Admissibility of groups over function fields of \(p\)-adic curves. (Q1946794)

The paper under review deals with the question of admissibility of groups over a field, which is a strong variant of the inverse Galois problem. More precisely, we say that a finite group \(G\) is admissible over a field \(K\) if there is a division ring \(D\) that is central over \(K\) with a maximal subfield \(L\) of \(K\) that is Galois over \(K\) and \(G\cong\text{Gal}(L/K)\). The question of admissibility was raised in a paper of \textit{M. M. Schacher} [J. Algebra 9, 451-477 (1968; Zbl 0174.34103)] who proved that if \(G\) is admissible over \(\mathbb Q\), then its \(p\)-Sylow subgroups are meta-cyclic. Here the authors study a geometric version of the problem. The main result says: Let \(K\) be complete with respect to a discrete valuation having residue field \(K_0\), \(F\) a function field of one variable over \(K\), and \(G\) a finite group whose order is not divisible by the characteristic of \(K_0\). If \(G\) is admissible over \(F\), then every Sylow subgroup \(P\) of \(G\) admits a normal series \(P_2\subseteq P_1\subseteq P\) such that \(P/P_1\) and \(P_2\) are cyclic and \(P_1/P_2\) is admissible over a finite extension of the residue field of a discrete valuation of \(F\). This theorem relates to a theorem of \textit{D. Harbater} et al. [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 363, No. 6, 3335-3349 (2011; Zbl 1228.12004)] who characterized the case when \(K_0\) is algebraically closed. A key ingredient in the proof of the above described result is a Hasse principle for central simple algebras: Let \(K\), \(K_0\), and \(F\) be as above. Let \(A\) be a central simple algebra over \(F\) of degree \(n=\ell^r>1\), where \(\ell\) is a prime not equal the characteristic of \(K_0\). Assume that \(K\) contains a primitive \(n\)-th root of unity. Then the index of \(A\) equals the index of \(A\otimes F_v\), for some discrete valuation \(v\) of \(F\). This theorem is proved using patching techniques developed by Harbater, Hartmann, and Krasner.