The Waring problem for Lie groups and Chevalley groups (Q891564)

Let \(w=w(x_1,\dots, x_d)\) be a word on the letters \(x_1,\dots, x_d\). For every group \(G\), this word yields a word map \(w_G: G^d \to G\) via substitution; write \(w(G)\) for the image of this map. The authors study to what extent the elements of certain groups \(G\) can be written as products of elements in the image of various word maps. Two of their main results are as follows: {\parindent=0.6cm\begin{itemize}\item[--] For every two nontrivial words \(w_1,w_2\), there exists a constant \(N\) such that if \(G\) is a classical connected real compact Lie group of rank at least \(N\), then \(w_1(G)\cdot w_2(G)=G\). \item[--] Given non-trivial words \(w_1,w_2,w_3,w_4\), an infinite field \(F\), and a simple Chevalley group \(G\) over \(F\), then \(G\setminus Z(G) \subseteq w_1(G)\cdot w_2(G)\cdot w_3(G)\cdot w_4(G)\). \end{itemize}} They also give stronger versions of the second result (considering less than four nontrivial words), under certain extra assumptions on \(G\).