Directions of automorphisms of Lie groups over local fields compared to the directions of Lie algebra automorphisms

Abstract

To each totally disconnected, locally compact topological group G and each group A of automorphisms of G, a pseudo-metric space of ``directions'' has been associated by U. Baumgartner and the second author. Given a Lie group G over a local field, it is a natural idea to try to define a map from the space of directions of analytic automorphisms of G to the space of directions of automorphisms of the Lie algebra L(G) of G, which takes the direction of an analytic automorphism of G to the direction of the associated Lie algebra automorphism. We show that, in general, this map is not well-defined. However, the pathology cannot occur for a large class of linear algebraic groups (called ``generalized Cayley groups'' here). For such groups, the assignment just proposed defines a well-defined isometric embedding from the space of directions of inner automorphisms of G to the space of directions of automorphisms of L(G). Some counterexamples concerning the existence of small joint tidy subgroups for flat groups of automorphisms are also provided.