Matzat· Greuel· Hiss (Eds.

)
Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory
Springer
Berlin
Heidelberg
New York
Barcelona
Budapest
Hong Kong
London
Milan
Paris
Singapore
Tokyo
B. Heinrich Matzat Gert -Martin Greuel
Gerhard Hiss (Eds.)

Algorithmic Algebra
and Number Theory

Selected Papers from a Conference

Held at the University of Heidelberg
in October 1997

t Springer
B. Heinrich Matzat
Interdisziplinares Zentrum
fUr Wissenschaftliches Rechnen
der Universitat Heidelberg
1m Neuenheimer Feld 368
D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]

Gert-Martin Greuel
Fachbereich Mathematik
Universitat Kaiserslautern
Postfach 3049
D-67653 Kaiserslautern Germany
e-mail: [email protected]

Gerhard Hiss
RWTHAachen
Lehrstuhl D fUr Mathematik
Templergraben 64
D-52062 Aachen, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]

Mathematics Subject Classification (1991): 11-06,12-06,13-06,14-06,20-06, nY 40,

12Y05, 13PI0, 14QXX, 20B40, 20C40, 68Q40

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Algorithmic algebra and number theory: selected papers from a

conference, held at the University of Heidelberg in October 1997 /
B. Heinrich Matzat ... (ed.).- Berlin; Heidelberg; New York;
Barcelona; Budapest; Hong Kong; London; Milan; Paris;
Singapore; Tokyo: Springer, 1999

ISBN-13: 978-3-540-64670-9 e-ISBN-13: 978-3-642-59932-3

DOl: 10.1007/978-3-642-59932-3

ISBN-13: 978-3-540-64670-9 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York

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 Preface

This book contains 22 lectures presented at the final conference of the Ger-
man research program (Schwerpunktprogramm) Algorithmic Number The-
ory and Algebra 1991-1997, sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemein-
schaft.
The purpose of this research program and of the meeting was to bring
together developers of computer algebra software and researchers using com-
putational methods to gain insight into experimental problems and theoret-
ical questions in algebra and number theory.
The book gives an overview on algorithmic methods and on results ob-
tained during this period. This includes survey articles on the main research
projects within the program:

• algorithmic number theory emphasizing class field theory, constructive

Galois theory, computational aspects of modular forms and of Drinfeld
modules

• computational algebraic geometry including real quantifier elimination

and real algebraic geometry, and invariant theory of finite groups

• computational aspects of presentations and representations of groups,

especially finite groups of Lie type and their Heeke algebras, and of
the isomorphism problem in group theory.

Some of the articles illustrate the current state of computer algebra sys-
tems and program packages developed with support by the research pro-
gram, such as KANT and LiDIA for algebraic number theory, SINGULAR,
RED LOG and INVAR for commutative algebra and invariant theory respec-
tively, and GAP, SYSYPHOS and CHEVIE for group theory and representation
theory.
According to the three main research directions, the book is divided
into three parts representing algorithmic aspects of algebraic number the-
ory, commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, and group theory and
representation theory, edited by B. H. Matzat, G.-M. Greuel and G. Hiss,
respectively.
The editors thank the contributors to this volume and the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft for its support of the research program and the
conference held in Heidelberg.

G.-M. Greuel, G. Hiss and B. H. Matzat

Heidelberg, May 1998
 Table of Contents

Part A: Algorithmic Algebraic Number Theory

Sieving Methods for Class Group Computation

J. Buchmann, M. J. Jacobson, Jr., S. Neis, P. Theobald and D. Weber ...... 3
Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications
G. Prey and M. Muller.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 11
Local and Global Ramification Properties of Elliptic Curves
in Characteristics Two and Three
E. -U. Gekeler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 49
Techniques for the Computation of Galois Groups
A. Hulpke ................................................................. 65
Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie
B. H. Matzat .............................................................. 79
From Class Groups to Class Fields
M. E. Pohst ............................................................. 103
A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields
H.-G. Ruck and U. Tipp ................................................. 121
Extremal Lattices
R. Scharlau and R. Schulze-Pillot ... ...................................... 139

Part B: Algorithmic Commutative Algebra and Algebraic Geometry

On the Real Nullstellensatz
E. Becker and J. Schmid ................................................. 173
Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons
W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel and G. Pfister . ................................. 187
Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice
A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm and V. Weispfenning ............................ 221
Hilbert Series and Degree Bounds in Invariant Theory
G. Kemper ............................................................... 249
Invariant Rings and Fields of Finite Groups
G. Kemper and G. Malle ....... .......................................... 265
Computing Versal Deformations with SINGULAR
B. Martin ................................................................ 283
VIII Table of Contents

