Characteristic and hyperinvariant subspaces over the field \(\mathrm{GF}(2)\) (Q1940310)

Let \(f\) be a fixed endomorphism of a finite dimensional vector space \(V\) over a field \(K\), and let \(\mathrm{Inv}(V)\) denote the lattice of \(f\)-invariant subspaces of \(V\). The authors write \(\mathrm{Chinv}(V)\) and \(\mathrm{Hinv}(V)\), respectively, to denote the subspaces in \(\mathrm{Inv}(V)\) which are also invariant under every \(K\)-automorphism of \(V\) which commutes with \(f\) (the characteristic subspaces) and the subspaces invariant under every \(K\)-endomorphism of \(V\) which commutes with \(f\) (the hyperinvariant subspaces). Clearly \(\mathrm{Hinv}(V)\subseteq \mathrm{Chinv}(V)\); it is known that equality holds when \(\left| K\right| >2\), but the distinction between the two classes is more subtle when \(\left| K\right| =2\). If \(K=\mathrm{GF}(2)\) and all eigenvalues of \(f\) lie in \(K\) then we can reduce to the case where \(f\) is nilpotent; so from here on assume that \(f\) is nilpotent. A subspace \(W\in \mathrm{Inv}(V)\) is called marked if \(W\) has a Jordan basis with respect to \(f|_{W}\) which extends to a Jordan basis of \(V\) with respect to \(f\). The authors [Oper. Matrices 3, No. 2, Article ID 16, 261--270 (2009; Zbl 1181.15009)] proved that: if \(W\in \mathrm{Chinv}(V)\) then \(W\in \mathrm{Hinv}(V)\) if and only if \(W\) is marked. In the current paper they use this to give a new proof of a theorem by K. Shoda which can be stated as follows: \(\mathrm{Hinv}(V)\neq \mathrm{Chinv}(V)\) if and only for some \(r\) and \(s\) the Jordan form of \(f\) has unique blocks of sizes \(r\) and \(s\) with \(s>r+1\) (see Satz 5 of \textit{K. Shoda} [M. Z. 31, 611-624 (1930; JFM 56.0131.01)]).