[Math] Finding centralizer of a matrix in general linear group.

group-theorymatrices

I saw the following question from Gallian's book on abstract algebra.

I am required to find the centralizer of the matrix
$$A=
\begin{bmatrix}
1 & 1 \\
1 & 0 \\
\end{bmatrix}
$$
in the general real linear group of $2\times2$ matrices.

I took a general matrix
$$B=
\begin{bmatrix}
a & b \\
c & d \\
\end{bmatrix}
$$
and found their product BA and AB which are
$$
\begin{bmatrix}
a+b & a \\
c+d & c \\
\end{bmatrix}
$$
and
$$
\begin{bmatrix}
a+c & b+d \\
a & b \\
\end{bmatrix}
$$
respectively. But I don't know how to proceed from here. Any help is appreciated. Thanks. 🙂

Best Answer

Well you can start by claiming the two products are equal and then this will determine your coefficients. For example you can immediately see that $b$ must be equal to $c$, and you should be able to get the other relations from here.

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