Zariski density and computing in arithmetic groups

Abstract

For $n > 2$, let $\Gamma$ denote either $SL(n, Z)$ or $Sp(n, Z)$. We give a practical algorithm to compute the level of the maximal principal congruence subgroup in an arithmetic group $H\leq \Gamma$. This forms the main component of our methods for computing with such arithmetic groups $H$. More generally, we provide algorithms for computing with Zariski dense groups in $\Gamma$. We use our GAP implementation of the algorithms to solve problems that have emerged recently for important classes of linear groups.