Prime torsion in the Brauer group of an elliptic curve (Q6567142)

Let \(k\) be a field containing a primitive \(d\)-th root of unity, for a fixed integer \(d \ge 2\) not divisible by the characteristic ch\((k)\), and let \(\bar k\) be an algebraic closure of \(k\). The purpose of the paper under review is to explicitly describe the \(d\)-torsion \(\sb d \mathrm{Br}(E)\) of the Brauer group Br\((E)\). By absolute purity (see [\textit{O. Gabber}, Manuscr. Math. 95, No. 1, 107--115 (1998; Zbl 0896.13004); \textit{J.-L. Colliot-Thélène} and \textit{J.-J. Sansuc}, in: Algebraic groups and homogeneous spaces. Proceedings of the international colloquium, Mumbai, India, January 6--14, 2004. New Delhi: Narosa Publishing House/Published for the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. 113--186 (2007; Zbl 1147.13002)]), Br\((E)\) is naturally isomorphic to the unramified Brauer group of \(k(E)\), the function field of \(E\). In view of the Merkurjev-Suslin theorem (see [\textit{A. S. Merkur'ev} and \textit{A. A. Suslin}, Math. USSR, Izv. 21, 307--340 (1983; Zbl 0525.18008); translation from Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Ser. Mat. 46, No. 5, 1011--1046 (1982)]), this means that elements in \(\sb d \mathrm{Br}(E)\) can be represented by degree \(d\) cyclic algebras over \(k(E)\). It follows from Kummer theory and the existence of a primitive \(d\)-th root of unity \(\rho \in k\) that each cyclic \(k(E)\)-algebra \(A\) of degree \(d\) is a symbol algebra; this means that \(A\) is generated by elements \(x\) and \(y\) subject to the relations \(x \sp d = a\), \(y \sp d = b\) and \(xy = \rho yx\), for some \(a, b \in k(E) \sp {\ast }\).\N\NThe paper under review gives an algorithm to determine explicitly all elements of \(\sb q \mathrm{Br}(E)\), for an arbitrary odd prime number \(q \neq \mathrm{ch}(k)\) (the case of \(q = 2\) has been considered by a number of authors, see, e.g., [\textit{V. I. Guletskiĭ} et al., Dokl. Akad. Nauk Belarusi 41, No. 6, 8--12 (1997; Zbl 1058.14501); \textit{S. Pumplün}, Commun. Algebra 26, No. 12, 4357--4373 (1998; Zbl 0920.17001); \textit{V. Chernousov} and \textit{V. Guletskiĭ}, Doc. Math. Extra Vol., 85--120 (2001; Zbl 0996.14009)]). It is based on the fact that \(\sb q \mathrm{Br}(E)\) admits a decomposition \(\sb q \mathrm{Br}(E) = \) \(\sb q \mathrm{Br}(k) \oplus I\), for a certain group \(I\) associated with the \(q\)-torsion subgroup, say \(M\), of the group \(E(\bar k)\) of \(\bar k\)-rational points of \(E\). Specifically, the paper shows that every element of \(I\) has a representative (in the class of finite-dimensional central simple \(k(E)\)-algebras) that is a tensor product of at most \(n \sb q = 2q \sp 2 - 2\) symbol \(k(E)\)-algebras of degree \(q\). Thereby, it is proved that the symbol length of \(I\) is less than or equal to \(n \sb q\). When the assumption that \(q\) is an odd prime is replaced by the one that \(M\) is \(k\)-rational and \(q\) is equal to an integer \(d\) as above, the author recovers the proof of the fact (see Remark 6.3 of [\textit{V. I. Chernousov} et al., Proc. Steklov Inst. Math. 292, 63--93 (2016; Zbl 1356.16013)]) that if \(P\) and \(Q\) are generators of \(M\), then every element in \(I\) can be represented as a tensor product \((a, t \sb P) \otimes _{k(E)} (b, t \sb Q)\) with \(a, b \in k \sp {\ast }\), where \(t \sb P, t \sb Q \in k(E)\) with divisors div\((t \sb P) = d(P) - d(0)\) and div\((t \sb Q) = d(Q) - d(0)\) so that \(t \sb P \circ [d]\), \(t \sb Q \circ [d] \in (k(E) \sp {\ast }) \sp d\), \(0\) being the identity of the group law on \(E\), and \([d]\colon E(\bar k) \to E(\bar k)\) being the multiplication by \(d\) on \(E(\bar k)\). She also finds necessary and sufficient conditions that such a tensor product represents the zero element of \(I\).