Standard norm varieties for Milnor symbols \(\mathrm{mod} p\) (Q738874)

This is a very interesting paper on the topic with a clear introduction (\S1). \S2 gives an overview on the general construction of splitting varieties and norm varieties (originally due to Rost and Voevodsky) for Milnor symbols. This uses étale coverings and resolution of singularities whence the groundfield \(k\) is supposed to be of \(\text{char\,}k=0\). The longest \S3 treats the case \(p=2\) for all \(n\). By ``beautiful computations'' with quadratic forms and induction on \(n\) it is shown that the standard norm varieties are birationally isomorphic to quadrics defined by so-called ``Pfister neighbors'' (Theorem 3.7) and depend only on the Milnor symbol \(\text{mod\,}2\) (Corollary 3.13). \S4 is on the case \(p>2\) for \(n=2\). Here the standard norm variety \(X(a,b)\) of a symbol \(\{a,b\}\) is birationally isomorphic to the Severi-Brauer variety \(\text{SB}(A)\) of the cyclic algebra \(A= (a,b,\zeta_p)_k\) (Theorem 4.1), and depends again only on \(\{a,b\}\) and \(p\) (Corollary 4.2). The computations are easier in this case, they use Galois descent. \S5 is on the case \(p>2\) for \(n=3\). Here \(X(a,b,c)\) is birationally isomorphic to \(Z(Nrd_{A/k}- c)\), where \(A= (a,b,\zeta_p)_k\). This completes a paper by \textit{N. A. Karpenko} and \textit{A. S. Merkurjev} [Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 46, No. 1, 175--214 (2013; Zbl 1275.14006)].