A note on Moufang loops arising from octonion algebras over rings. (Q2452332)

It is well-known that the invertible elements of an octonion algebra over a field yield examples of nonassociative Moufang loops. Paige constructed a class of simple Moufang loops using Zorn's algebra of vector matrices. This construction was extended by various authors considering Zorn's algebra of vector matrices \(\text{Zor}(R)\) over commutative unital rings \(R\). In this paper the following is assumed: Let \(R\) be an arbitrary commutative unital base ring, and let \(T\) be a projective \(R\)-module of constant rank 3. Then the Zorn algebra \(\text{Zor}(T,\alpha)\) over \(R\) is constructed. \(\text{Zor}(T,\alpha)\) is a split octonion algebra and every split octonion algebra over \(R\) is isomorphic to a suitable Zorn algebra \(\text{Zor}(T,\alpha)\). Thus \(\text{Zor}(T,\alpha) \) is the canonical generalization of Zorn's algebra of vector matrices \(\text{Zor}(R)\). For a composition algebra \(C\) the set of invertible elements \(C^\times\) is a Moufang loop under algebra multiplication, and the set of elements of norm 1 in \(C\) forms a normal subloop of \(C^\times\). Thus the split octonion algebra \(\text{Zor}(T,\alpha)\) gives rise to a Moufang loop \(\text{Zor}(T,\alpha)^\times\). The author describes a generalization of Paige loops using a torsion-free module \(T\) over \(R\). Moreover, some examples of nonassociative Moufang loops of infinite order constructed from octonions over rings are given. These octonion algebras are obtained by a non-orthogonal Cayley-Dickson doubling. It is supposed that this might be a good set-up to search for examples of infinite simple nonassociative Moufang loops.