Quasi-abelian crossed modules and nonabelian cohomology (Q1946108)

The author extends the work of M. Borovoi on the non abelian Galois cohomology of linear reductive algebraic groups \(G\) over number fields \(K\) to a general base scheme \(S\), focusing in particular on a generalization of Borovoi's (surjective) abelianization map \(ab^1: H^1(K, G)\to H^1_{ab}(K,G)\). More precisely, let \(S\) be any scheme, \(S_{fl}\) the small fppf site over \(S\) and \(G\) a reductive group scheme. The author constructs a 12 term exact sequence of flat (fppf) cohomology sets in degrees \(\leq 3\) (we do not reproduce it here) which is an exact sequence of pointed sets at every term except at \(\delta_1:H^1_{ab}(G) \to H^2(\tilde{G})\), where a class \(y\) of \(H^1_{ab}(G)\) is in the image of \(ab^1: H^1(G)\to H^1_{ab}(G)\) if and only if \(\delta_1 (y)\) is a neutral class of \(H^2(\tilde{G})\) in the sense of \textit{J. Giraud} [Cohomologie non abelienne. Berlin-Heidelberg-New York: Springer-Verlag (1971; Zbl 0226.14011)]. Notations: \(H^i(G)\) stands for \(H^i(S_{fl},G)\) and similarly for \(H^i_{ab}(G)\), the \(H^i_{ab}(S_{fl}, G)\) being by definition the fppf hypercohomology groups \(H^i(S_{fl},Z(\tilde{G})\to Z(G))\), where \(\tilde{G}\) is the simply connected central cover of the derived group of \(G\) and \((Z(\tilde{G})\to Z(G))\) is the associated abelian crossed module; the abelianization maps \(ab^i: H^i(G) \to H^i_{ab}(G)\) for \(i=1,2\) are generalizations of Borovoi's, defined by the author using ideas of Breen, Giraud and Borovoi. When \(S\) is the spectrum of a number field, the above sequence shows that all classes of \(H^2(\tilde{G})\) are neutral. If \(S\) is the spectrum of the ring of integers of a number field, the first abelianization map \(ab^1\) is surjective. In the last section the author discusses applications to linear reductive algebraic groups over certain types of fields, especially of positive characteristic.