Some remarks about the levels and sublevels of algebras obtained by the Cayley-Dickson process (Q2000892)

Let \(A\) be an algebra over a field \(K\) of characteristic not \(2\). The level \(s\) (resp. sublevel \(\underline{s}\)) of \(A\) is defined to be the smallest \(n\) such that \(-1\) (resp. \(0\)) is a sum of \(n\) squares (resp. \(n+1\) nonzero squares) in \(A\), or \(\infty\) if no such \(n\) exists. So in particular \(\underline{s}(A)\leq s(A)\). In this paper, the author continues her study of the possible values of the level and sublevel for algebras of dimension \(2^t\) (\(t\geq 2\)) obtained by the Cayley-Dickson doubling process. Examples of such algebras are quaternion algebras (\(t=2\)) and octonion algebras (\(t=3\)). For example, it is shown that for any positive integers \(n\geq 1\), \(t\geq 2\) with \(n\leq 2^t\), there is a division algebra \(A\) of dimenson \(2^t\) obtained by the Cayley-Dickson doubling process such that \(s(A)=\underline{s}(A)=n\). It is also shown that such algebras always exist for \(n>2^t\) when \(n\) is a power of \(2\), but it is still an open problem for values \(n>2^t\) that are not powers of \(2\). Some of the results are fairly straightforward generalizations of results about levels and sublevels of octonions algebras due to \textit{J. O'Shea} [Math. Proc. R. Ir. Acad. 110A, No. 1, 21--30 (2010; Zbl 1276.17001)] or \textit{S. Pumplün} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 133, No. 11, 3143--3152 (2005; Zbl 1134.17302)] using similar techniques.