Units in skew fields (Q1971009)

The book (76 pages) presents a brief collection of methods and results on unit groups in central skew-fields \(D\) over \(\mathbb Q\). It is intended to stimulate research on unit groups as important examples of arithmetic groups. Assume that \(D\) splits over \(\mathbb R\). Then the reduced norm map \(D^\times\twoheadrightarrow \mathbb Q^\times\) has a \(\mathbb Q\)-group \(G\) as kernel that can be defined over \(\mathbb Z\), say, \(\Gamma := G(\mathbb Z)\). In this situation, it can be shown that all maximal orders \(\Lambda\) in \(D\) are conjugate. If \(\Gamma\) is a multiplicative subgroup of \(\Lambda\), then \(|\Lambda^\times:\Gamma|= 2\). The book starts with a proof of Hey's result that \(G(\mathbb R)/\Gamma\) is compact. This implies that \(\Gamma\) is finitely generated. H.~Weyl's treatment of Siegel's reduction theory forms the next topic. It is shown that the operation of \(\Gamma\) on \(SO_d(\mathbb R)\backslash SL_d(\mathbb R)\) admits an intersection of finitely many half-spaces as fundamental domain, where \(d\) denotes the index of \(D\), and that \(\Gamma\) is finitely presented. Using A.~Weil's method, it is shown that the Tamagawa number of the \(\mathbb Q\)-group \(G\), that is, the covolume of \(G(\mathbb Q)\) in \(G(\mathbb A)\), where \(\mathbb A\) denotes the ring of adèles of \(\mathbb Q\), is one. This yields an expression for \(\text{vol}(G(\mathbb R)/\Gamma)\) in terms of \(\zeta(D,s)\). Next it is shown that \(\Gamma\) is dense in \(G(\mathbb C)\) and in \(G(\hat{\mathbb Z})\), and that there are only finitely many discrete subgroups of \(G(\mathbb R)\) containing \(\Gamma\). A highlight is the proof that for \(d>2\), every non-central normal subgroup of \(\Gamma\) has finite index, a special case of \textit{G. A. Margulis}' theorem [Funkts. Anal. Prilozh. 13, No. 3, 28-39 (1979; Zbl 0423.22015)]. Some explicit calculations for \(d>2\) and a brief review of some problems are given at the end of the book.