Deciding finiteness for matrix groups over function fields (Q1288492)

This paper is devoted to the problem of deciding if a finitely generated subgroup of \(\text{GL}(n,\mathbb{F}(t))\) is finite. When \(\mathbb{F}\) is a number field, it may be easily reduced to the same problem for subgroups of \(\text{GL}(n,\mathbb{F})\), for which the results of \textit{L. Babai, R. Beals} and \textit{D. Rockmore} [M. Bronstein (ed.), ISSAC'93, Proceedings of the 1993 International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation, ACM Press, Baltimore, 117-126 (1993)] can be applied. When \(\mathbb{F}\) is finite, the problem is more subtle. The authors give a structure theorem and upper bounds on the size of a finite subgroup generated by a fixed number of generators. This leads to exponential deterministic algorithms for deciding finiteness as well as some preliminary results towards more efficient randomized algorithms.