On extensions of algebraic groups

Abstract

We extend to the context of algebraic groups a classical result on extensions of abstract groups relating the set of isomorphism classes of extensions of $G$ by $H$ with that of extensions of $G$ by the center $Z$ of $H$. The proof should be easily generalizable to other contexts. We also study the subset of classes of split extensions and give a quick application by proving a finiteness result on these sets over a finite field.