© 1997 by London Mathematical Society
© The London Mathematical Society
Carter Subgroups in Classical Groups

Dipartimento di Matematica "F. Enriques" Università degli Studi di Milano Via C. Saldini 50, 20133 Milano, Italy
Dipartimento de Matematica, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Via Trieste 17, 25121 Brescia, Italy
Institute of Mathematics, Academy of Science of Belarus Minsk 220072, Belarus
Received 12 April 1996. Revision received 3 January 1997.
Let Fq be a finite field of characteristic r and order q=ra,
the vector space of finite dimension n
1 over Fq, and Mat (n, q) the matrix algebra on V. We denote by Hn(q) (or Hn if q is clear from the context) one of the following classical groups: Sp (n, q) (with n even), the symplectic group on V; O(n, q) (with q odd), one of the full orthogonal groups on V in odd characteristic; U(n, q) (with q a square), the full unitary group on V.