The special linear group can be characterized as the group of volume and orientation preservinglinear transformations of Rn; this corresponds to the interpretation of the determinant as measuring change in volume and orientation.
When F is R or C, is a Lie subgroup of of dimension. The Lie algebra of SL consists of all matrices over F with vanishing trace. The Lie bracket is given by the commutator.
Topology
Any invertible matrix can be uniquely represented according to the polar decomposition as the product of a unitary matrix and a hermitian matrix with positive eigenvalues. The determinant of the unitary matrix is on the unit circle while that of the hermitian matrix is real and positive and since in the case of a matrix from the special linear group the product of these two determinants must be 1, then each of them must be 1. Therefore, a special linear matrix can be written as the product of a special unitary matrix and a positive definite hermitian matrix having determinant 1. Thus the topology of the group is the product of the topology of SU and the topology of the group of hermitian matrices of unit determinant with positive eigenvalues. A hermitian matrix of unit determinant and having positive eigenvalues can be uniquely expressed as the exponential of a traceless hermitian matrix, and therefore the topology of this is that of -dimensional Euclidean space. Since SU is simply connected, we conclude that is also simply connected, for all n. The topology of is the product of the topology of SO and the topology of the group of symmetric matrices with positive eigenvalues and unit determinant. Since the latter matrices can be uniquely expressed as the exponential of symmetric traceless matrices, then this latter topology is that of -dimensional Euclidean space. Thus, the group has the same fundamental group as SO, that is, Z for and Z2 for. In particular this means that, unlike, is not simply connected, for ngreater than 1.
Relations to other subgroups of GL(''n'',''A'')
Two related subgroups, which in some cases coincide with SL, and in other cases are accidentally conflated with SL, are the commutator subgroup of GL, and the group generated by transvections. These are both subgroups of SL, but in general do not coincide with it. The group generated by transvections is denoted or. By the second Steinberg relation, for, transvections are commutators, so for,. For, transvections need not be commutators, as seen for example when A is F2, the field of two elements, then where Alt and Sym denote the alternating resp. symmetric group on 3 letters. However, if A is a field with more than 2 elements, then, and if A is a field with more than 3 elements,. In some circumstances these coincide: the special linear group over a field or a Euclidean domain is generated by transvections, and the stable special linear group over a Dedekind domain is generated by transvections. For more general rings the stable difference is measured by the special Whitehead group, where SL and E are the stable groups of the special linear group and elementary matrices.
Generators and relations
If working over a ring where SL is generated by transvections, one can give a presentation of SL using transvections with some relations. Transvections satisfy the Steinberg relations, but these are not sufficient: the resulting group is the Steinberg group, which is not the special linear group, but rather the universal central extension of the commutator subgroup of GL. A sufficient set of relations for for is given by two of the Steinberg relations, plus a third relation. Let be the elementary matrix with 1's on the diagonal and in the ij position, and 0's elsewhere. Then are a complete set of relations for SL, n ≥ 3.
SL±(''n'',''F'')
In characteristic other than 2, the set of matrices with determinant form another subgroup of GL, with SL as an index 2 subgroup ; in characteristic 2 this is the same as SL. This forms a short exact sequence of groups: This sequence splits by taking any matrix with determinant, for example the diagonal matrix If is odd, the negative identity matrix is in but not in and thus the group splits as an internal direct product. However, if is even, is already in , does not split, and in general is a non-trivial group extension. Over the real numbers, has two connected components, corresponding to and another component, which are isomorphic with identification depending on a choice of point. In odd dimension these are naturally identified by, but in even dimension there is no one natural identification.
Structure of GL(''n'',''F'')
The group splits over its determinant, and therefore can be written as a semidirect product of by F×:
