Unipotent conjugacy in SL2 over a finite field

ID: unipotent-conjugacy-in-sl2-over-a-finite-field

For a finite field of odd characteristic and nonzero , let . An arbitrary determinant-one matrix satisfies only if and . The determinant condition then gives . Conversely . Thus nonzero upper unipotent matrices fall into two conjugacy classes under this square-class criterion. For example, and are conjugate over because , but not over . The criterion compares these particular upper unipotent representatives; it does not classify all determinant-one matrices.

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