Traces of powers of matrices over finite fields

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Gorodetsky, Ofir, Rodgers, Brad
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2019
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866916435580682240
author Gorodetsky, Ofir
Rodgers, Brad
author_facet Gorodetsky, Ofir
Rodgers, Brad
contents Let $M$ be a random matrix chosen according to Haar measure from the unitary group $\mathrm{U}(n,\mathbb{C})$. Diaconis and Shahshahani proved that the traces of $M,M^2,\ldots,M^k$ converge in distribution to independent normal variables as $n \to \infty$, and Johansson proved that the rate of convergence is superexponential in $n$. We prove a finite field analogue of these results. Fixing a prime power $q = p^r$, we choose a matrix $M$ uniformly from the finite unitary group $\mathrm{U}(n,q)\subseteq \mathrm{GL}(n,q^2)$ and show that the traces of $\{ M^i \}_{1 \le i \le k,\, p \nmid i}$ converge to independent uniform variables in $\mathbb{F}_{q^2}$ as $n \to \infty$. Moreover we show the rate of convergence is exponential in $n^2$. We also consider the closely related problem of the rate at which characteristic polynomial of $M$ equidistributes in `short intervals' of $\mathbb{F}_{q^2}[T]$. Analogous results are also proved for the general linear, special linear, symplectic and orthogonal groups over a finite field. In the two latter families we restrict to odd characteristic. The proofs depend upon applying techniques from analytic number theory over function fields to formulas due to Fulman and others for the probability that the characteristic polynomial of a random matrix equals a given polynomial.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1909_03666
institution arXiv
publishDate 2019
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Traces of powers of matrices over finite fields
Gorodetsky, Ofir
Rodgers, Brad
Group Theory
Number Theory
Probability
Let $M$ be a random matrix chosen according to Haar measure from the unitary group $\mathrm{U}(n,\mathbb{C})$. Diaconis and Shahshahani proved that the traces of $M,M^2,\ldots,M^k$ converge in distribution to independent normal variables as $n \to \infty$, and Johansson proved that the rate of convergence is superexponential in $n$. We prove a finite field analogue of these results. Fixing a prime power $q = p^r$, we choose a matrix $M$ uniformly from the finite unitary group $\mathrm{U}(n,q)\subseteq \mathrm{GL}(n,q^2)$ and show that the traces of $\{ M^i \}_{1 \le i \le k,\, p \nmid i}$ converge to independent uniform variables in $\mathbb{F}_{q^2}$ as $n \to \infty$. Moreover we show the rate of convergence is exponential in $n^2$. We also consider the closely related problem of the rate at which characteristic polynomial of $M$ equidistributes in `short intervals' of $\mathbb{F}_{q^2}[T]$. Analogous results are also proved for the general linear, special linear, symplectic and orthogonal groups over a finite field. In the two latter families we restrict to odd characteristic. The proofs depend upon applying techniques from analytic number theory over function fields to formulas due to Fulman and others for the probability that the characteristic polynomial of a random matrix equals a given polynomial.
title Traces of powers of matrices over finite fields
topic Group Theory
Number Theory
Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.03666