Algorithms for the Computation of Free Resolutions

T. Siebert ................................................................ 295
Part C: Algorithmic Group and Representation Theory
Computational Aspects of the Isomorphism Problem
F. M. Bleher, W. Kimmerle, K. W. Roggenkamp and M. Wursthorn ...... 313
Representations of Hecke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type
R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss and G. Malle ............................... 331
The Groups of Order 512
B. Eick and E. A. O'Brien ............................................... 379
Computational Aspects of Representation Theory of Finite Groups II
K. Lux and H. Pahlings .................................................. 381
High Performance Computations in Group Representation Theory
G. O. Michler ..... ....................................................... 399
The Structure of Maximal Finite Primitive Matrix Groups
G. Nebe .................................................................. 417
Presentations and Representations of Groups
W. Plesken .............................................................. 423
 Part A

Algorithmic Algebraic
N umber Theory
 Sieving Methods for Class Group Computation

Johannes Buchmann and Michael J. Jacobson, Jr. and Stefan Neis and Patrick
Theobald and Damian Weber

Institut fiir Theoretische Informatik

Technische Universitat Darmstadt

1 Introduction
Computing the class group and regulator of an algebraic number field K are two
major tasks of algorithmic algebraic number theory. The asymptotically fastest
method known has conjectured sub-exponential running time and was proposed
in [5]. In this paper we show how sieving methods developed for factoring algo-
rithms can be used to speed up this algorithm in practice. We present numerical
experiments which demonstrate the efficiency of our new strategy. For example,
we are able to compute the class group of an imaginary quadratic field with a dis-
criminant of 55 digits 20 times as fast as S. Dtillmann in an earlier record-setting
implementation ([1]) which did not use sieving techniques. We also present class
numbers of large cubic fields.

2 The Algorithm
We will consider the problem of computing the class group Cl(K) of an algebraic
number field K given by an irreducible monic polynomial of degree n = r + 2s,
where r is the number of real embeddings and s is the number of complex
embeddings of K into the field <C of complex numbers. We denote the maximal
order of K by OK. The norm of an algebraic number a will be denoted by N (a),
and the norm of an ideal a will be denoted by N(a). The class number of K will
be denoted by h and the regulator by R.
We briefly review the algorithm presented in [5]. Let FB be a set of prime
ideals over K and k = WBI. For e = (e1, ... ,ek) E 2Zk, we write
k

FB e = II p~i.
i=l

By AFB we denote all algebraic numbers a in K which, considered as principal

ideals, can be represented as a power product of the ideals of the factor base
FB, i.e.,
AFB = {aE
K I a·OK =FBe,eE 2Zk}.
Consider the maps

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
4 J. Buchmann, M.J. Jacobson Jr., S. Neis, P. Theobald and D. Weber

and
P: AFB ~ ZZk X IRr +s - I

a I---t (e, log lUI (a) I, ... ,log IUr +8 -I (a)l),

where a· OK = FEe and the Ui are the embeddings of K into <C.
By [5, Theorem 2.1] we know:
Theorem 1. Suppose that the ideal classes of the elements of FE generate the
class group of K. Then P(AFB) is a (k + r + s - I)-dimensional lattice with
determinant hR. Also, pi (AF B) is a k-dimensional lattice with determinant h
and we have ZZk/pl(AFB) ~ Cl(K).
Based on this theorem, we can compute the class number and regulator by
finding relations, Le., algebraic numbers a together with their decompositions
over the factor base. Having found enough relations to generate a sub-lattice of
p( AF B) offull dimension, it can be checked whether these relations generate the
full lattice by applying the analytic class number formula
2r(21f)s
---';:=='== hR
r = IT 1 - !.
p
.1 I
wy I"-'KI pprime IIl- :N'(Pj
I '
pip

where .1K denotes the discriminant of the field K and w denotes the number of
roots of unity in K. This formula enables us to compute a number h* with
h* < hR < 2h*.
If the determinant of the sublattice of P(AFB) is in this interval then the sub-
lattice is the full lattice. Otherwise, additional relations can be generated until
we find the full lattice.

3 Generating Relations
Several methods for finding relations among the factor base elements have been
suggested, for example, in [1], [14], and [6]. We show how to use sieving techniques
known from factoring algorithms to compute relations very efficiently.

