Bounded generation and commutator width of Chevalley groups: function case (Q6174371)

The paper proves that simply connected Chevalley groups of all types with coefficients in the polynomial ring \(\mathbb{F}_q[t]\) over a finite field have bounded generation with respect to elementary generators, in particular with a bound not depending on \(q\). Due to results of Alexei Stepanov and others [\textit{A. S. Sivatski} and \textit{A. V. Stepanov}, \(K\)-Theory 17, No. 4, 295--302 (1999; Zbl 0935.20037); \textit{A. Stepanov}, J. Algebra 450, 522--548 (2016; Zbl 1337.20057); \textit{A. Stepanov} and \textit{N. Vavilov}, Isr. J. Math. 185, 253--276 (2011; Zbl 1262.20054)], this equivalently shows that such groups have bounded generation with respect to commutators. Before beginning with the new results, Section 2 of the paper is a concise review of Chevalley groups to set notation and terminology and then Section 3 provides a historical overview of previous work on bounded generation problems for Chevalley groups. Section 3 is an entertaining read and particularly valuable to anyone beginning to approach problems in this area. In Section 3.7, the authors review a key result upon which all their arguments rely, Tavgen's reduction theorem, which shows it is sufficient to prove bounded generation for Chevalley groups of small ranks. The authors give an outline of their strategy in Section 4 and, by reduction to rank \(2\) and using previous work of \textit{B. Nica} [Isr. J. Math. 225, No. 1, 403--410 (2018; Zbl 1458.20046)] which covers the \(A_2\) case, prove their main result for all simply laced types and for \(F_4\). Hence, it remains to address types \(C_2\) and \(G_2\). The authors do so by first reviewing stability conditions, which they use to achieve tighter bounds, and then proving the result for groups of type \(G_2\) over a ring \(R\) of absolute stable rank \(\leq 3\), which includes the case \(R=\mathbb{F}_q[t]\). Improvements to the bounds for \(G_2\) are also given in the case \(R\) is a Dedekind ring, using the fact that ideals in such rings are ``\(1.5\)-generated'', i.e., they are generated by two elements, one of which may be an arbitrary non-zero element in the ideal. Section 6 addresses the \(C_2\) case. The authors work with an explicit presentation of \(\mathrm{Sp}(4,\mathbb{F}_q[t])\) as \(4\times 4\) matrices and, using arithmetic properties of the field \(\mathbb{F}_q(t)\), they prove an analogue of Nica's ``swindling lemma'' by providing explicit sequences of elementary moves which transfer elements between various embeddings of \(\mathrm{SL}(2,R)\) in \(\mathrm{Sp}(4,R)\). They then mirror Nica's argument for \(\mathrm{SL}(3,R)\) to obtain the result for \(\mathrm{Sp}(4,R)\). Having proved their main result via reduction to rank \(2\), the authors reprove the result using reduction to rank \(3\) in order to obtain sharper bounds. This requires separate treatments of types \(C_3\) and \(B_3\), which the authors do in a similar style to their handling of \(C_2\). The next sections of the paper focus on the question of bounded commutator width when \(R=\mathbb{F}_q[t,t^{-1}]\) is the ring of Laurent polynomials. They do so with an eye towards affine Kac-Moody groups, aiming to use the fact that a simply connected affine Kac-Moody group with values in \(\mathbb{F}_q\) is a central extension of the associated adjoint Chevalley group over \(\mathbb{F}_q[t,t^{-1}]\). In Section 8, they show that simply connected Chevalley groups over \(\mathbb{F}_q[t,t^{-1}]\), in fact over a wider class of rings which contains this example, have commutator width bounded by either \(3\), \(4\), or \(5\) depending on the type of the group. Via the connection to Kac-Moody groups, this then allows the authors to conclude that the commutator width of an affine elementary untwisted Kac-Moody group over \(\mathbb{F}_q\) is bounded by \(5\), \(6\), or \(7\), again depending on the type. The paper concludes mathematically with a discussion of the model theoretic consequences of their results on bounded generation. In particular, they show that Chevalley groups over a ring \(R\) which have bounded elementary generation (with some assumptions on \(R\) for exceptional types other than \(G_2\)) are \textit{rich groups}, essentially meaning that first-order logic is sufficient to describe the weak second-order logic properties of the group. The paper then concludes in general with a discussion of possible future results, such as tighter bounds, and of open problems in the area of bounded generation of Chevalley groups.