Roots of elements for groups over local fields

Abstract

Let $\mathbb F$ be a local field and $G$ be a linear algebraic group defined over $\mathbb F$. For $k\in\mathbb N$, let $g\to g^k$ be the $k$-th power map $P_k$ on $G(\mathbb F)$. The purpose of this article is two-fold. First, we study the power map on real algebraic group. We characterise the density of the images of the power map $P_k$ on $G(\mathbb R)$ in terms of Cartan subgroups. Next we consider the linear algebraic group $G$ over non-Archimedean local field $\mathbb F$ with any characteristic. If the residual characteristic of $\mathbb F$ is $p$, and an element admits $p^k$-th root in $G(\mathbb F)$ for each $k$, then we prove that some power of the element is unipotent. In particular, we prove that an element $g\in G(\mathbb F)$ admits roots of all orders if and only if $g$ is contained in a one-parameter subgroup in $G(\mathbb F)$. Also, we extend these results to all linear algebraic groups over global fields.