IDEMPOTENCE PRESERVING MAPS ON SPACES OF TRIANGULAR MATRICES

Suppose F is an arbitrary field. Let ${\mid}F{\mid}$ be the number of the elements of F. Let $T_{n}(F)$ be the space of all $n{\times}n$ upper-triangular matrices over F. A map ${\Psi}\;:\;T_{n}(F)\;{\rightarrow}\;T_{n}(F)$ is said to preserve idempotence if $A-{\lambda}B$ is idempotent if and only if ${\Psi}(A)-{\lambda}{\Psi}(B)$ is idempotent for any $A,\;B\;{\in}\;T_{n}(F)$ and ${\lambda}\;{\in}\;F$. It is shown that: when the characteristic of F is not 2, ${\mid}F{\mid}\;>\;3$ and $n\;{\geq}\;3,\;{\Psi}\;:\;T_{n}(F)\;{\rightarrow}\;T_{n}(F)$ is a map preserving idempotence if and only if there exists an invertible matrix $P\;{\in}\;T_{n}(F)$ such that either ${\Phi}(A)\;=\;PAP^{-1}$ for every $A\;{\in}\;T_{n}(F)\;or\;{\Psi}(A)=PJA^{t}JP^{-1}$ for every $P\;{\in}\;T_{n}(F)$, where $J\;=\;{\sum}^{n}_{i-1}\;E_{i,n+1-i}\;and\;E_{ij}$ is the matrix with 1 in the (i,j)th entry and 0 elsewhere.