Decompositions of motives of generalized Severi-Brauer varieties (Q418688)

Let \(F\) be a field, \(R\) a ring and let \({\mathcal C}(F,R)\) be the category of Chow motives with coefficients in \(R\). If \(X\) is a smooth projective variety over \(F\) its motive \(M(X)\in{\mathcal C}(F, R)\) is split if it is the finite sum of Tate motives, it is geometrically split if it splits over a field extension of \(F\). For a gemetrically split variety \(X\) let's denote by \(\overline X\) the scalar extension of \(X\) to a splitting field of its motive and by \(\overline{\mathrm{CH}}(X)\) the subring of \(F\)-rational cycles in \(\mathrm{CH}(\overline X)\). A variety \(X\) is said to satisfy the nilpotence principle if for every fled extension \(E/F\) the kernel of the base-change homomorphism \(\text{End}_F(M(X))\to\text{End}_E(M(X))\) consists of nilpotents. If the ring \(R\) is finite any shift \(N(k)\) of any summand of a geometrically split \(F\)-variety satisfying the nilpotence principle also satisfies the Krull-Schmidt principe, i.e. every direct summand decomposition can be refined to a unique complete decomposition.NEWLINENEWLINE Let \(R=\mathbb{F}_p\) and let \(D\) be a central division \(F\)-algebra of degree \(p^n\). Let \(X(p^n,D)\) be the generalized Severi-Brauer variety of right ideals in \(D\) of reduced dimension \(p^m\), with \(0\leq m\leq n\). In particular \(X(p^n,D)= \text{Spec}\,F\) and \(X(1,D)\) is the usual Severi-Brauer variety of \(D\).NEWLINENEWLINE It has been proved by Karpenko that the motive with coefficients in \(R=\mathbb{F}_p\) of the Severi -Brauer variety \(X= X (1,D)\) is indecomposable. Also the motive with coefficients in \(\mathbb{F}_2\) of the variety \(X(2,D)\) is indecomposable.NEWLINENEWLINE In this paper the author proves the following results, showing that these are the only cases where the motive of a generalized Severi-Brauer variety is indecomposable.NEWLINENEWLINE Theorem 1. Let \(D\) be a central division \(F\)-algebra of degree \(p^n\) with \(n\geq 1\). Let \(X\) be the Severi-Brauer variety \(X(1,D)\) and \(Y\) a variety satisfying the nilpotence principle, such that \(Y\) is split over the function field of \(X\). Then for any integer \(k\) the number of copies \(M(X)(k)\) in the complete motivic decomposition of \(Y\) is equal to \(\dim_{\mathbb{F}_p}\overline{\mathrm{CH}}_{\dim Y-k}(X\times Y)\), where \(f\) is the projection onto the second factor.NEWLINENEWLINE Corollary 1. Let \(D\) be a central division \(F\)-algebra of degree \(p^n\) with \(n\geq 1\). The motive with coefficients in \(\mathbb{F}_p\) of the variety \(X(p^m,D)\) is decomposable for \(p=2\), \(1< m< n\) and for \(p> 2\) and \(0< m< n\). In these cases the motive \(M(X(1, D))(k)\) is a summand of \(M(X(p^M,D)\) for \(2\leq k\leq p^n- p^m\).NEWLINENEWLINE Note that in the case \(p= 3\), \(m= 1\), \(n= 2\) and \(p= 2\), \(m= 2\), \(n= 3\), \(M(X(1, D))(k)\) for \(2\leq k\leq p^n- p^m\) gives a complete list of indecomposable motivic summands of the variety \(X(p^m,D)\).