On the congruence subgroup problem for anisotropic groups of inner type \(A_n\) (Q2182427)

Let \(G\) be an algebraic group over a number field \(k\). Let \(V=V_f \cup \infty\) be a complete set of mutually inequivalent valuations of \(k\), where \(V_f\) (resp. \(\infty\)) consists of all the non-Archimedean (resp. Archimedean) valuations. Let \(S\) be a proper subset of \(V\) containing \(\infty\) and let \(\mathcal{O}_S\) be the ring of \(S\)-integers in \(k\). Let \(G \subset \mathrm{GL}(n)\) be a realization as a \(k\)-subgroup. Let \(G(\mathcal{O}_S)=G(k)\cap \mathrm{GL}(n,\mathcal{O}_S)\). A subgroup \(\Gamma\) of \(G(k)\) is said to be \(S\)-arithmetic if \(\Gamma \cap G(\mathcal{O}_S)\) is of finite index in both \(\Gamma\) and \(G(\mathcal{O}_S)\). If, in addition, \(\Gamma\) contains the principal congruence subgroup \(G(\mathfrak{a})\) of \(G(\mathcal{O}_S)\), for some non-zero \(\mathcal{O}_S\)-ideal \(\mathfrak{a}\), \(\Gamma\) is said to be an \(S\)-congruence. The \(S\)-arithmetic (resp. \(S\)-congruence) subgroups of \(G(k)\) define a topology on \(G(k)\) with respect to which \(G(k)\) is a topological group and the completion of \(G(k)\) with respect to this topology is a profinite group denoted by \(\hat{G}(S,a)\) (resp. \(\hat{G}(S,c)\). The \(S\)-congruence topology is weaker than the \(S\)-arithmetic topology and this leads to the following exact sequence of continuous maps \[1 \rightarrow \mathbf{\mathrm{C}}(S,G) \rightarrow \hat{G}(S,a) \rightarrow \hat{G}(S,c) \rightarrow 1.\] \noindent The group \(\mathbf{\mathrm{C}}(S,G)\) is called a congruence kernel and the congruence subgroup problem (CSP) is the determination of \(\mathbf{\mathrm{C}}(S,G)\). When \(G\) is isotropic over \(k\) the results are fairly complete (for any \(S\)). However when \(G\) is anisotropic over \(k\) several cases remain to be settled. The principal result in this paper is the following. Theorem. Let \(G\) be an absolutely simple simply connected \(k\)-anisotropic algebraic group of inner type \(A_{d-1}\) over \(k\). Let \(\infty \subset S \subset V\) be a \(d\)-amenable set such that \(G(k_v)\) is non-compact for all \(v \in S\cap V_f\). Then \(\mathbf{\mathrm{C}}(S,G)\) is trivial. The proof is based on the concept of \(d\)-amenability (applied to a subset \(S \subset V\)), where \(d \geq 1\) is an integer, which the authors introduce in this paper. In particular, the theorem applies to the case where \(S=V \backslash T\), where \(T\) is a finite set containing all the places \(v\) for which \(G\) is anisotropic over \(k_v\). In addition, the authors show that if \(S_1\) is a set of valuations in a generalized arithmetic progression then \(S_1\) contains a subset which is \(d\)-amenable, for all \(d \geq 1\). This enables the authors to recover an earlier result of \textit{G. Prasad} and \textit{A. S. Rapinchuk} [Proc. Steklov Inst. Math. 292, 216--246 (2016; Zbl 1356.20031)]. For this case, \(G\) is associated with a central division algebra \(D\) of degree \(d\) over \(k\). It suffices to prove the theorem for the \(k\)-subgroup \(G^1\) of \(G\) consisting of the elements of reduced norm \(1\). (In this case, \(G(k)=D^*\) and \(G^1(k)=D^1\).) Following a standard approach to the CSP, \(\mathbf{\mathrm{C}}(S,G^1)\) is first proved to be perfect using \(d\)-amenability. Then (the profinite group) \(\mathbf{\mathrm{C}}(S,G^1)\) is proved to have no finite (non-abelian) simple group as a quotient.