English

Centralisers of semi-simple elements are semidirect products

Group Theory 2026-04-20 v3

Abstract

Let G\mathbf G be a connected reductive algebraic group over an algebraically closed field, and let sGs\in\mathbf G be a semisimple element. We show that the centraliser of ss is the semi-direct product of its identity component by its group of components. We then look at the case where G\mathbf G is defined over an algebraic closure of a finite field Fq{\mathbb F}_q, and FF is a Frobenius endomorphism attached to an Fq{\mathbb F}_q-structure on G\mathbf G. We show that if the centraliser of ss is FF-stable we have a semi-direct product decomposition of the FF-fixed points.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.19164,
  title  = {Centralisers of semi-simple elements are semidirect products},
  author = {François Digne and Jean Michel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.19164},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Lemma 1.6 was false. For finite reductive groups we have a result for all semisimple elements