Conjugacy classes of derangements in finite groups of Lie type (Q6986470)

Let \(G\) be a finite almost simple group of Lie type acting faithfully and primitively on a finite set \(\Omega\). This article proves that the proportion \(\delta_{\mathrm{cc}}(G,\Omega)\) of conjugacy classes consisting of derangements is bounded away from zero, thus confirming an analogue of the Boston-Shalev conjecture at the level of conjugacy classes and answering a question posed by Guralnick and Zalesski (see [\textit{R. M. Guralnick}, Proc. Steklov Inst. Math. 292, 112-117 (2016; Zbl 1353.20001)]).\N\NThe authors build on the framework developed by \textit{J. Fulman} and \textit{R. Guralnick} [in: Groups, combinatorics and geometry. Proceedings of the L. M. S. Durham symposium, Durham, UK, July 16--26, 2001. River Edge, NJ: World Scientific. 99--121 (2003; Zbl 1036.20002); Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 364, No. 6, 3023--3070 (2012; Zbl 1256.20048); Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 370, No. 7, 4601--4622 (2018; Zbl 1494.20076)] and make essential use of asymptotic estimates for the number of conjugacy classes \(k(G)\) in almost simple groups containing field automorphisms. A key innovation is the refinement of results on the anatomy of palindromic polynomials over finite fields. These include both \(\ast\)-symmetric and \(\dagger\)-symmetric cases (i.e., with reflective or conjugate-reflective symmetry, as introduced in Section 1.3, p. 540) and lead to quantitative bounds on the number of such polynomials possessing divisors of prescribed degree.\N\NA notable technical advance is the adaptation of analytic tools from function-field arithmetic and permutation statistics to derive Poisson-type tail bounds on the number of irreducible palindromic factors (see Proposition~2.2 and Corollary~2.3). These probabilistic methods enable the authors to bypass previous restrictions on group rank and representation type and to treat all ranks uniformly in the field size \(q\).\N\NAs a consequence, the main result (Theorem~1.3) extends the lower bound for \(\delta_{\mathrm{cc}}(G,\Omega)\) from simple groups to almost simple ones, including the range \(\mathrm{SL}_n(q) \le G \le \mathrm{GL}_n(q)\) and analogous cases for unitary groups. A crucial step in the argument is a precise upper estimate (Theorem~5.4) for the number of conjugacy classes in almost simple groups \(G\) containing outer automorphisms, obtained by comparing with the corresponding value for \(G \cap \mathrm{Inndiag}(S)\) and bounding the index \(|G:N|\).\N\NThe structure of the proof relies on a classification of point stabilizers \(G_\alpha\) in primitive actions and a detailed analysis of the configurations in which only few semisimple classes contain derangements. The resulting dichotomy (Theorem~1.4) yields effective bounds under structural assumptions on \(G\) and \(G_\alpha\), invoking in particular the classification of maximal-rank subgroups.