The Noether problem for spinor groups of small rank (Q2286341)

The present article investigates stable rationality for the spinor groups of small rank. Recall that a field extension \(L\) over \(K\) is rational if \(L\) is purely transcendental over \(K\); \(L\) is stably rational over \(K\) if there exist \(y_1,\dots , y_N\) such that \(y_1,\dots , y_N\) are algebraically independent over \(L\) and \(L(y_1,\dots , y_N)\) is rational over \(K\). Let \(K\) be any field and \(G\) be a finite group. Let \(G\) act on the rational function field \(K(x_g : g \in G)\) by \(K\)-automorphisms defined by \(g \cdot x_h = x_{gh}\) for any \(g, h \in G\). Denote \(K(G) := K(x_g : g \in G)^G\) the fixed subfield under the action of \(G\). Noether's problem asks whether \(K(G)\) is rational (= purely transcendental) over \(K\). From the above definitions it is clear that ``rational'' \(\Rightarrow\) ``stably rational'', while the inverse is not true. There is also a notion ``retract rational'', which is even weaker than the ``stably rational''. We will not give its definition here, since it is more complicated and not related to the results in this paper. Naturally, giving a positive answer to Noether's problem is much more complicated than to the weaker problems ``stably rational'' and ``retract rational''. In the main result of the present paper, the authors prove that \(K(\text{Spin}_n)\) is stably rational over \(K\), for any field \(K\) of characteristic \(\ne 2\) and for all \(n\leq 14\). Because of some results by Merkurjev, the proof is reduced to the cases \(n=7,10\) and 14. However, I should point out one detail that may cause confusion. Throughout the paper it is emphasized that the results are about ``the Noether problem for stable rationality''. Therefore, the abstract and the title of the article should be understood in that sense, although the term ``stable'' is missing in both.