arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Jean-Pierre Tignol.
A categorical approach is proposed for the construction of 8-periodic chain complexes of Witt groups of categories with duality. Exactness of the resulting sequences is proved under the hypothesis that the categories are abelian and artinian or when the endomorphism algebra of each object is semilocal and rad-adically complete.
We provide a new proof of the analogue of the Artin-Springer theorem for groups of type $\mathsf{D}$ that can be represented by similitudes over an algebra of Schur index $2$: an anisotropic generalized quadratic form over a quaternion algebra $Q$ remains anisotropic after generic splitting of $Q$, hence also under odd degree field extensions of the base field. Our proof is characteristic free and does not use the excellence property.
To an orthogonal or unitary involution on a central simple algebra of degree 4, or to a symplectic involution on a central simple algebra of degree 8, we associate a Pfister form that characterises the decomposability of the algebra with involution. In this way we obtain a unified approach to known decomposability criteria for several cases, and a new result for symplectic involutions on degree $8$ algebras in characteristic 2.
A $3$-fold and a $5$-fold quadratic Pfister forms are canonically associated to every symplectic involution on a central simple algebra of degree $8$ over a field of characteristic $2$. The same construction on central simple algebras of degree $4$ associates to every unitary involution a $2$-fold and a $4$-fold Pfister quadratic forms, and to every orthogonal involution a $1$-fold and a $3$-fold quasi-Pfister forms. These forms hold structural information on the algebra with involution.
The Witt group of skew hermitian forms over a division algebra $D$ with symplectic involution is shown to be canonically isomorphic to the Witt group of symmetric bilinear forms over the Severi-Brauer variety of $D$ with values in a suitable line bundle. In the special case where $D$ is a quaternion algebra we extend previous work by Pfister and by Parimala on the Witt group of conics to set up two five-terms exact sequences relating the Witt groups of hermitian or skew-hermitian forms over $D$ with the Witt groups of the center, of the function field of the Severi-Brauer conic of $D$, and of the residue fields at each closed point of the conic.
Trialitarian triples are triples of central simple algebras of degree 8 with orthogonal involution that provide a convenient structure for the representation of trialitarian algebraic groups as automorphism groups. This paper explicitly describes the canonical "trialitarian'' isomorphisms between the spin groups of the algebras with involution involved in a trialitarian triple, using a rationally defined shift operator that cyclically permutes the algebras. The construction relies on compositions of quadratic spaces of dimension 8, which yield all the trialitarian triples of split algebras. No restriction on the characteristic of the base field is needed.
A theorem of Pfister asserts that every $12$-dimensional quadratic form with trivial discriminant and trivial Clifford invariant over a field of characteristic different from $2$ decomposes as a tensor product of a binary quadratic form and a $6$-dimensional quadratic form with trivial discriminant. The main result of the paper extends Pfister's result to orthogonal involutions: every central simple algebra of degree $12$ with orthogonal involution of trivial discriminant and trivial Clifford invariant decomposes into a tensor product of a quaternion algebra and a central simple algebra of degree $6$ with orthogonal involutions. This decomposition is used to establish a criterion for the existence of orthogonal involutions with trivial invariants on algebras of degree $12$, and to calculate the $f_3$-invariant of the involution if the algebra has index $2$.
In this note, we prove the existence of a set of $n$-fold Pfister forms of cardinality $2^n$ over $\mathbb{C}(x_1,\dots,x_n)$ which do not share a common $(n-1)$-fold factor. This gives a negative answer to a question raised by Becher. The main tools are the existence of the dyadic valuation on the complex numbers and recent results on symmetric bilinear over fields of characteristic 2.
An orthogonal involution $σ$ on a central simple algebra $A$, after scalar extension to the function field $\mathcal{F}(A)$ of the Severi--Brauer variety of $A$, is adjoint to a quadratic form $q_σ$ over $\mathcal{F}(A)$, which is uniquely defined up to a scalar factor. Some properties of the involution, such as hyperbolicity, and isotropy up to an odd-degree extension of the base field, are encoded in this quadratic form, meaning that they hold for the involution $σ$ if and only if they hold for $q_σ$. As opposed to this, we prove that there exists non-totally decomposable orthogonal involutions that become totally decomposable over $\mathcal{F}(A)$, so that the associated form $q_σ$ is a Pfister form. We also provide examples of nonisomorphic involutions on an index $2$ algebra that yield similar quadratic forms, thus proving that the form $q_σ$ does not determine the isomorphism class of $σ$, even when the underlying algebra has index $2$. As a consequence, we show that the $e_3$ invariant for orthogonal involutions is not classifying in degree $12$, and does not detect totally decomposable involutions in degree $16$, as opposed to what happens for quadratic forms.
