Square-central and Artin-Schreier elements in division algebras. (Q2350498)

This paper studies quadratic subfields and quaternion subalgebras of division algebras of exponent two and any finite dimension, and uses techniques of quadratic forms to prove several interesting slots lemmas, mostly in characteristic~\(2\). Let \(A\) be a division algebra over a field \(F\). Let \(X_0(A)\) denote the set of square-central elements of \(A\) (those non-central elements \(y\) for which \(y^2\in F\)). Let \(X_1(A)=X_0(A)\) in characteristic not \(2\); and, if \(F\) has characteristic \(2\), let \(X_1(A)\) denote set of Artin-Schreier elements (those non-central elements \(x\) for which \(x^2+x\in F\)). Connect \(y\in X_0\) and \(x\in X_1\) by an edge if \(yx+xy=y\) in characteristic \(2\), or \(yx=-xy\) in characteristic not \(2\). Thus, the elements in \(X_0\cup X_1\) account for the quadratic subfields of \(A\), and the edges account for the quaternion subalgebras. The authors prove that over a field of cohomological \(2\)-dimension at most \(2\), every central simple algebra of exponent two decomposes as a tensor product of quaternion algebras; this was known before for fields of characteristic not \(2\). The authors show that if \(\text{cd}_2(F)\leq 2\) and \(F\) is a \(2\)-field (namely has no odd-degree extensions), then \(X=X_0\cup X_1\) is connected, and the distance between any two elements of \(X_1\) is at most \(6\) in characteristic \(2\), and at most \(4\) in characteristic not \(2\). Furthermore, let us say that two decompositions of an algebra into a tensor product of quaternions `have a common slot', if there is a pair of quaternion components, one from each decomposition, which have a common subfield. The authors then show (under the same conditions on \(F\)) that one can get from every decomposition of an algebra to every other decomposition, by at most three steps, each connecting two decompositions with a common slot.