English

On matrices commuting with their Frobenius

Algebraic Geometry 2026-03-10 v2 Number Theory

Abstract

The Frobenius of a matrix MM with coefficients in Fˉp\bar{\mathbb F}_p is the matrix σ(M)\sigma(M) obtained by raising each coefficient to the pp-th power. We consider the question of counting matrices with coefficients in Fq\mathbb F_q which commute with their Frobenius, asymptotically when qq is a large power of pp. We give answers for matrices of size 22, for diagonalizable matrices, and for matrices whose eigenspaces are defined over Fp\mathbb F_p. Moreover, we explain what is needed to solve the case of general matrices. We also solve (for both diagonalizable and general matrices) the corresponding problem when one counts matrices MM commuting with all the matrices σ(M)\sigma(M), σ2(M)\sigma^2(M), \ldots in their Frobenius orbit.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.08695,
  title  = {On matrices commuting with their Frobenius},
  author = {Fabian Gundlach and Béranger Seguin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.08695},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

minor changes, reordered sections; to appear in J. Algebra

R2 v1 2026-07-01T03:08:55.385Z