Asymptotics of the number of involutions in finite classical groups (Q2406659)

Answering a question of Geoff Robinson, the authors compute the large \(n\) limiting proportion of \(i_{\mathrm{GL}}(n,q)=q^{\lfloor n^{2}/2\rfloor }\), where \(i_{\mathrm{GL}}(n,q)\) denotes the number of involutions in the group \(\mathrm{GL}(n,q)\). They give similar results for the finite unitary, symplectic, and orthogonal groups, in both odd and even characteristic. The heart of this work are certain new ``sum = product'' identities. Their self-contained treatment of the enumeration of involutions in even-characteristic symplectic and orthogonal groups may also be of interest.