Classes of structurable algebras of skew-rank (Q616531)

A unital nonassociative algebra endowed with an involution \((A,\bar{\null\;})\) is said to be a \textit{structurable algebra} if \[ \{xy\{zwq\}\}=\{\{xyz\}wq\}-\{z\{yxw\}q\}+\{zw\{xyq\}\} \] for any \(x,y,z,w,q\), where \(\{xyz\}=(x\bar y)z+(z\bar y)x-(z\bar x)y\). These algebras were introduced by \textit{B. N. Allison} [Math. Ann. 237, 133--156 (1978; Zbl 0368.17001)]. Structurable algebras are related to some \(5\)-graded Lie algebras and in this way all the classical simple isotropic Lie algebras can be obtained. Examples of structurable algebras include alternative algebras with involution, Jordan algebras with the trivial involution, and tensor products of two unital composition algebras. The structurable algebras of skew-rank one, that is, \(\dim\{x\in A: \bar x=-x\}=1\), are the closest to Jordan algebras (skew-rank zero). The paper under review gives a couple of interesting constructions of structurable algebras over rings where \(2\) and \(3\) are invertible, such that the skew-rank of the attached residue class algebras (at the points of the spectrum of the ground ring) is one. Over fields of characteristic \(\neq 2,3,5\), any structurable algebra of skew-rank one is a form of a \(2\times 2\) matrix algebra with off-diagonal entries from a cubic Jordan algebra. The first class of algebras presented here are matrix algebras of rank \(4\), \(8\) or \(20\) which do not necessarily arise from cubic Jordan algebras, while the structurable algebras in the second class become matrix algebras under a suitable ring extension. These constructions are related to Tits constructions for cubic Jordan algebras over rings.