Unramified degree three invariants of reductive groups (Q261198)

The notion of a cohomological invariant of an algebraic group was introduced by \textit{J.-P. Serre} [in: Séminaire Bourbaki. Volume 1993/94. Exposés 775--789, 229--257 (Exp. No. 783) (1995; Zbl 0837.12003)]. Let \(G\) be a linear algebraic group over a field \(F\) and \(M\) a Galois module over \(F\). A degree \(d\) invariant of \(G\) assigns to every \(G\)-torsor over a field extension \(K\) of \(F\) an element of the cohomology group \(H ^ d(K, M)\), functorially in \(K\). The paper under review considers the groups \(H ^ d(K) = H ^ d(K, \mathbb Q/\mathbb Z(q-1))\), where \(\mathbb Q/\mathbb Z(d - 1)\) is defined as the Galois module of \((d-1)\)-twisted roots of unity. The \(p\)-part of this module requires special attention if \(p = \text{char}(F) > 0\). The set Inv\(^ d(G)\) of degree \(d\) invariants is an abelian group. An invariant is called normalized, if it takes a trivial torsor to the trivial cohomology class. It is known that \(H ^ d(G)\) is the direct sum of the subgroup \noindent \(\mathrm{Inv}^ d(G)_ {norm}\) of normalized invariants and the subgroup of constant invariants (the latter summand is isomorphic to \(H ^ d(F)\)). For any prime number \(p\), denote by \(H ^ d(K, p)\) and \(H ^ d(G, p)\) the \(p\)-components of \(H ^ d(K)\) and Inv\(^ d(G)\), respectively. If \(v\) is a discrete valuation of a field \(K\) trivial on \(F\) with residue field \(F(v)\), then one can define the residue homomorphism \(\partial _ v: H ^ d(K, p) \to H ^ {d-1}(F(v), p)\), for every \(p\neq \text{char}(F)\). An element \(a \in H ^ d(K, p)\) is called unramified with respect to \(v\) if \(\partial _ v(a) = 0\). We write \(H ^ d _ {nr}(K, p)\) for the subgroup of all elements of \(H ^ d(K, p)\) unramified with respect to every discrete valuation of \(K\) trivial on \(F\). An invariant in \(\mathrm{Inv}^ d(G, p)\) is said to be unramified if all of its values over every \(K/F\) belong to \(H ^ d _ {nr}(K, p)\). The group of unramified invariants is denoted by \(\mathrm{Inv}^ d _ {nr}(G, p)\). The research presented in the reviewed paper is motivated by the classical problem of whether the classifying space \(BG\) of the algebraic group \(G\) is stably rational. The author's approach to this problem is based on the Rost-Totaro theorem which asserts that the evaluation at the generic \(G\)-torsor over the function field \(F(BG)\) yields an isomorphism of \(\mathrm{Inv}^ d(G, p)\) upon the subgroup of \(H ^ d(F(BG), p)\) of all elements unramified relative to the discrete valuations associated with the irreducible divisors of \(BG\). This restricts to an isomorphism \noindent \(\mathrm{Inv}^ d _ {nr}(G, p) \cong H ^ d _ {nr}(F(BG), p)\). To disprove stable rationality of BG it suffices to show that the map \(H ^ d(F, p) \to H ^ d _ {nr}(F(BG), p)\) is not surjective, for some \(d\) and \(p\) or, equivalently, to find a non-constant unramified invariant of \(G\). The discussed problem is widely open in case \(G\) is connected and \(F\) is algebraically closed. The main result of the reviewed paper shows that then \noindent \(\mathrm{Inv}^ 3 _ {nr}(G, p) = H ^ 3 _ {nr}(F(BG), p) = \{0\}\), provided that \(G\) is a split reductive group, \(p \neq \text{char}(F)\), and \(p > 2\) or the commutator subgroup of \(G\) is almost simple. This has been proved by Saltman for the projective linear group \(\mathrm{PGL}_n\) [\textit{D. J. Saltman}, J. Algebra 195, No. 2, 387--422 (1997; Zbl 0937.12002)].