Involutions of \(\text{SL}(n,k)\), (\(n>2\)). (Q2498375)

Let \(k\) be a field, \(\text{char}k\neq 2.\) The purpose of this paper is to study the isomorphism classes of the involutions of \(\text{SL}\left( n,k\right) .\) There are involutions of \(\text{GL}\left( n,k\right) \) which arise from bilinear forms \(V\times V\rightarrow k,\;\dim V=n\) which are either symmetric or skew-symmetric (hereafter referred to as ``symmetric/skew-symmetric''). Specifically, given such a form \(\beta \) for \( V\) we can construct the usual matrix \(M\) that corresponds to \(V\) (which depends on choice of basis). The induced involution \(\theta =\theta _{M}\) on \(\text{GL}\left( n,k\right) \) is given by \(\theta \left( A\right) =M^{-1}\left( A^{T}\right) ^{-1}M.\) Given two involutions \(\theta \) and \(\tau \) we say they are Inn\(\left( G\right) \)-isomorphic, denoted \(\theta \approx \tau ,\) if \(\tau =\phi ^{-1}\theta \phi \) for some \(\phi \in \)Inn\(\left( G\right) .\) Two \(n\times n\) matrices \(M_{1}\) and \(M_{2}\) are called semicongruent if \(M_{2}=\alpha Q^{T}M_{1}Q\) for some \(Q\in \text{GL}\left( n,k\right) \) and \(\alpha \in k.\) This relation is denoted \(M_{1}\cong ^{s}M_{2}.\) If \(M_{1}\) and \(M_{2}\) are the matrices for the symmetric/skew-symmetric bilinear forms \(\beta _{1}\) and \(\beta _{2}\) then \(\theta _{M_{1}}\approx \theta _{M_{2}}\) if and only if \(M_{1}\cong ^{s}M_{2}.\) This gives a classification theorem for the involutions of \(\text{GL}\left( n,k\right) .\) Since any automorphism corresponding from a bilinear form is an involution on \(\text{GL}\left( n,k\right) \) if and only if it is an involution of \(\text{SL}\left( n,k\right) \) the isomorphism classes are preserved when restricting to \( \text{SL}\left( n,k\right) .\) Not all involutions come from a bilinear form. However, it is proved that any outer involution on \(\text{SL}\left( n,k\right) \) does come from a symmetric/skew-symmetric form, thereby giving a classification theorem for outer involutions. The outer involutions are then made explicit in the cases where \(k\) is algebraically closed, \(\mathbb{R}\), \(\mathbb{F}_{p}\), \(\mathbb{Q }_{2},\;\)and \(\mathbb{Q}_{p}.\) For inner involutions, an explicit formula is given for the number of isomorphism types. If \(k^{\ast }=k\setminus \left\{ 0\right\} \) we the formula gives \(\left( n-1\right) /2\) if \(n\) is odd and \(\left| \left| k^{\ast }/\left( k^{\ast }\right) ^{2}\right| \right| +n/2-1\) if \(n\) is even. The isomorphism classes are then given in all of the examples of \(k\) as above. The authors also determine in which cases the corresponding fixed point group is \(k\)-anisotropic. These isomorphism classes had previously been characterized in [\textit{A. G. Helminck}, Adv. Math. 153, No.~1, 1--117 (2000; Zbl 0974.20033)] when \(\text{char} k\neq 2\) in a more complicated way. Here the authors show the connection between the two classifications.