Element structure of projective symplectic group of degree four over a finite field

From Groupprops

This article gives specific information, namely, element structure, about a family of groups, namely: projective symplectic group of degree four.
View element structure of group families | View other specific information about projective symplectic group of degree four

This article describes the element structure of the projective symplectic group of degree four over a finite field of size , denoted . This group is a Chevalley group of type C, and with the Chevalley notation, it is denoted . Note that the parameter as a Chevalley group is half the order of the matrices.

Summary

Item Value
order of the group Case even (e.g., ):
Case odd (e.g., ):
number of conjugacy classes Case a power of 2 (e.g., ):
Case odd (e.g., ):

Number of conjugacy classes

The general theory tells us that number of conjugacy classes in projective symplectic group of fixed degree over a finite field is PORC function of field size. For , the degree of the polynomial is and the polynomial depends on the value . In this case, , so the polynomials have degree two and they depend on . This is exactly what happens:

Value of Corresponding congruence classes mod 2 Number of conjugacy classes (polynomial of degree 2) Additional comments
1 0 (e.g., ) In this case, the projective symplectic group coincides with the symplectic group, because the symplectic group is centerless
2 1 (e.g., )