arXiv subjects

Mark L. MacDonald

Publications and source records attributed to Mark L. MacDonald.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2009

Projective homogeneous varieties birational to quadrics

We will consider an explicit birational map between a quadric and the projective variety X(J) of traceless rank one elements in a simple reduced Jordan algebra J. X(J) is a homogeneous G-variety for the automorphism group G=Aut(J). We will show that the birational map is a blow up followed by a blow down. This will allow us to use the blow up formula for motives together with Vishik's work on the motives of quadrics to give a motivic decomposition of X(J).

math.AG↗

arXiv2008

Cohomological invariants of odd degree Jordan algebras

In this paper we determine all possible cohomological invariants of Aut(J)-torsors in Galois cohomology with mod 2 coefficients (characteristic of the base field not 2), for J a split central simple Jordan algebra of odd degree n>=3. This has already been done for J of orthogonal and exceptional type, and we extend these results to unitary and symplectic type. We will use our results to compute the essential dimensions of some groups, for example we show that ed(PSp(2n))=n+1 for n odd.

math.RA↗