On Overgroups of Distinguished Unipotent Elements in Reductive Groups and Finite Groups of Lie Type

Abstract

Suppose $G$ is a simple algebraic group defined over an algebraically closed field of good characteristic $p$. In 2018 Korhonen showed that if $H$ is a connected reductive subgroup of $G$ which contains a distinguished unipotent element $u$ of $G$ of order $p$, then $H$ is $G$-irreducible in the sense of Serre. We present a short and uniform proof of this result using so-called good $A1$ subgroups of $G$, introduced by Seitz. We also formulate a counterpart of Korhonen’s theorem for overgroups of u which are finite groups of Lie type. Moreover, we generalize both results above by removing the restriction on the order of $u$ under a mild condition on $p$ depending on the rank of $G$, and we present an analogue of Korhonen’s theorem for Lie algebras.