English

Classifying orbits of the affine group over the integers

Group Theory 2015-07-29 v1 Metric Geometry

Abstract

For each n=1,2,n=1,2,\dots, let GL(n,Z)Zn\mathsf{GL}(n,\mathbb{Z})\ltimes \mathbb{Z}^n be the affine group over the integers. For every point x=(x1,,xn)Rnx=(x_1,\dots,x_n) \in \mathbb{R}^n let orb(x)={γ(x)RnγGL(n,Z)Zn}.\mathrm{orb}(x)=\{\gamma(x)\in \mathbb{R}^n\mid\gamma\in \mathsf{GL}(n,\mathbb{Z})\ltimes \mathbb{Z}^n\}. Let GxG_{x} be the subgroup of the additive group R\mathbb R generated by x1,,xn,1x_1,\dots,x_n, 1. If rank(Gx)n\mathrm{rank}(G_x)\neq n then orb(x)={yRnGy=Gx}\mathrm{orb}(x)=\{y\in\mathbb{R}^n\mid G_y=G_x\}. Thus,GxG_x is a complete classifier of orb(x)\mathrm{orb}(x). By contrast, if rank(Gx)=n\mathrm{rank}(G_x)=n, knowledge of GxG_x alone is not sufficient in general to uniquely recover orb(x)\mathrm{orb}(x): as a matter of fact, GxG_x determines precisely max(1,ϕ(d)2)\mathrm{max}(1,\frac{\phi(d)}{2}) different orbits, where dd is the denominator of the smallest positive nonzero rational in Gx,G_x, and ϕ\phi is Euler function. To get a complete classification, rational polyhedral geometry provides an integer 1cxmax(1,d/2)1\leq c_x\leq \mathrm{max}(1,d/2) such that orb(y)=orb(x)\mathrm{orb}(y)=\mathrm{orb}(x) iff (Gx,cx)=(Gy,cy)(G_{x},c_{x})=(G_{y},c_{{y}}).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1403.3827,
  title  = {Classifying orbits of the affine group over the integers},
  author = {L. M. Cabrer and D. Mundici},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1403.3827},
  year   = {2015}
}