English

Enumerating partial linear transformations in a similarity class

Combinatorics 2025-03-24 v3

Abstract

Let VV be a finite-dimensional vector space over the finite field Fq{\mathbb F}_q and suppose WW and W~\widetilde{W} are subspaces of VV. Two linear transformations T:WVT:W\to V and T~:W~V\widetilde{T}:\widetilde{W}\to V are said to be similar if there exists a linear isomorphism S:VVS:V\to V with SW=W~SW=\widetilde{W} such that ST=T~SS\circ T=\widetilde{T}\circ S . Given a linear map TT defined on a subspace WW of VV, we give an explicit formula for the number of linear maps that are similar to TT. Our results extend a theorem of Philip Hall that settles the case W=VW=V where the above problem is equivalent to counting the number of square matrices over Fq{\mathbb F}_q in a conjugacy class.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2005.06222,
  title  = {Enumerating partial linear transformations in a similarity class},
  author = {Akansha Arora and Samrith Ram},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.06222},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

15 pages, 3 figures. One minor typo corrected in the main result