Polynomial identities on superalgebras and exponential growth (Q1414666)

The growth of the codimensions of a PI algebra is an important invariant of the T-ideal of the algebra. Recall that over a field of characteristic 0, the T-ideal of an algebra is completely determined by its multilinear elements, hence the importance of the codimensions. If \(A\) is such an algebra and \(c_n=c_n(A)\) are its codimensions then a celebrated theorem of the second author and \textit{M. Zaicev} [Adv. Math. 142, No. 2, 221--243 (1999; Zbl 0920.16013)] states that \(\lim(c_n^{1/n})\) always exists and is an integer; this integer is called the exponent of \(A\). One defines accordingly supercodimensions \(c_n^{\sup}= c_n^{\sup}(A)\) of a superalgebra \(A\). A natural question is to describe the behaviour of this sequence. The present paper answers this question in the following way. If \(A\) is a finitely generated PI superalgebra then the superexponent of \(A\) exists and is an integer. Furthermore, the authors give a concrete algorithm on how to compute the superexponent. As a consequence they construct a list of eight superalgebras \(A_i\), \(1\leq i\leq 8\) with the following property. If the superexponent of \(A\) is larger than 2 then the ideal of the superidentities of \(A\) must be contained in that of some \(A_i\). Then they are able to describe precisely the superalgebras whose superexponent equals 2. The main tools in the study are the ones developed for the case of ordinary identities and the theory of representations of the hyperoctahedral group.