Construction of unipotent Galois extensions and Massey products (Q329517)

The research presented in the paper under review is incorporated in the inverse Galois theory problem for finite \(p\)-groups and arbitrary fields. It finds a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a unipotent Galois extension of degree \(p ^ 6\) over a field \(F\), for an arbitrary prime number \(p\) (when \(p = 2\), the authors together with \textit{M. Ataei} have fully described the considered Galois extensions in [J. Algebra 471, 193--219 (2017; Zbl 1388.12005)]). The main goal of the reviewed paper is to construct Galois extensions of \(F\) with Galois groups isomorphic to the unipotent group \(\mathbb U _ 4(\mathbb F _ p)\), assuming only the existence of some Galois extensions of \(F\) of degree \(p ^ 3\); as usual, for any \(n \in \mathbb N\), \(\mathbb U _ n(\mathbb F _ p)\) stands for the group of upper triangular \(n \times n\) matrices with entries in the prime field \(\mathbb F _ p\) and main diagonal elements \(1\). This fits into a program outlined by the authors (see [J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 19, No. 1, 255--284 (2017; Zbl 1372.12004)] and [Adv. Math. 273, 242--270 (2015; Zbl 1334.12005)], with an appendix by I. Efrat), for the systematic construction of Galois \(p\)-closed extensions of general fields, assuming only knowledge of Galois extensions of degree \(p ^ j\), \(j = 1, 2, 3\), and of the group of roots of unity of \(p\)-primary degree in the ground field. The work on such a program has been inspired by the proof of the Bloch-Kato Conjecture by Rost and Voevodsky (see [\textit{V. Voevodsky}, Ann. Math. (2) 174, No. 1, 401--438 (2011; Zbl 1236.14026)], and [\textit{V. Voevodsky}, Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 98, 59--104 (2003; Zbl 1057.14028)]), and its implementation depends on two relatively new conjectures on Galois cohomology, namely, the Vanishing \(n\)-Massey Conjecture (abbr, (VMC)\(_ n\)) and the Kernel \(n\)-unipotent Conjecture. The main result of the reviewed paper provides a natural new proof of (VMC)\(_ 3\) (a somewhat earlier proof has been obtained by the authors, using a cohomological method, see [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 94, No. 3, 909--932 (2016; Zbl 1378.12002)]; for fields containing a primitive \(p\)-th root of unity, see also [\textit{I. Efrat} and \textit{E. Matzri}, ``Triple Massey products and absolute Galois groups'', to appear in J. Eur. Math. Soc. (2016), \url{arXiv:1412.7265}). In addition, this result draws one's attention on the importance of being able to construct inductively Galois \(\mathbb U _ n(\mathbb F _ p)\)-extensions, for a possible proof of (VMC)\(_ n\) in general. The paper gives an account of other problems concerning the structure of absolute Galois groups (coming from different areas like anabelian birational geometry and the study of Hilbert \(p\)-class field towers over imaginary quadratic number fields with \(p\)-class groups of rank \(2\)), which motivate the efforts to prove (VMC)\(_ n\). The authors return to earlier proofs of their main result in the case of \(p = 2\) and point out mathematical obstructions that do not allow to apply earlier methods to the case where \(p > 2\). Thus both the results and the methods of the reviewed paper pave the way to a program of clarifying the structure of the maximal pro-\(p\)-quotients of absolute Galois groups of fields.