3.1 Quadratic Fields

For quadratic fields, we can apply a modification of the multiple polynomial
quadratic sieve (for details, see [13]). Suppose that we find a E K, v, e E ZZk
such that (a)/ FEU = FEe. If K is imaginary quadratic then (e+v) E pl(AFB).
If K is real quadratic then (e + v, log lUI (a) I) E P(AFB)' To find such numbers
a, we proceed as follows:
- Pick a random exponent v E {-I, O,I}k and compute the ideal a = FEu.
Let a = aZZ+ btf1ZZ. Then, all elements in a have norm af(x, V), x, Y E ZZ,
where f = aX 2 + bXY + cy2 E ZZ[X, Y] and c = (b 2 - .1)/(4a).
 Sieving Methods for Class Group Computation 5

- Find integers x such that I(x, 1) = n~=l N(Pi)ei .

- For each such x, set 0 = ax + b±f1. Then N(o) = al(x, 1) is valid.
- Factor (o)/a =: b = FEe, using the fact that N(b) = n and thus, ei = ±ei.
We obtain a relation for each such integer x.
Note that this strategy has very much in common with the relation generation
part of the multiple polynomial quadratic sieve factoring algorithm [15]. In both
cases, the heart of the method is finding smooth values of a quadratic polynomial.
As a result, it is not difficult to apply many of the tricks used in implementing
the factoring algorithm in our case. For example, we can easily select the leading
coefficient of our polynomials to be a square-free product of small primes and be
about as large as ~, where we will sieve the polynomial over x E (- M, M).
This has the effect of minimizing the values of the polynomial over this interval
and forces our relation matrix to be sparse. See [13] for more details.

3.2 The General Case

In the case of number fields of arbitrary degree, we may apply the sieving pro-
cedure of the number field sieve instead of the quadratic sieve.
As was the case for the quadratic sieve, the number field sieve was originally
invented for factoring integers (see [3]). A variation of this algorithm has been
implemented by D. Weber to compute discrete logarithms in finite prime fields
([17]). By abandoning the need to simultaneously find smooth numbers in two
number rings, we can use the number field sieve to find algebraic integers of
smooth norm in the number field for which we want to compute the class group,
i.e., algebraic integers with norm that factors over a given factor base. Given a
number field K of degree n with generating polynomial I, we can use this tool
to find smooth principal ideals and their decomposition

(x + yp)O = (FE't
in the order 0 = LZ'[Xll(f), where FE' is a factor base consisting of prime ideals
of 0 and p is a zero of I. These factorizations can be lifted to factorizations in
OK by computing ordp(a) for the index divisors P 1 [OK: 0]. In this way, we
obtain factorizations

and vectors
(e, log lal (0)1,· .. ,log lar+s-l (0)1) E <l>(AFB).
However, this method still seems to be impractical for large discriminants,
since the lattice generated by the relations usually does not have full rank.
Therefore, we also try to carryover the idea described for quadratic fields. In
general, we will proceed as follows:
- Select a random v E {-10, ... , 0, ... ,10}k and compute a = F EV. Often v
will contain a certain prescribed non-zero entry at a position corresponding
to a linearly dependent row of the relation matrix. In most cases, this will
increase the rank of the relation matrix.
6 J. Buchmann, M.J. Jacobson Jr., S. Neis, P. Theobald and D. Weber

- Find a, fl E a of small height and thus, not too large norm.

- Compute f == N(aX+flY)/N(a). f is a homogeneous polynomial in ZZ[X, Y]
of degree n.
- Find integers x and y such that f(x, y) == rr~=l p~i, where all the prime
factors of f (x, y) are rational primes contained in the prime ideals in the
factor base.
- For each such pair (x, y) set "I == ax+ fly. Then N(r) == N(a)f(x, y) is valid.
- Check if ("I)/a ==: b factors over the original factor base. If yes, we obtain a
relation for this pair (x, y) .

In practice, one of the main problems of this method is to obtain polynomials

f that generate many smooth values. This problem consists of two parts. First,
we want a good generating polynomial for the number field, i.e., typically one
with small coefficients and with an equation order of small index. Second, we
want to choose a and fl in such a way that N(aX + flY)/N(a) is well-suited for
sieving. It is well-known that finding polynomials suitable for the number field
sieve is a hard problem. It is even unknown how to check whether a given poly-
nomial will turn out to be good without actually trying it. In our case, we have
to use many polynomials and therefore cannot afford to test every polynomial
we compute, so we developed some heuristics to rule out the bad polynomials be-
forehand. Moreover, by reducing the ideal a and doing the remaining steps in the
reduced ideal, we can greatly improve the quality of the generated polynomials.
Those techniques will be explained in more detail in [4].

