Locally compact abelian groups with symplectic self-duality (Q1959665)

The dual group \(G^\wedge\) of a topological group \( G \) is the set of all continuous homomorphisms \(G\to \mathbb T=\mathbb R/\mathbb Z\). If \(G\) is a LCA group (locally compact abelian group), then \(G^\wedge\) endowed with the compact-open topology is again a LCA group. By the famous Pontryagin-van Kampen theorem, the second dual \(G^{\wedge\wedge}\) is canonically isomorphic (via the evaluation mapping) to \(G\). So for any LCA group \(A\), the group \(A\times A^\wedge\) is isomorphic to its dual group \(A^\wedge\times A^{\wedge\wedge}\cong A^\wedge\times A\). A topological isomorphism \(\nabla: L\to L^\wedge\) is called self-duality. If additionally \(\nabla (x)(x)=0\) holds for every \(x\in L\), then \(\nabla\) is called symplectic self-duality. A subgroup \(G\) of \(L\) is called symplectic, if \(\nabla(x)(y)=0\) holds for all \(x,y\in G\). Two triples \((L,G,\nabla)\) and \((L',G',\nabla')\), where \(L,L'\) are LCA groups and \(G\leq L\) and \(G'\leq L'\) are closed subgroups and \(\nabla\) and \(\nabla'\) are self-dualities, are called isomorphic if there exists a topological isomorphism \(\varphi:L\to L'\) such that \(\varphi(G)=G'\) and \(\nabla'(\phi(x))(\phi(y))=\nabla(x)(y)\) holds for all \(x,y\in L\). The standard example of a self-duality is \(\nabla^0:A\times A^\wedge\to A^\wedge\times A \) with \(\nabla^0(x,\chi)(\psi,y)= \chi(y)-\psi(x)\) for a LCA group \(A\); it is called the standard symplectic self-duality. If \(G\) is a maximal isotropic subgroup of \(L\) then \((\nabla, L,G)\) is called a standard triple if \((\nabla, L)\) is isomorphic to a standard symplectic self-duality \(A\times A^\wedge\) and \(\nabla (G)=B\times B^\bot\) for a suitable subgroup \(B\) of \(A\). In this article it is shown that not every symplectic self-duality on a LCA group is isomorphic to a standard symplectic self-duality. The proof applies subtle structure theorems of LCA groups as well as homological methods. It is shown that for every odd prime \(p\) there is a finite \(p\)-group \(L\) and a symplectic self-duality \(\nabla\) on \(L\) as well as a maximal isotropic subgroup \(G\) such that \((L,\nabla, G)\) is not a standard triple. Finally, applying a criterion which characterizes those torsion LCA groups for which every symplectic self-duality is standard, they construct a torsion LCA group and a symplectic self-duality which is not a standard self-duality.