Ideal lattices over totally real number fields and Euclidean minima (Q2490658)

Ideal lattices form an interesting class of Euclidean lattices, on the one hand because they provide a means of constructing various types of lattices, on the other hand because they can give insight into the arithmetic properties of a number field. Previously studied mainly over CM-fields, the purpose of the present paper is to extend the investigation to totally real number fields. Essentially, an ideal lattice is a fractional ideal \({\mathcal I}\) in a number field \(K\) which is assumed either to be a CM-field or a totally real number field, together with a positive definite symmetric bilinear form \(b:{\mathcal I}\times {\mathcal I}\to {\mathbb R}\) satisfying \(b(\lambda x,y)=b(x,\lambda^\sigma y)\) for all \(x,y\in {\mathcal I}\), \(\lambda\in {\mathcal O}_K\), and where \(\sigma= \text{id}\) if \(K\) is totally real, and \(\sigma\) is complex conjugation if \(K\) is CM. It can be shown that to each such ideal lattice there exists a totally positive element \(\alpha\in K_{{\mathbb R}}=K\otimes_{{\mathbb Q}}{\mathbb R}\) such that \(b(x,y)= \text{Tr}_{K_{{\mathbb R}}/{\mathbb R}}(\alpha xy^\sigma)\), in which case the lattice is also denoted by \(({\mathcal I},\alpha)\). It is shown how one can ``shift'' an ideal lattice over a CM-field to an isomorphic lattice over a suitably defined totally real number field in certain situations. This is used to show how one can realize the root lattices \(A_{p-1}\) (\(p\) an odd prime), \(E_6\) and \(E_8\) as well the Coxeter-Todd lattice and the Leech lattice over maximal totally real subfields of certain cyclotomic fields. In the last section, upper bounds for the Euclidean minima \(M(K)\) of certain totally real number fields \(K\) are obtained. Recall that for a number field \(K\), \(M(K)=\sup_{x\in K}\inf_{c\in {\mathcal O}_K}| N_{K/{\mathbb Q}}(x-c)| \). It is conjectured that \(M(K)\leq 2^{-n}\sqrt{d_K}\) for \(K\) totally real, where \(n=[K:{\mathbb Q}]\) and \(d_K\) is the absolute value of the discriminant. This is known to hold for \(n\leq 6\), or for maximal totally real subfields of cyclotomic fields of prime power conductor by recent work by \textit{C. T. McMullen} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 18, No. 3, 711--734 (2005; Zbl 1132.11034)] resp. the author and \textit{G.~Nebe} [J. Théor. Nombres Bordx. 17, No. 2, 437--454 (2005; Zbl 1161.11032)]. In the present paper, it is shown to hold for the maximal totally real subfield of the \(4m\)-th cyclotomic field for any odd \(m>1\).