The singular linear preservers of non-singular matrices (Q975613)

Let \(M_n(F)\) denote the vector space of \(n \times n\) matrices over a field \(F\) and \(GL_n(F)\) denote its subgroup of invertible matrices. For nonsingular \(P\) and \(Q\) the operators \( u_{P,Q}, v_{P,Q} : M_n(F)\to M_n(F)\) are defined by \(u_{P,Q}(M)= PMQ\) and \(v_{P,Q}(M)= PM^tQ\) for any \(M\in M_n(F)\). The subgroup \({\mathcal G}_n(F)=\{ u_{P,Q}\mid (P,Q)\in GL_n(F)^2\}\cup \{ v_{P,Q}\mid (P,Q)\in GL_n(F)^2\} \) is called the \textit{Frobenius group}. The author proved the following remarkable result. Let \(n\geq 2\) and \(f\) be a linear endomorphism of \(M_n(F)\) such that \(f(GL_n(F))\subseteq GL_n(F)\). Then either \(f\) is bijective and hence \(f\in {\mathcal G}_n(F)\) or there exists a full non-singular subspace \(V\subseteq M_n(F)\), an isomorphism \(\alpha:F^n\to V\) and a column \(X\in F^n\setminus \{0\}\) such that for all \(M\in M_n(F)\) it holds that \(f(M)=\alpha(MX)\) or for all \(M\in M_n(F)\) it holds that \(f(M)=\alpha(M^tX)\). In particular, it follows that if \(f\) is singular, then \(Im\, (f) \) is a full nonsingular subspace of \(M_n(F)\), here \(V\) is a full non-singular subspace if \(V\setminus \{0\} \subset GL_n(F)\) and \(\dim \, V=n\). The proof is based on Dieudonné's theorem on singular subspaces of \(M_n(F)\) and on the classification of \(n\)-dimensional division algebras over a field~\(K\).