English

On groups definable in $p$-adically closed fields

Logic 2026-01-29 v1

Abstract

This paper is about the dfgdfg/fsgfsg decomposition for groups GG definable in pp-adically closed fields. It is proved that for GG definably amenable, GG has a definable normal dfgdfg subgroup HH such that the quotient G/HG/H is a definable fsgfsg group. The result was known for groups definable in oo-minimal expansions of real closed fields (see \cite{C-P-o-mini}). We also give a version for arbitrary (not necessarily definably amenable) groups GG definable in pp-adically closed fields: there is a definable dfgdfg subgroup HH of GG such that the homogeneous space G/HG/H is definable and definably compact. (In the oo-minimal case this is Fact 3.25 of \cite{Peterzil-Starchenko-mutypes}). Note that dfgdfg stands for ``has a definable ff-generic type", and fsgfsg for ``has finitely satisfiable generics", which will be discussed together with various equivalences. We will need to understand something about groups of the form G(k)G(k) where kk is a pp-adically closed field and GG a semisimple algebraic group over kk, and as part of the analysis we will prove the Kneser-Tits conjecture over pp-adically closed fields.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.20565,
  title  = {On groups definable in $p$-adically closed fields},
  author = {Anand Pillay and Ningyuan Yao and Zhentao Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.20565},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:23:53.124Z