Skip to main content
3 of 3
edited tags, formatting
YCor
  • 63.9k
  • 5
  • 187
  • 286

Finite order elements of $\mathrm{GL}_d(\mathbb{Z})$ that are conjugate to powers of themselves

$\DeclareMathOperator\GL{GL}$Let $A\in \GL_d(\mathbb{Z})$ have finite order $n.$ Suppose that $k\in \mathbb{Z}$ is relatively prime to $n.$ Is $A^k$ conjugate to $A$ in $\GL_d(\mathbb{Z})$?

For $d\leq 4$ the answer is yes. Indeed the papers "On the finite subgroups of $\GL(3,\mathbb{Z})$" by K. Tahara, 1971 and "Conjugacy Classes of Torsion in $\GL_n(\mathbb{Z})$", by Q. Yang, 2015 list all torsion elements up to conjugacy for the cases $d=2,3$ and $d=4$ respectively. There are not many cases that need to be checked, so I checked each case and the answer turns out to be "yes" in all of these cases. But I have no general argument for why things work out when $d\leq 4$, only computations.

Caleb Eckhardt
  • 2.7k
  • 19
  • 18