For a classical group $G$ of type $\mathsf D_n$ over a field $k$ of characteristic different from $2$, we show the existence of a finitely generated regular extension $R$ of $k$ such that $G$ admits outer automorphisms over $R$. Using this result and a construction of groups of type $\mathsf A$ from groups of type $\mathsf D$, we construct new examples of groups of type $^2\mathsf A_n$ with $n\equiv 3\bmod 4$ and the first examples of type $^2\mathsf A_n$ with $n\equiv 1\bmod 4$ $(n\geq 5)$ that are not $R$-trivial, hence not rational (nor stably rational).
Given a central simple algebra with involution over an arbitrary field, étale subalgebras contained in the space of symmetric elements are investigated. The method emphasizes the similarities between the various types of involutions and privileges a unified treatment for all characteristics whenever possible. As a consequence a conceptual proof of a theorem of Rowen is obtained, which asserts that every division algebra of exponent two and degree eight contains a maximal subfield that is a triquadratic extension of the centre.
Homomorphisms are defined between the multiplicative group of an etale algebra of dimension 4 and the multiplicative group of a canonically associated etale algebra of degree 6 over an arbitrary field. These homomorphisms are used to relate various norm groups and to describe the 2-torsion in the relative Brauer group of a separable extension of degree 4. Several remarkable properties of biquadratic extensions are thus extended to arbitrary etale algebras of dimension 4.
A theorem of Albert-Draxl states that if a tensor product of two quaternion division algebras $Q_1$, $Q_2$ over a field $F$ is not a division algebra, then there exists a separable quadratic extension of $F$ that embeds as a subfield in $Q_1$ and in $Q_2$. We establish a modified version of this result where the tensor product of quaternion algebras is replaced by the corestriction of a single quaternion algebra over a separable field extension. As a tool in the proof, we show that if the transfer of a nonsingular quadratic form $φ$ over a quadratic extension is isotropic for a linear functional $s$ such that $s(1)=0$, then $φ$ contains a nondegenerate subform defined over the base field.
The so-called Tits class, associated to an adjoint absolutely almost simple algebraic group, provides a cohomological obstruction for this group to admit an outer automorphism. If the group has inner type, this obstruction is the only one. In this paper, we prove this is not the case for classical groups of outer type, except for groups of type $^2\mathsf{A}_n$ with $n$ even, or $n=5$. More precisely, we prove a descent theorem for exponent $2$ and degree $6$ algebras with unitary involution, which shows that their automorphism groups have outer automorphisms. In all other relevant classical types, namely $^2\mathsf{A}_n$ with $n$ odd, $n\geq3$ and $^2\mathsf{D}_n$, we provide explicit examples where the Tits class obstruction vanishes, and yet the group does not have outer automorphism. As a crucial tool, we use "generic" sums of algebras with involution.
For every generalized quadratic form or hermitian form over a division algebra, the anisotropic kernel of the form obtained by scalar extension to the function field of a smooth projective conic is defined over the field of constants. The proof does not require any hypothesis on the characteristic.
Using the Rost invariant for torsors under Spin groups one may define an analogue of the Arason invariant for certain hermitian forms and orthogonal involutions. We calculate this invariant explicitly in various cases, and use it to associate to every orthogonal involution with trivial discriminant and trivial Clifford invariant over a central simple algebra of even co-index a cohomology class $f_3$ of degree 3 with $μ_2$ coefficients. This invariant $f_3$ is the double of any representative of the Arason invariant; it vanishes when the algebra has degree at most 10, and also when there is a quadratic extension of the center that simultaneously splits the algebra and makes the involution hyperbolic. The paper provides a detailed study of both invariants, with particular attention to the degree 12 case, and to the relation with the existence of a quadratic splitting field.
We determine which simple algebraic groups of type $^3D_4$ over arbitrary fields of characteristic different from 2 admit outer automorphisms of order 3, and classify these automorphisms up to conjugation. The criterion is formulated in terms of a representation of the group by automorphisms of a trialitarian algebra: outer automorphisms of order 3 exist if and only if the algebra is the endomorphism algebra of an induced cyclic composition; their conjugacy classes are in one-to-one correspondence with isomorphism classes of symmetric compositions from which the induced cyclic composition stems.
Let $\cO$ be a maximal order in a definite quaternion algebra over $\mathbb{Q}$ of prime discriminant $p$, and $\ell$ a small prime. We describe a probabilistic algorithm, which for a given left $O$-ideal, computes a representative in its left ideal class of $\ell$-power norm. In practice the algorithm is efficient, and subject to heuristics on expected distributions of primes, runs in expected polynomial time. This breaks the underlying problem for a quaternion analog of the Charles-Goren-Lauter hash function, and has security implications for the original CGL construction in terms of supersingular elliptic curves.