In this paper, we establish a definitive result which almost completely closes the problem of bounded elementary generation for Chevalley groups of rank $\ge 2$ over arbitrary Dedekind rings R of arithmetic type, with uniform bounds. Namely, we show that for every reduced irreducible root system $\Phi $ of rank $\ge 2$, there exists a universal bound $L=L(\Phi )$ such that the simply connected Chevalley groups $G(\Phi ,R)$ have elementary width $\le L$ for all Dedekind rings of arithmetic type R.

In this paper, we study the universal lifting spaces of local Galois representations valued in arbitrary reductive group schemes when $\ell \neq p$. In particular, under certain technical conditions applicable to any root datum, we construct a canonical smooth component in such spaces, generalizing the minimally ramified deformation condition previously studied for classical groups. Our methods involve extending the notion of isotypic decomposition for a $\operatorname {\mathrm {GL}}_n$-valued representation to general reductive group schemes. To deal with certain scheme-theoretic issues coming from this notion, we are led to a detailed study of certain families of disconnected reductive groups, which we call weakly reductive group schemes. Our work can be used to produce geometric lifts for global Galois representations, and we illustrate this for $\mathrm {G}_2$-valued representations.

Given a connected reductive algebraic group G over an algebraically closed field, we investigate the Picard group of the moduli stack of principal G-bundles over an arbitrary family of smooth curves.

We initiate a systematic study of the perfection of affine group schemes of finite type over fields of positive characteristic. The main result intrinsically characterises and classifies the perfections of reductive groups and obtains a bijection with the set of classifying spaces of compact connected Lie groups topologically localised away from the characteristic. We also study the representations of perfectly reductive groups. We establish a highest weight classification of simple modules, the decomposition into blocks, and relate extension groups to those of the underlying abstract group.

We investigate some properties of complex structures on Lie algebras. In particular, we focus on nilpotent complex structures that are characterised by suitable J-invariant ascending or descending central series, $\mathfrak {d}^{\,j}$ and $\mathfrak {d}_j$ , respectively. We introduce a new descending series $\mathfrak {p}_j$ and use it to prove a new characterisation of nilpotent complex structures. We also examine whether nilpotent complex structures on stratified Lie algebras preserve the strata. We find that there exists a J-invariant stratification on a step $2$ nilpotent Lie algebra with a complex structure.

Let G be a reductive algebraic group over a field k, such that every semisimple normal subgroup of G has isotropic rank ≥ 2, i.e. contains (Gm)2. Let K1G be the non-stable K1-functor associated to G, also called the Whitehead group of G. We show that K1G(k) = K1G (k[X1 ,…, Xn]) for any n ≥ 1. If k is perfect, this implies that K1G (R) = K1G (R[X]) for any regular k-algebra R. If k is infinite perfect, one also deduces that K1G (R) → K1G (K) is injective for any local regular k-algebra R with the fraction field K.