These do not seem like the same thing to me -- what am I doing wrong?

REPLY [6 votes]: I think the author accidentally described the dual of the Hopf algebra you're thinking of. 
Finite group rings are usually endowed with multiplication $(g,h)\mapsto gh$ and comultiplication $g \mapsto g\otimes g$ (see here). 
The coordinate ring  $k[G]$ is obtained by dualizing. Then $g \mapsto g\otimes g$ becomes 
$e_g^2 = e_g$, where $e_g$ is the function on $G$ that maps $g$ to $1$ and all other group elements to $0$. Comultiplication will look exactly the way you described it (i.e. $e_g \mapsto \sum_h e_{gh^{-1}}\otimes e_h$).

REPLY [3 votes]: The book presumably assumes the field $k$ contains $n$ distinct roots of unity (in particular, that the characteristic of $k$ is coprime to $n$).  Then you get a $k$-algebra isomorphism between $k[x]/(x^n-1)$ (isomorphic to the group ring $k[G]$ by sending $x$ to a generator) and the coordinate ring $\bigoplus_{g \in G} k$ by a finite Fourier transform.  This reflects the fact that finite abelian groups are Pontryagin self-dual.

REPLY [2 votes]: The Hopf algebra structure here involves a coproduct taking the function $f$ on $G$ to $\sum_i g_i \otimes h_i$, where $f(xy) = \sum_i f_i(x) g_i(y)$ when $x,y \in G$.  Whatever Mukai is doing for a cyclic group should be consistent with this formulation of the coproduct, but I'm unfamiliar with his book.
More generally, this kind of formalism occurs when you consider a finite group 
scheme as in Jantzen Representations of Algebraic Groups (AMS, 2003), I.2.3.