On the regular semisimple elements and primary classes of \(\text{GL}(n,q)\). (Q539901)

Let \(\text{GL}_n(q)\) denote the group of \(n\) by \(n\) non-singular matrices defined over the Galois field \(\text{GF}(q)\). Conjugacy classes and their sizes as well as element orders of \(\text{GL}_n(q)\) have been of interest to many researches. (For example see \textit{J. A. Green} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 80, 402-447 (1955; Zbl 0068.25605)].) Although the conjugacy classes of \(\text{GL}_n(q)\) are fully described in the mentioned paper by Green, but there are special types of classes which are needed for further research. For \(A\in\text{GL}_n(q)\), let \(f_A(t)=\prod_{i=1}^kf_i(t)^{n_i}\), \(1\leqslant i\leqslant n\), be the characteristic polynomial of \(A\) where \(f_i(t)\) are irreducible polynomials of degree at most \(n\) over \(\text{GF}(q)\) and \(f_i(t)\neq t\) for all \(i\). Then the conjugacy class containing \(A\) is called regular semi-simple if \(n_i=1\), for all \(i\), \(1\leqslant i\leqslant k\), and it is called primary if \(k=1\), in these cases elements of the classes are called regular semi-simple or primary. In the paper under review the authors find the numbers of regular semi-simple and primary conjugacy classes of \(\text{GL}_n(q)\), and in particular they find the orders of each element in all the regular semi-simple conjugacy classes. The authors use their method to work out the number of regular semi-simple elements of \(\text{GL}_n(q)\) for \(n=1,2,\dots,6\). As a result they observe that this number is an integral polynomial in \(q\). The reviewer is motivated by this result to conjecture that in general the number of regular semi-simple elements in \(\text{GL}_n(q)\) is an integral polynomial in \(q\).