English

The Bohr compactification of an arithmetic group

Group Theory 2023-04-19 v1

Abstract

Given a group Γ,\Gamma, its Bohr compactification Bohr(Γ)\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma) and its profinite completion Prof(Γ)\operatorname{Prof}(\Gamma) are compact groups naturally associated to Γ\Gamma; moreover, Prof(Γ)\operatorname{Prof}(\Gamma) can be identified with the quotient of Bohr(Γ)\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma) by its connected component Bohr(Γ)0.\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma)_0. We study the structure of Bohr(Γ)\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma) for an arithmetic subgroup Γ\Gamma of an algebraic group GG over Q\mathbf{Q}. When GG is unipotent, we show that Bohr(Γ)\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma) can be identified with the direct product Bohr(ΓAb)0×Prof(Γ)\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma^{\rm Ab})_0\times \operatorname{Prof}(\Gamma), where ΓAb=Γ/[Γ,Γ]\Gamma^{\rm Ab}= \Gamma/[\Gamma, \Gamma] is the abelianization of Γ.\Gamma. In the general case, using a Levi decomposition G=UHG= U\rtimes H (where UU is unipotent and HH is reductive), we show that Bohr(Γ)\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma) can be described as the semi-direct product of a certain quotient of Bohr(ΓU)\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma\cap U) with Bohr(ΓH)\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma \cap H). When GG is simple and has higher R\mathbf{R}-rank, Bohr(Γ)\operatorname{Bohr}(\Gamma) is isomorphic, up to a finite group, to the product K×Prof(Γ),K\times \operatorname{Prof}(\Gamma), where KK is the maximal compact factor of the real Lie group G(R).G(\mathbf{R}).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2304.09045,
  title  = {The Bohr compactification of an arithmetic group},
  author = {Bachir Bekka},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.09045},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

27 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T10:09:49.140Z