4 HNF Computation
After finding enough relations, we have to compute the Hermite normal form of
the lattice generated by the relations. Since this requires linear algebra over ZZ,
this problem is considerably harder than the linear algebra step involved in fac-
toring or discrete logarithm computation. However, since the matrices involved
are sparse and contain small entries, it is possible to apply special techniques to
do this computation as follows.
In the first stage, we apply an algorithm for computing the Hermite normal
form using unimodular operations over ZZ. This algorithm is basically described
in [7] and computes the HNF successively row by row. To conserve sparseness
and avoid entry explosion we use several heuristics in the pivot selection and
entry elimination step. These heuristics are based on results of [10], [9], [11], [12]
and a lot of practical experience. The heuristics used will be adapted, depending
on the number of entries in the remaining part of the matrix and the size of
these entries.
If the entries become too large or the matrix becomes "too dense" (for exam-
ple, if more than two thirds of the remaining entries are non-zero), we switch to
stage two. We compute a multiple of the lattice determinant of the relation ma-
trix. In this step, we try to obtain as small a multiple as possible to simplify the
following computation. Finally we apply the modular algorithm for computing
the Hermite normal form described in [8].
 Sieving Methods for Class Group Computation 7

5 Practical Results
In 1991, S. Diillmann [1] needed 10 days on a distributed network of fourteen
Spare! and SparcSLC computers to compute the class number of the quadratic
field with discriminant -(4 x 1054 + 4) (55 digits) using an improved version of
Hafner and McCurley's algorithm with large prime variant. On a single Spar-
cUltra1, this should be approximately equivalent to 7 days and 17 hours. Now,
using sieving methods, it takes only 8 hours and 53 minutes to obtain this result
on a SparcUltral.
We present our results for the imaginary quadratic case. We were able to
compute the class group for the first four of the following discriminants. For the
last two, we have so far only been able to compute relation matrices. The number
in parenthesis after the discriminant is the number of decimal digits. The class
group is presented as [rno rn2 ... rns-d, where Cl(K) == Ef)o9<s 7Z /rni7Z.

.11 -4 X F7 = 4 X (22 + 1) (40)

= -1 x 22 x 59649589127497217 x 5704689200685129054721
h 17787144930223461408
Cl [2 8893572465111730704]
.12 -(4 x 1054 + 4) (55)
= -1 x 22 x 101 x 109 x 9901 x 153469 x 999999000001 x 597795771563/
34533866654838281
h 1056175002108254379317829632
Cl [2 2 2 2 2 33005468815882949353682176]
.13 -56759029509462061499204078404947821190422701840487390196283 (59)
= -1 x 235942923943814840172714410183 x 2405625418246410575130433/
26701
h 34708563502858399116135176220
Cl [34708563502858399116135176220]
.1 4 -(4 x 1004 + 4) (65)
= -1 x 22 x 1265011073 x 15343168188889137818369 x 515217525265213/
267447869906815873
h 178397819605839608466892693850112
Cl [44 11149863725364975529180793365632]

.15 -46952046735522451306774137871578512166228058934334430430/
26971349460603 (70)
h ???
Cl ???

1~'I~A4 x 10" + 4} (75)

Cl ???
Run-time statistics compiled during these computations are contained in
the table below. Here, M is the radius of the sieving interval (x E (-M, M)),
8 J. Buchmann, M.J. Jacobson Jr., S. Neis, P. Theobald and D. Weber

"# forms" is the number of forms which were used for sieving, tL is the is the
total CPU time in minutes required to generate the relation matrix, t is the total
time required to compute the class group, and told is an estimation of the time
required using the techniques in [2]. The computations were all carried out on a
SPARC-ultra computer.

.::1 WBI M forms tL t told

.::11 1000 69556 436 5.73 7.95 533.31
Lh 4100 333836 5231 108.28 532.24 11098.69
.::13 5500 470308 15711 315.79 2338.28 ?
.::1 4 7300 628972 25978 855.13 6457.28 ?
.::15 8800 779084 143678 5007.43 ? ?

Note that the 55 digit discriminant here is that computed by Diillmann in

[1]. Using large prime variation, we note a considerable speed up for the part
of the algorithm finding the relations. The column labelled "% lp" contains the
percentage of full relations which were formed form large prime relations.

