Bonded quadratic division algebras (Q1220563)

Osborn has shown that any quadratic algebra over a field of characteristic not two can be decomposed into a copy of the field and a skew-commutative algebra with a bilinear form. For any nonassociative algebra \(G\) over a field of characteristic not two, Albert and Oehmke have defined an algebra over the same vector space, which is bonded to \(G\) by a linear transformation \(T\). In this paper this process is specialized to the class \(\mathcal A\) of finite dimensional quadratic algebras \(A\) over fields of characteristic not two, which define a symmetric, nondegenerate bilinear form, to obtain quadratic algebras \(B(A,T)\) bonded to \(A\). In the main results \(T\) will be defined as a linear transformation on the skew-commutative algebra \(V\) defined by Osborn's decomposition of \(A\). An algebra in \(\mathcal A\) is called a division algebra if \(A\neq 0\) and the equations \(ax = b\) and \(ya = b\), where \(a\neq 0\) and \(b\) are elements in \(A\), have unique solutions for \(x\) and \(y\) in \(A\). Consequently, a finite dimensional algebra \(A\neq 0\) is a division algebra if and only if \(A\) has no divisors of zero. A basis for \(V\) is said to be orthogonal, if it is orthogonal with respect to the above mentioned bilinear form. An algebra in \(\mathcal A\) is weakly flexible if the \(i\)th component of the skew-commutative product of the \(i\)th and \(j\)th members of each orthogonal basis of \(V\) is \(0\). If \(\mathcal D(A)\) denotes the class of division algebras in \(\mathcal A\) and \(I\) denotes the identity transformation on \(V\), then the main results are: (1) \(A\in\mathcal D(A)\), \(T\) nonsingular and \(B(A,T)\) flexible imply \(B(A,T)\in\mathcal D(A)\), (2) if \(A\in\mathcal D(A)\) and \(A\) is weakly flexible, then \(B(A,T)\) is weakly flexible if and only if \(T = \delta I\) for \(\delta\) a scalar, and (3) if \(A\) is a Cayley-Dickson algebra in \(\mathcal D(A)\), then \(B(A,T)\) is a Cayley-Dickson algebra in \(\mathcal D(A)\) if and only if \(T = \pm I\). Finally, a class of nonflexible quadratic division algebras bonded to Cayley-Dickson division algebras will be exhibited.