Spaces of triangularizable matrices (III): Perfect non-quadratically closed fields with characteristic $2$

Abstract

Given a field $\mathbb{F}$ and an integer $n\ge 2$, denote by $t_n(\mathbb{F})$ the greatest possible dimension for a vector space of $n$-by-$n$ matrices over $\mathbb{F}$ in which every element is triangularizable. It was recently proved that $t_n(\mathbb{F})=\frac{n(n+1)}{2}$ if and only if $\mathbb{F}$ is not quadratically closed, with the possible exception of finite fields with characteristic $2$ and less than $n-1$ elements. In this article, we prove that the equality $t_n(\mathbb{F})=\frac{n(n+1)}{2}$ holds for all perfect non-quadratically closed fields with characteristic $2$ -- with the possible exception of fields with cardinality $2$ -- and for these fields we obtain a key result for a future analysis of the spaces that have the critical dimension $t_n(\mathbb{F})$.

37 pages