Automorphisms of extremal unimodular lattices in dimension 72 (Q898822)

A lattice \(L \subset \mathbb{R}^d\) is called even, if \(x\cdot x \in 2\mathbb{Z}\) for all \(x\in L\) and a lattice \(L\) is called unimodular, if \(L=\{y\in \mathbb{Z}^d \;: \;x\cdot y \in L \quad \text{ for all } y\in L\}\). It is known that if \(L\subset \mathbb{R}^d\) is an even unimodular lattice, then \(d\) is a multiple of eight (see for instance [\textit{T. O'Meara}, Introduction to quadratic forms. Berlin: Springer (2000; Zbl 1034.11003)]). If \(L\) is an even unimodular lattice, then its minimum \( \min(L) = \min\{ x\cdot x \;: \;0\neq x\in L\} \) is bounded above by \(2\lfloor \frac{d}{24}\rfloor+2\) and a lattice whose minimum achieves the bound is called extreme. In this paper, the author applies the tools from algebraic number theory and uses the computer software MAGMA to study the automorphisms of extremal even unimodular lattices of dimension \( 72 \). Recall that an orthogonal transform \( g \) of the Euclidean space \( \mathbb{R}^{d} \) is called an automorphism of the lattice \( L \) if \( g(L)=L \). The automorphism group of a lattice \( L \) is isomorphic to a finite subgroup of \( \mathrm{GL}_d(\mathbb{Z}) \). An automorphism \( \sigma \) of a lattice \( L \) is called large, if the minimal polynomial of corresponding \( d\times d \) matrix of \( \sigma \) has an irreducible factor of degree \( >d/2 \). The author proves that the extremal even unimodular lattice \( \Gamma_{72} \) constructed in [the author, J. Reine Angew. Math. 673, 237--247 (2012; Zbl 1270.11066)] is the unique extremal even unimodular lattice of dimension \( 72 \) that admits a large automorphism.