Spin characters of the symmetric group which are proportional to linear characters in characteristic 2

For a finite group, it is interesting to determine when two ordinary irreducible representations have the same p-modular reduction; that is, when two rows of the decomposition matrix in characteristic p are equal, or equivalently when the corresponding p-modular Brauer characters are the same. We complete this task for the double covers of the symmetric group when p=2, by determining when the 2-modular reduction of an irreducible spin representation coincides with a 2-modular Specht module. In fact, we obtain a more general result: we determine when an irreducible spin representation has 2-modular Brauer character proportional to that of a Specht module. In the course of the proof, we use induction and restriction functors to construct a function on generalised characters which has the effect of swapping runners in abacus displays for the labelling partitions.