Division algebras of prime degree with infinite genus (Q2631154)

Let \(K\) be a field, \(\mathrm{Br}(K)\) its Brauer group, and \(d(K)\) the class of associative finite-dimensional central division \(K\)-algebras. For each \(D \in d(K)\), denote by \([D]\) the equivalence class of \(D\) in \(\mathrm{Br}(K)\), and by \(M(D)\) the set of \(K\)-isomorphism classes of maximal subfields of \(D\); also, let \(\deg (D)\) be the degree of \(D\), and \(\exp (D)\) the order of \([D]\) in \(\mathrm{Br}(K)\). The paper under review deals with the study of the genus of \(D\), defined as the set \[ \mathrm{gen}(D) = \{[\Delta ] \in \mathrm{Br}(K): \Delta \in d(K), M(\Delta ) = M(D)\}. \] The research in this area was initiated by \textit{B. Fein} who described \(M(D)\), under the hypothesis that \(K\) is a number field (i.e., a finite extension of the field \(\mathbb Q\) of rational numbers). Fein's description was obtained from results of class field theory concerning \(\mathrm{Br}(K)\) (see [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 32, 427--429 (1972; Zbl 0219.16012)]); it implies \(\mathrm{gen}(D)\) is necessarily finite in the more general case where \(K\) is a global field. The finiteness of \(\mathrm{gen}(D)\) has recently been proved by \textit{V. I. Chernousov} et al., under the hypothesis that \(K\) is a finitely-generated extension of its prime subfield and \(\deg (D)\) is not divisible by the characteristic \(\mathrm{char}(K)\) (cf. [Proc. Steklov Inst. Math. 292, 63--93 (2016; Zbl 1356.16013)]). The present paper provides a detailed proof of a theorem stating that, for each prime number \(p\), there exists a field \(E\), such that \(\mathrm{char}(E) \neq p\), \(\mathrm{Br}(E)\) contains infinitely many elements of order \(p\), and for every \(T \in d(E)\) with \(\exp (T) = p\), \(M(T)\) equals the set of \(E\)-isomorphism classes of separable extensions of \(E\) of degree \(p\); this requires that \(\deg (T) = p\) and \(\mathrm{gen}(T)\) be infinite and independent of the choice of \(T\). The existence of such a field \(E\) with \(\mathrm{char}(E) = 0\) as well as in characteristic \(p\) has been proved by the reviewer by a different method (see Remark~2 in [``Henselian valued quasilocal fields with totally indivisible value groups'', Acta Univ. Apulensis 42, 107--125 (2015; \url{doi:10.17114/j.aua.2015.42.08})]); moreover, it has been shown that \(E\) can be chosen to be of finite transcendence degree over its prime subfield. Reviewer's remark. The main result of this paper has been known for more than 20 years. For example, \textit{M. Van den Bergh} and \textit{A. Schofield} have observed in a joint paper (see the end of Section 3 of [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 341, No. 2, 505--517 (1994; Zbl 0813.16012)]) that every field \(F\) admits a regular extension \(\Phi \) satisfying the following conditions: the scalar extension map \(\mathrm{Br}(F) \to \text{Br}(\Phi )\) is injective; for each \(\Delta \in d(\Phi )\), \(M(\Delta )\) includes the set of \(\Phi \)-isomorphism classes of separable extensions of \(\Phi \) of degree equal to \(\deg (\Delta )\); if \(\mathrm{char}(\Phi )\) does not divide \(\deg (\Delta )\), then \(\mathrm{gen}(\Delta )\) equals the set \(\{[\Delta ^ {\prime }]: \Delta ^ {\prime } \in d(\Phi ), \deg(\Delta ^ {\prime }) = \deg(\Delta )\}\). When \(F\) is a number field, this implies \(\mathrm{gen}(\Delta )\) is infinite unless \(\deg (\Delta ) = 1\), i.e., \(\Delta = \Phi \); in this case, there is a sequence \(\Delta _ n \in d(\Phi )\), \(n \in \mathbb N\), such that \(\deg (\Delta _ n) = n\), for each index \(n\).