English

Counterexamples to the Zassenhaus conjecture on simple modular Lie algebras

Rings and Algebras 2023-04-10 v2

Abstract

We provide an infinite family of counterexamples to the conjecture of Zassenhaus on the solvability of the outer derivation algebra of a simple modular Lie algebra. In fact, we show that the simple modular Lie algebras H(2;(1,n))(2)H(2;(1,n))^{(2)} of dimension 3n+123^{n+1}-2 in characteristic p=3p=3 do not have a solvable outer derivation algebra for all n1n\ge 1. For n=1n=1 this recovers the known counterexample of psl3(F)\mathfrak{psl}_3(F). We show that the outer derivation algebra of H(2;(1,n))(2)H(2;(1,n))^{(2)} is isomorphic to (sl2(F)V(2))Fn1(\mathfrak{sl}_2(F)\ltimes V(2))\oplus F^{n-1}, where V(2)V(2) is the natural representation of sl2(F)\mathfrak{sl}_2(F). We also study other known simple Lie algebras in characteristic three, but they do not yield a new counterexample.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2209.14822,
  title  = {Counterexamples to the Zassenhaus conjecture on simple modular Lie algebras},
  author = {Dietrich Burde and Wolfgang Moens and Pilar Páez-Guillán},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.14822},
  year   = {2023}
}