.::1 WBI M forms % lp tL

.::11 1000 69556 279 22.78 4.81
.::12 4100 333836 3081 24.26 38.14
.::13 5500 470308 7984 52.05 123.69
.::1 4 7300 628972 9642 49.09 253.72
.::15 8800 779084 61825 57.41 1456.79
.::16 9500 844988 174068 56.31 4671.23

For the real quadratic case, we present some statistics from computing rela-
tion matrices (using large prime variant) for discriminants .::1 = 10i + 1.

i IFBI M forms % lp tL
30 355 22628 90 0.00 0.23
35 650 43756 191 0.57 0.71
40 1150 81572 346 2.05 1.50
45 2500 192772 541 3.26 4.65
50 3000 235652 1075 3.61 10.55
55 4400 363212 3122 15.37 44.36
60 6100 522532 6103 45.91 149.99
65 7600 660332 15909 52.46 528.96
70 8800 764572 47955 55.48 1581.51
75 9600 859412 164547 58.07 5739.84

Finally, we present some statistics for pure cubic extensions K = <Q(-if71i)

using a result of H.J. Stender ([16]), which allows one to precompute the regula-
tors of certain special fields. Here, l(.::1K) is used to denote the decimal length of
the field discriminant, WBI is the size of the factor base, h is the class number,
tL is the is the total CPU time in seconds (if not indicated otherwise) required
to generate the relation matrix and t is the total time required to compute the
 Sieving Methods for Class Group Computation 9

class group. The computations were all carried out on a Sparc4 computer with
32 MByte RAM.
m l(.1 K ) WBI h tL t
2431~-17 22 100 230666616 7 10
2431 3 -13 22 100 204575544 6 9
2431 3 -11 21 100 67575654 11 14
2431 3 -1 14 100 73143 11 13
2431 3 +1 19 100 11803968 10 13
2431 3 + 11 22 100 208464912 6 9
2431 3 +13 22 100 171651312 9 11
2431 3 +17 19 100 8682552 9 11
46189~ - 17 29 200 528112732248 36 62
46189 3 - 13 28 200 230653109628 43 61
46189 3 - 11 29 200 534799522773 39 58
46189 3 - 1 26 200 84034542636 46 62
46189 3 + 1 28 200 614506494573 41 57
46189 3 + 11 25 200 21657374964 41 59
46189 3 + 13 30 200 1201562002152 36 56
46189 3 + 17 29 200 439589101464 41 62
4869293~ - 17 38 400 7672357980222192 130 6 min
4869293 3 - 13 40 400 181790041779396270 136 7 min
4869293 3 - 11 42 400 732630532207386456 172 6.5 min
4869293 3 -1 41 400 1842592025672169858 133 6 min
4869293 3 + 1 41 400 931340490377083533 123 6 min
4869293 3 + 11 37 400 8165641344661584 143 6 min
4869293 3 + 13 42 400 1038577938978984723 121 6.5 min
4869293 3 + 17 42 400 1028253243988827468 118 6.5 min

m l(.1K) IFBI h tL t
840564439~ - 17 55 700 3842073100240397835871905 77 min 115 min
840564439 3 - 11 54 700 808279508202073001953848 74 min 107 min
840564439 3 - 1 55 700 4813779331073984156486937 43 min 76 min
840564439 3 + 1 54 700 1806681492048597457841100 76 min 115 min
840564439 3 + 13 55 700 2653130558498568497238285 43 min 83 min
840564439 3 + 17 53 700 165032036039112923443113 66 min 102 min

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 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications

Gerhard Frey and Michael Muller

Institut fiir Experimentelle Mathematik
Universitat GH Essen, Ellernstr. 29, 45326 Essen (Germany)
email: {frey.mdm}@exp-math.uni-essen.de

Abstract. The aim of this article is to describe a computational ap-

proach to the study of the arithmetic of modular curves Xo(N) and to
give applications of these computations.

1 Introduction

Let K be a number field and C / K be a (projective irreducible regular) curve

defined over K. The most challenging question of computational Diophantine
geometry is to determine the set C(K) of K -rational points of C. The most
general theoretical result one has at ones disposition is Faltings' celebrated the-
orem that C(K) is a finite set if the genus of C is larger than one. Unfortunately
until now there is no effective version of this result available. There are two ma-
jor tools to achieve a solution of the stated problem at least in concrete cases.
First one can use the theory of minimal models for surfaces to extend C to a
surface C over the ring OK, the integers of K, with best possible properties. The
special fibers Cp of this surface at primes p of OK, the reductions of C mod p, are
not necessarily regular curves. They can be used to extract further information
from C. As an example we mention the global L-series L(C, s) related to C
which is defined as the Euler product ofthe local L-series related to Cpo Results
of Hasse and Weil imply that L(C, s) is a Dirichlet-series which converges for
complex numbers with sufficiently large real part.
There is the central Conjecture of Hasse and Weil:
L(C,s) has an analytic continuation to C which satisfies a (well-det-
ermined) functional equation.
This conjecture is closely related to the second tool we shall discuss to study the
arithmetic of C, its Jacobian variety Jc.
Jc is an abelian variety with a principal polarization induced by C defined
over K. The theorem of Torelli states that Jc together with this polarization
determines C up to K -isomorphism.
Question: Can one make this relation explicit?
A more precise version of this question is the following: If one knows that a
complex torus given by its period matrix together with a principal polarization
is the Jacobian of a curve C over a given number field (e.g. ij) can one write
down an equation for C?

