English

Some remarks on the symplectic group $Sp(2g, \mathbb{Z})$

Group Theory 2013-08-23 v1

Abstract

Let G=\Sp(2g,Z)G=\Sp(2g,\mathbb{Z}) be the symplectic group over the integers. Given mNm\in \mathbb{N}, it is natural to ask if there exists a non-trivial matrix AGA\in G such that Am=IA^{m}=I, where II is the identity matrix in GG. In this paper, we determine the possible values of mNm\in \mathbb{N} for which the above problem has a solution. We also show that there is an upper bound on the maximal order of an element in GG. As an illustration, we apply our results to the group \Sp(4,Z)\Sp(4,\mathbb{Z}) and determine the possible orders of elements in it. Finally, we use a presentation of \Sp(4,Z)\Sp(4,\mathbb{Z}) to identify some finite order elements and do explicit computations using the presentation to verify their orders.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1308.4934,
  title  = {Some remarks on the symplectic group $Sp(2g, \mathbb{Z})$},
  author = {Kumar Balasubramanian and Ganesh Ji Omar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1308.4934},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

This work was done as part of a summer project