Abstract simplicity of complete Kac-Moody groups over finite fields

Abstract

Let $G$ be a Kac-Moody group over a finite field corresponding to a generalized Cartan matrix $A$, as constructed by Tits. It is known that $G$ admits the structure of a BN-pair, and acts on its corresponding building. We study the complete Kac-Moody group $\hat{G}$ which is defined to be the closure of $G$ in the automorphism group of its building. Our main goal is to determine when complete Kac-Moody groups are abstractly simple, that is have no proper non-trivial normal subgroups. Abstract simplicity of $\hat{G}$ was previously known to hold when A is of affine type. We extend this result to many indefinite cases, including all hyperbolic generalized Cartan matrices $A$ of rank at least four. Our proof uses Tits' simplicity theorem for groups with a BN-pair and methods from the theory of pro-$p$ groups.