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
12 G. Frey, M. Miiller

Let us assume that C(K) contains a point Po. Using the fact that Jc is
isomorphic to pica (C), we get a morphism of C (or more generally of symmetric
products of C) to Jc with Po as base point.
This relation between C and Jc makes it obvious that information about
C(K) can be obtained from JoCK) and vice versa. It is important to note that
due to results of Grothendieck and Raynaud the arithmetic surface C is closely
related to the canonical extension of Jc to a group scheme over OK, its Neron
model. The L-series of C is equal to the L-series of Jc which can be interpreted
as an Euler product where the local factor at f is the characteristic polynomial of
F'robenius automorphisms acting on the first f-adic cohomology group of Jc, the
Tate module of Jc at f. Hence we get a relation between diophantine problems
and f-adic Galois representations of the Galois group G K of K which is of
greatest importance (cf. the proof of the theorem of Faltings).
Another important aspect of the L-series is the connection with rational
points on PicO(C). The local factors Lp(t) take the value #PicO(Cp)(OK/P) at
t = 1. Globally one knows by the Theorem of Mordell- Weil that JoCK) is a
finitely generated Z-module which has a natural euclidean structure given by
the Neron-Tate pairing. The Conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer assumes
the truth of the conjecture of Hasse-Weil and predicts that the arithmetic data
of this euclidean module can be deduced from the analytical behavior of L( C, s)
at s = 1. Manin used this conjecture to construct a conditional algorithm to
determine generators of JoCK).
The purpose of this paper is to give a report on possibilities to solve a good
part of the algorithmic problems described above in special cases:
We take K = <Q and assume that Jc is isogenous to a factor of the Jacobian of
a modular curve X.
In fact we restrict ourselves to the simplest case and assume that X is one of
the modular curves Xo(N) parameterizing elliptic curves with cyclic isogenies of
degree N. We remark that nearly all algorithms could be applied to the curves
X = Xl (N) or intermediate curves, too.
The origin of our algorithms is the concrete knowledge of the holomorphic dif-
ferentials as cusp forms resp. their dual space, the singular homology, of Xo(N)
over Z together with the action of a big part of the endomorphism ring of the J a-
cobian given by the ring 1l'N of Hecke operators. Moreover the geometric L-series
of Xo(N) can be defined analytically and the conjecture of Hasse-Weil is true.
For the convenience of the reader we describe this theory in the next section.
In the third section we develop the basic algorithms which depend on results
of Manin, Merel and Zagier. They use the theory of Manin resp. modular symbols
with explicit action of 1l'N to decompose the space of cusp forms into eigenspaces
w.r.t. the action of the group ring 1l'N[GQ]. This determines the <Q-factors of
Jo(N), the Jacobian of Xo(N), up to isogeny. Moreover we can construct Z-
bases of these spaces by expanding modular forms into Fourier series. There are
other methods to compute the space of modular, respectively cusp forms, for
example the algorithm of Birch ([4]) which uses ternary quadratic forms. This is
a special case ofthe method of Brandt matrices developed by M. Eichler (see [11])
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 13

and generalized by Pizer. Another possibility is Mestre's 'graph'-method [32] to

compute the space of cusp forms. The modular symbol method works for every
level N and the whole space of cusp forms. The other methods are restricted to
special levels or they compute only a subspace of the space of modular forms in
general.
In the last section we shall give applications of these calculations. They in-
clude the computation of modular forms of weight 1 and weight 3/2 and their
application to Artin's conjecture and to the determination of Selmer groups
of twists of elliptic curve, the computation of the intersection pairing inside of
Jo(N) with applications to congruence primes and interesting diophantine con-
jectures like the ABC-conjecture, the computation of period matrices of factors
of Jo(N) and the explicit construction of curves up to genus 5 which are hyper-
elliptic with Jacobians equal to one of these factors. Since we can compute the
characteristic polynomial of Hecke operators Tl for rather large prime numbers l
we can use the Eichler-Shimura relation to compute local factors of the L-series
corresponding to such curves over large finite field. This is of interest for the
construction of public key crypto systems based on discrete logarithms.
Finally we want to mention that using the modular theory and assuming
the correctness of Manin's conditional algorithm, it is possible to determine
the Mordell-Weil group of the Jacobian of hyperelliptic curves over Ql obtained
above, at least in principle. For curves of genus 2 we give some results.
Acknowledgments
The algorithms and results described in this report rely on work of many mem-
bers of our research group in number theory at the IEM in Essen during the
last years. Especially J. Basmaji, Ch. Hahne, L. Merel (who was a visitor at the
IEM on several occasions), X. Wang and H.-J. Weber provided many valuable
and essential contributions. The authors would like to thank them very much.
The cooperation in our group at the IEM was to a large part made possible by
the support given by the DFG in the frame of the Schwerpunkt. We are very
thankful for this.

