Free subalgebras of division algebras over uncountable fields. (Q2249641)

The study of the problem on the existence of free objects in division rings seems to have the rise from the work of A. I. Lichtman in 1977, when he studied the analogue of Tits' Alternative for skew linear groups. Since this time, the problem attracts the attention of many authors around the world and many interesting results were obtained. In the article under review, the authors study the existence of free subalgebras in division algebras with uncountable centers, and prove the following general result: if \(A\) is a Noetherian domain which is countably generated over an uncountable algebraically closed field \(k\) of characteristic \(0\), then either the quotient division algebra of \(A\) contains a free algebra on two generators, or it is left algebraic over every maximal subfield. As an application, the authors give a criterion for the special case of domains of low Gelfand-Kirillov dimension.