Freudenthal triple systems in arbitrary characteristic (Q1632460)

A Freudenthal triple system over a field \(K\) with characteristic different from 2 and 3 involves a form of degree 4 and an alternating bilinear form on a vector space over \(K\). To include characteristic 2 and 3, the authors start from a cubic norm structure \(\Xi\) in the sense of \textit{K. McCrimmon} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 139, 495--510 (1969; Zbl 0175.02703)]; this is the same thing as a quadratic Jordan algebra of degree 3. In terms of \(\Xi\), they define a form \(\Theta\) of degree 4 and several families of similitudes of \(\Theta\). It turns out that these special similitudes generate the group of all similitudes of \(\Theta\). Remarks in section 7 show that the group of similitudes has exotic orbits when \(K\) is a non-perfect field of characteristic 2. Theorem 10.8 describes stabilizers of certain residues in exceptional buildings associated to \(\Xi\) in terms of groups of similitudes of \(\Theta\).