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Enumeration of Commuting Pairs in Lie Algebras over Finite Fields

Feit and Fine derived a generating function for the number of ordered pairs of commuting n by n matrices over the finite field F_q. This has been reproved and studied by Bryan and Morrison from the viewpoint of motivic Donaldson-Thomas theory. In this note we give a new proof of the Feit-Fine result, and generalize it to the Lie algebra of finite unitary groups and to the Lie algebra of odd characteristic finite symplectic groups. We extract some asymptotic information from these generating functions. Finally, we derive generating functions for the number of commuting nilpotent elements for the Lie algebras of the finite general linear and unitary groups, and of odd characteristic symplectic groups.