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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Larsen, Michael, Taylor, Jay, Tiep, Pham
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09262
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Table of Contents:
  • For every integer $k$ there exists a bound $B=B(k)$ such that if the characteristic polynomial of $g\in \operatorname{SL}_n(q)$ is the product of $\le k$ pairwise distinct monic irreducible polynomials over $\mathbb{F}_q$, then every element $x$ of $\operatorname{SL}_n(q)$ of support at least $B$ is the product of two conjugates of $g$. We prove this and analogous results for the other classical groups over finite fields; in the orthogonal and symplectic cases, the result is slightly weaker. With finitely many exceptions $(p,q)$, in the special case that $n=p$ is prime, if $g$ has order $\frac{q^p-1}{q-1}$, then every non-scalar element $x \in \operatorname{SL}_p(q)$ is the product of two conjugates of $g$. The proofs use the Frobenius formula together with upper bounds for values of unipotent and quadratic unipotent characters in finite classical groups.