Periods of principal homogeneous spaces of algebraic tori (Q1759464): Difference between revisions

Let \(T\) be an algebraic torus defined over a field \(F\) with decomposition group \(G\). Let \(K\) be any field extension of \(F\). There is a well known bijective correspondence between \(T\)-torsors over \(K\) and the first Galois cohomology group \(H^1(\Gamma_K,T(K_{\text{sep}}))\), where as usual \(\Gamma_K\) denotes the absolute Galois group of \(K\) and \(K_{\text{sep}}\) is the separable closure of \(F\). The period of a torsor is defined to be the order of its corresponding element in \(H^1(\Gamma_F,T(F_{\text{sep}}))\). A resolution of \(T\) is an exact sequence of tori \[ 1 \to T \to P \to S \to 1 \] with the decomposition group \(G\) and a quasi-split torus \(P\). Thus \(\varphi:P\to S\) is naturally a \(T\)-torsor. Let us denote by \(F(S)\) the function field of \(S\) then the fibre of \(\varphi\) over the generic point \(\mathrm{Spec}(F(S))\) (i.e. the generic fibre of \(\varphi\)) is defined to be a generic \(T\)-torsor. In \S 1 the author proves that the period \(e(T)\) of the generic torsor does not depend on the choice of a resolution. In \S 2 the author computes the period \(e(T)\) of the generic torsor: let us denote by \(T^*\) the character lattice of the torus over \(F_{\text{sep}}\) and by \(T_{\ast}\) the co-character group of \(T\) then in Theorem 2.2 the author proves that \(e(T)\) is equal to the order of the class of the identity endomorphism of the lattice \(T^*\) in the cokernel of the map \[ \coprod_{H\subset G} \hat{H}^0(H,T_*)\otimes \hat{H}^0(H,T^*)\to \hat{H}^0(G,\mathrm{End}(T^*)). \] More precise computations are done in \S 3 in the case where \(T\) has a flasque (Theorem 3.1) or coflasque (Theorem 3.2) resolution. The paper ends with \S 4 where some explicit computations are provided.