Surjectivity of word maps on special linear groups of degree 2 (Q6496989)

Let \(F_{n}\) be the free group on \(n >1\) generators \(x_{1}, \ldots, x_{n}\). For a group \(G\) and a word \(w =w(x_{1}, \ldots, x_{n}) \in F_{n}\), the word map \(w\) is defined as \(w: G^{n} \rightarrow G\), \((g_{1}, \ldots, g_{n}) \mapsto w(g_{1}, \ldots, g_{n})\). The word map \(w\) is surjective if \(w(G^{n})=G\). Let \(F^{(1)}_{n}\) and \(F^{(2)}_{n}\) be the first and second derived subgroups of \(F_{n}\) and \((F_{n}^{(1)})^{p}\) let be the subgroup of \(F^{(1)}_{n}\) generated by all \(p\)-power (if \(p=0\), then \((F_{n}^{(1)})^{p}=1\)). In [\textit{T. Bandman} and \textit{Y. G. Zarhin}, Eur. J. Math. 2, No. 3, 614--643 (2016; Zbl 1392.20038)], it is shown that if \(K\) is an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, then any \(w \in F_{n}^{(1)}\setminus F_{n}^{(2)}\) is surjective on \(\mathrm{PSL}(K)\).NEWLINENEWLINEA first result proved in the paper under review is (Theorem 1.2): Let \(D\) be an infinite division ring of characteristic \(p \geq 0\). If \(w\) is a word in \(F_{n}^{(1)} \setminus (F_{n}^{(1)})^{p}\), then \(w\big (\mathrm{SL}_{2}(D)^{n} \big)\) contains all unipotent elements.NEWLINENEWLINEAnother interesting result, where there are no restrictions on the word \(w\), is (Theorem 1.4): Let \(K\) be an algebraically closed field, and let \(w\) be any word in \(F_{n}\). Then \(w \big (\mathrm{SL}_{2}(K)^{n} \big )\) contains all matrices in \(\mathrm{SL}_{2}(K)\) whose traces are different from \(\pm 2\).