Supercuspidal representations are the elementary particles in the representation theory of reductive p-adic groups and arise in number theory as local factors of cuspidal automorphic representations. Constructing such representations explicitly, via (compact) induction, is a longstanding open problem. Although the problem has been solved for large p, a solution remains out of reach in general. I'll discuss work in progress joint with Jessica Fintzen towards constructing some of the missing "tamely ramified" supercuspidals when p is (very!) small.
Links:
[1] https://www.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/taxonomy/term/39
[2] https://www.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/node/3444
[3] https://www.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/node/12456