Burnside's theorem in the setting of general fields

Algebraic systems of matrices (15A30) Matrices over special rings (quaternions, finite fields, etc.) (15B33) Semigroups of transformations, relations, partitions, etc. (20M20)

Abstract: We extend a well-known theorem of Burnside in the setting of general fields as follows: for a general field

F

the matrix algebra

M_{n} (F)

is the only algebra in

M_{n} (F)

which is spanned by an irreducible semigroup of triangularizable matrices. In other words, for a semigroup of triangularizable matrices with entries from a general field irreducibility is equivalent to absolute irreducibility. As a consequence of our result we prove a stronger version of a theorem of Janez Bernik.

Review text

Several extensions of Burnside's theorem about irreducibility of matrix semigroups over algebraically closed fields were obtained recently. In the present work the authors consider semigroups \(\mathcal{S}\subseteq M_n(\mathbb{F})\), over general fields \(\mathbb{F}\), such that every matrix in \(\mathcal{S}\) is triangularizable. Using a result of \textit{J. Bernik} [Arch. Math. 88, No. 6, 481--490 (2007; Zbl 1122.15017)] they show that irreducibility of \(\mathcal{S}\) (that is, matrices from \(\mathcal{S}\) have no common nontrivial invariant subspace) implies absolute irreducibility (that is, the span of \(\mathcal{S}\) equals \(M_n(\mathbb{F})\) or equivalently, \(\mathcal{S}\) remains irreducible under any field extension of \(\mathbb{F}\)). They also prove that this result is equivalent to Bernik's. Actually, a bit more is obtained: if \(\mathbb{F}\subseteq\mathbb{K}\) are fields (possibly not algebraically closed) and \(\mathcal{S}\subseteq M_n(\mathbb{K})\) is an irreducible semigroup of triangularizable matrices such that all the eigenvalues of each \(S\in\mathcal{S}\) lie in \(\mathbb{F}\), then Alg\(_{\mathbb{F}}\mathcal{S}\subseteq M_n(\mathbb{K})\) is conjugate to \(M_n(\mathbb{F})\subseteq M_n(\mathbb{K})\). The authors also show that the real algebra of \(n\)-by-\(n\) quaternion matrices, when embedded inside \(M_{4n}(\mathbb{R})\), is an irreducible subalgebra spanned by the identity and square-zero elements. This does not happen with finite fields \(\mathbb{F}\) where the only such subalgebra is the full matrix algebra \(M_n(\mathbb{F})\) (see [\textit{H. Radjavi} and \textit{B.R. Yahaghi}, Linear Algebra Appl. 436, No. 7, 2001--2007 (2012; Zbl 1236.15040)]).

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