Unisingular representations in arithmetic and Lie theory

Abstract

Let G be a subgroup of GL(V), where V is a finite dimensional vector space over a finite field of characteristic p >0. If det(g-1) = 0 for all g \in G then we call G a fixed-point subgroup of GL(V). Motivated in parallel by questions in arithmetic and linear group theory, we classify all irreducible fixed-point subgroups of Sp_8(2) and give new infinite series of irreducible fixed-point subgroups of symplectic groups Sp_m(2) for various m arising from certain representations of groups of Lie type.

21 pages. Lemma 3.1 is is no longer "if and only if", which does not affect the main results. Other minor typos corrected