Separable algebra

Abstract: To each finitely presented module M over a commutative ring R one can associate an R-ideal Fit_R(M) which is called the (zeroth) Fitting ideal of M over R and which is always contained in the R-annihilator of M. In an earlier article, the second author generalised this notion by replacing R with a (not necessarily commutative) o-order Lambda in a finite dimensional separable algebra, where o is an integrally closed complete commutative noetherian local domain. To obtain annihilators, one has to multiply the Fitting invariant of a (left) Lambda-module M by a certain ideal H(Lambda) of the centre of Lambda. In contrast to the commutative case, this ideal can be properly contained in the centre of Lambda. In the present article, we determine explicit lower bounds for H(Lambda) in many cases. Furthermore, we define a class of `nice' orders Lambda over which Fitting invariants have several useful properties such as good behaviour with respect to direct sums of modules, computability in a certain sense, and H(Lambda) being the best possible.

Abstract: and Fk* the group of units of Fk. Define ring homomorphisms ei (i = 1, , k+ 1) of Fk to Fk+l by(2'3) ei(fl? * ?fk) =fl? * fi?1 fi ... ?fk and define a multiplicative homomorphism Ak: Fk* -> F(k+l)* by Ak(X) = el(x) (E2(X)) * ... (ek+l(x))+1. Then the groups Fk* and mappings Ak form the Amitsur complex; the kth homology group Ker Ak+l/Im Ak we denote by Hk(F). In case F is a finite dimensional extension field, Amitsur showed that H2(F) is isomorphic to the Brauer group of central simple C-algebras split by F. He also showed that in case F is a normal separable extension, Hn(F) is isomorphic to Hn(G, F*) the nth cohomology group of the Galois group G of F over C with coefficients in the group of nonzero elements of F. In this paper, we extend and simplify Amitsur's results. We begin by showing (?2) that in case F is a separable field extension of C, Hn(F) --'Hn([G: H], K*), where K is a normal closure of F with Galois group G, H is the subgroup corresponding to F, and the cohomology group on the right side is the relative cohomology group as introduced in [I]. Next, we study Hn(F) when C is not necessarily a field but when n = 2. In ?3, under weak hypotheses on F, we exhibit a homomorphism of H2(F) to the (generalized) Brauer group of central separable algebra classes split by F [5]. This homomorphism is an isomorphism under stronger hypotheses on F and C. These hypotheses are slightly weaker than assuming all projective C, F, and F2 modules are free and include the cases (10) C is semilocal (not necessarily Noetherian) and F is a C-algebra which is a-finitely generated projective C-module containing C 1 as a direct summand and (20) C=K[x], F=L[x], with K a field and L a finite dimensional commutative K-algebra. Hochschild in [13] has given a description of the Brauer group in case F is a purely inseparable extension field of C of exponent 1. In [3, ?7], Amitsur