2 The Modular Curve Xo(N)

In this section we fix notations and summarize the basic facts on modular curves.
The reference for this section is Shimura's book [45].

2.1 Basic Definitions

Let SL 2 (Z) be the group of integral 2 x 2 matrices with determinant one. SL 2 (Z)
is generated by the matrices

S = (0 -1) ,
1 0
and R = (0 -1) .
1 -1
For a positive integer N, denote by
ro(N) = {Q = (~~) E SL 2 (Z) Ie=: 0 mod N}
14 G. Frey, M. Miiller

the Hecke subgroup of SL2 (Z) of level N. SL 2 (lR) and hence ro(N) act via
fractional linear transformations given by
( a b) . Z r+ az±b
cd cz±d

on the upper half plane

IHl := {Z E IC 1 Im(Z) > O}

and, by the same formula, on the extended upper half plane

lHl* := IHl u Q u { 00 }

obtained from IHl by adjoining the set of cusps Q U { oo} to IHl. We denote the
orbits of this action by

Yo(N) := ro(N)\IHl ~ ro(N)\lHl* =: Xo(N)

and call Xo(N) the modular curve of ro(N) .
The modular curve Xo(N) (Yo(N), resp.) is equipped with a complex analytic
structure coming from the projection map

11': lHl* -+ ro(N)\lHl*(1I': IHl-+ ro(N)\lHl,resp.).

(Special attention has to be given to the complex structure at the cusps, see [45]
Chap. 1.) With this structure Yo(N) is a connected one dimensional complex
manifold. It is a Riemann surface with 11' as a covering map unramified outside
of elliptic points which are conjugate to z = i and z = (3 under the action of
SL2(Z). Xo(N) is the compactification of Yo(N) which we get by adjoining the
cusps of To(N) to Yo(N). Therefore we can view Xo(N) as a projective algebraic
curve defined over IC.
Example 2.1.
1. N = 1: Xo(l) has genus 0 and therefore Xo(l) ~ JP'1(1C).
2. N = 11: Xo(l1) is a elliptic curve with WeierstraB model
E : y2 + y = x 3 - x 2 - lOx - 20.

For any function f(z) on lHl, a positive integer k and matrices 0: = (~~) in
GL 2(lR) with positive determinant we define:

flk(O:)(z) := det(o:)-k/2(cz + d)-k f(o:z). (1)

If k = 2, we omit the 12 on the left hand side of (1). Let

X:Z-+IC

be a Dirichlet character with conductor f dividing the level N.

Definition 2.2. A modular form of level N, weight k and nebentypus X is a
function J(z) on IHl such that:
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 15

1. fez) is holomorphic in IHl,

2. flk(a)(z) = x(d)f(z) Vz E IHl,a = (~~) E roCN),
3. fez) is holomorphic at the cusps.
If in addition f vanishes at the cusps, then f is called a cusp form. We denote the
space of modular (cusps, resp.) forms of weight k and nebentypus X by Mk(N, X)
(Sk(N,X), resp.). If the nebentypus is trivial, we write Mk(N) (SkCN), resp.).

For a precise definition of holomorphicity and vanishing at the cusps see [45]
Chap. (2.1). The pull-back of a holomorphic differential form W E f]l(Xo(N))
under the covering map 1f has locally the form f(z)dz with complex parameter
z. It is easy to see, but crucial, that fez) is a cusp form of weight 2 and level N.
Lemma 2.3. The map fCz) I-t 21fif(z)dz induces an isomorphism between the
space of cusp forms S2 (N) and the holomorphic differentials f]l (XoCN)) of
Xo(N). The dimension of S2(N) as a complex vector space is equal to the genus
of the modular curve Xo(N).
Since (fi t) belongs to Fo(N), property (2) of Definition (2.2) implies that a cusp
form is a periodic function on IHl with period 1. Therefore fCz) has a Fourier
expansion near infinity:

L anqn with q := e21Tiz , an E IC.

