Conjugacy in finite classical groups
centralizercomputational group theoryconjugacy classfinite classical groupsemisimple elementunipotent element
Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to group theory (20-02) Software, source code, etc. for problems pertaining to group theory (20-04) Conjugacy classes for groups (20E45) Representation theory for linear algebraic groups (20G05) Linear algebraic groups over finite fields (20G40)
The book under review presents a comprehensive treatment of certain conjugacy problems in finite classical groups: general and special linear, symplectic, orthogonal and unitary groups over finite fields. The authors address three fundamental problems: \N\begin{itemize}\N\item listing representatives of conjugacy classes;\N\item determining the structure and their explicit generators of centralizers; \N\item constructing explicit conjugating elements between conjugate elements. \end{itemize}\N\NComplete theoretical solutions are given for all cases and these are developed into practical algorithms.\N\NThe book is a thoroughly revised and expanded version of the first author's PhD thesis [Centralizers and conjugacy classes in finite classical groups. Auckland: University of Auckland (PhD Thesis) (2018)]. The overall framework remains the same, but the exposition has been refined and important new material has been added. Notably, the book now includes a detailed treatment of unipotent classes in bad characteristic (Chapter 5), which was absent from the thesis. The discussion of semisimple classes and their centralizers has also been extended and made fully explicit. The structures of centralizers of both semisimple and unipotent elements are now described in constructive terms, with explicit generating sets. In addition, the construction of conjugating elements is systematically developed in all cases.\N\NCompared to the classical work by \textit{G. E. Wall} [J. Aust. Math. Soc. 3, 1--62 (1963; Zbl 0122.28102)], this book offers a significant advance: Wall's results concern the classification of conjugacy classes and determination of class numbers, but do not address the structure of centralizers or provide constructive methods. Moreover, the present book gives a complete algorithmic treatment for the case of bad characteristic, which is only partially addressed by Wall.\N\NA major contribution of the book lies in its computational aspects. The authors provide a precise complexity analysis of their algorithms (Section 1.4) and full implementations have been developed in the Magma computer algebra system. These implementations are publicly available online and are also distributed as part of Magma. The algorithms play an essential role in computing character tables and solving conjugacy problems in arbitrary finite groups.\N\NThe reviewer notes that in Section 5.2, the number ``5.2.1 is used both for the main theorem, for the canonical form (label (5.2.1)) and again as the heading ``Constructing \(C_G(Q)\). Although the context makes the meaning clear, a slightly more consistent numbering would improve the readability. Moreover, the construction of the centralizer described in Section 5.2.1 depends on the validity of Conjecture 5.2.3, as the authors themselves remark. It would have been preferable to title this subsection in a way that makes this dependence explicit, for example, ``Constructing \(C_G(Q)\) (subject to Conjecture 5.2.3).
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