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ALGORITHMS TO IDENTIFY ABUNDANT p-SINGULAR ELEMENTS IN FINITE CLASSICAL GROUPS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2012

ALICE C. NIEMEYER
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia (email: alice.niemeyer@uwa.edu.au)
TOMASZ POPIEL
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia (email: tomasz.popiel@uwa.edu.au)
CHERYL E. PRAEGER*
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (email: cheryl.praeger@uwa.edu.au)
*
For correspondence; e-mail: cheryl.praeger@uwa.edu.au
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Abstract

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Let G be a finite d-dimensional classical group and p a prime divisor of ∣G∣ distinct from the characteristic of the natural representation. We consider a subfamily of p-singular elements in G (elements with order divisible by p) that leave invariant a subspace X of the natural G-module of dimension greater than d/2and either act irreducibly on X or preserve a particular decomposition of X into two equal-dimensional irreducible subspaces. We proved in a recent paper that the proportion in G of these so-called p-abundant elements is at least an absolute constant multiple of the best currently known lower bound for the proportion of all p-singular elements. From a computational point of view, the p-abundant elements generalise another class of p-singular elements which underpin recognition algorithms for finite classical groups, and it is our hope that p-abundant elements might lead to improved versions of these algorithms. As a step towards this, here we present efficient algorithms to test whether a given element is p-abundant, both for a known prime p and for the case where p is not known a priori.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Mathematical Publishing Association Inc. 2012