On the Dec group of finite abelian Galois extensions over global fields (Q731224)

For an arbitrary field extension \(K/F\), let \(\text{Br}(K/F)\) be the kernel of the scalar extension map \(\text{Br}(F) \to \text{Br}(K)\) from the Brauer group of \(F\) to the Brauer group of \(K\). If \(K/F\) is a finite Galois extension with abelian Galois group of exponent \(t\), the group \(\text{Dec}(K/F)\) is the subgroup of \(\text{Br}(K/F)\) generated by the subgroups \(\text{Br}(L/F)\), where \(L\) ranges over the cyclic extensions of \(F\) in \(K\). It lies in the \(t\)-torsion subgroup \(\text{Br}_t(K/F)\) of \(\text{Br}(K/F)\). The group \(\text{Dec}(K/F)\) was introduced by the reviewer in [J. Algebra 70, 420--436 (1981; Zbl 0473.16004)] in relation with the construction of division algebras that do not decompose into tensor products of subalgebras. In the paper under review, the author computes the quotient \(\text{Br}_t(K/F)/\text{Dec}(K/F)\) for \(K/F\) an abelian extension of global fields with Galois group of exponent \(t\). This computation involves the bad primes of \(K/F\), which are defined as the primes \(q\) of \(F\) for which the Galois group \(G_q\) of the local extension \(K_q/F_q\) has exponent \(c_q< \text{gcd}(t,| G_q|)\): there is an exact sequence \[ 0\to \text{Dec}(K/F) \to \text{Br}_t(K/F) \to \bigoplus_{q\in\mathcal{P}} r_q\mathbb{Z}/\mathbb{Z} \to 0, \] where \(\mathcal{P}\) is the set of bad primes and \(r_q=c_q/\text{gcd}(t, | G_q|)\) for \(q\in\mathcal{P}\). The author shows that \(\mathcal{P}\) is empty if \(t\) is square-free. As a result, division algebras of prime exponent \(p\) over Henselian-valued fields with global residue field containing a primitive \(p\)-th root of unity are tensor products of symbol algebras of exponent \(p\). An example shows that this property does not hold for division algebras of exponent \(4\).