Jordan-Chevalley decomposition in Lie algebras

Abstract

We prove that if $\mathfrak{s}$ is a solvable Lie algebra of matrices over a field of characteristic 0, and $A\in \mathfrak{s}$, then the semisimple and nilpotent summands of the Jordan-Chevalley decomposition of $A$ belong to $\mathfrak{s}$ if and only if there exist $S,N\in \mathfrak{s}$, $S$ is semisimple, $N$ is nilpotent (not necessarily $[S,N]=0$) such that $A=S+N$.

To appear in the CMB. The presentation has been improved