00

fez) =
n=l

2.2 The Heeke Algebra TN

The points of Yo(N) can be interpreted in the following way:
Let T be an element of IHl. There is a one to one correspondence between
the orbits roCN)T and the isomorphism classes of pairs CE, eN) consisting of an
elliptic curve E = C/ L with period lattice L = Z + ZT and a cyclic subgroup
eN of order N of E[N], the group of N-torsion points. We call this the modular
interpretation of YoCN). By (E, eN)~ we denote the isomorphism class of a pair
(E,eN).
As a consequence of the modular interpretation of Yo (N) one finds a canonical
minimal proper model of Xo(N) over Spec(Z). We shall denote this model by
XoCN)z. One can show that Xo(N)z has good reduction at all primes p not
dividing the level N. At the bad fibers there are partial but deep results about
the type of reduction due to Igusa, Deligne-Rapoport and Katz-Mazur (see [9]
and ([20]).
Therefore we get a Z-structure on the space of modular and cusp forms, and
we see that Mk(ro(N)) and Sk(ro(N)) has a basis of modular and cusp forms
with integral Fourier coefficients. Thus it makes sense to define Mk(ro(N))(R) :=
Mk(Fo(N)) 129 R for any commutative ring R (with an analogous definition
for cusp forms.) The q-expansion principle states that a modular form f of
Mk (N, X) (R) is uniquely determined by its Fourier coefficients and these coeffi-
cients lie in R.
16 G. Frey, M. Miiller

Using the modular interpretation of the points on Xo(N)z we define a group

of automorphisms of the algebraic curve Xo(N)z: Let n be a positive divisor of
N with gcd(n,N/n) = 1 and P = (E,CN)~' Then

wn(P) := (E/Cn, (C[n] x CN/n)/Cn)~

defines an involution on Xo(N), i.e. w~ = id. The Wn are called Atkin-Lehner

involutions.

Remark 2.4. It is a result due to Ogg [39] that for square-free level N > 37
Aut(Xo(N)) = {w n I nlN and gcd(n,N/n) = I}.
Next we look at the restriction map

an : Xo(nN)z --+ Xo(N)z; (E, CnN)~ I-t (E, CN)~

for every positive integer n coprime to the level N. By combining the restriction
map an with the involutions Wn:

Xo(nN)z ----+1 Xo(nN)z

we find a Z-rational correspondence on PicO(Xo(N)), the divisor classes of de-

gree 0 of Xo(N):

Definition 2.5. For gcd(n, N) =1

is the n-th Heeke operator.

As a consequence, Wn and Tn act on

1. the Jacobian variety Jo(N),

2. the (co-) tangent space, the differential forms J]l(Xo(N)z) and its dual,
3. the cusp forms S2(N)(Z),
4. the homology group H 1 (Xo(N),Z). We remark that this action is compat-
ible with the natural action of the complex conjugation on paths. This is
important for the computation of a basis of cusp forms over Z (see Sec. (3)).

Definition 2.6. The Heeke algebra TN of level N is the Z-subalgebra of the

endomorphism ring Endz(J]l(Xo(N)z)) generated by

Wn with nIN,gcd(n,~) = 1 and Tk with gcd(k,N) = 1.

 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 17

The Heeke algebra 'lI'N is commutative, see [45].

Let us give an explicit description of the action Of'lI'N on modular forms:
Definition 2.7. For J(z) E Mk(N,X) and m a natural number, we define

Vm(f(z)) := J(mz), Um(f(z)):= -

1
L: J
m-l (
_z-
+ k) . (2)
m k=O m
Proposition 2.S. Let J E Mk(N,X) be a modular Jo~ and 11. be a positive
integer. Then

Tn(f(z)) = (L:X(d)d 1c - 1 Vd 0 Un/d) (f(z)). (3)

din

If p is a prime number with gcd(p, N) = 1, we get the well known formula

Tp(f(z)) := X(p)pk-l J(pz) +! ~J (z + k)
p k=O P
If we express the Heeke operator by its action on the q-expansion we get
Lemma 2.9. Let J(z) = E::'=o anqn E Mk(N, X) and p be a prime number.
Then
bn := apn + X(P)pk-l an/ p
is the n-th Fourier coefficient ofTp(f(z)) = E::'=o bnqn where a n/ p is defined as
zero if p does not divide n.
We shall study the decomposition of the space of cusp forms into eigenspaces
under the Heeke algebra'lI'N.
Definition 2.10. A modular form J(z) E Mk(N, X) is a (Hecke-) eigenfunction,
if J(z) satisfies
T(f(z)) = ATf(z) for all t E 'lI'N.

The AT are the (Hecke-) eigenvalues with respect to T. By EAT we denote the
AT-eigenspace, i.e.
ET~ := {J(z) E Mk(N, X) I T(f(z)) = AT . J(z)}
where T E 'lI'N is fixed.
We shall restrict our attention to the case of weight 2 cusp forms with trivial
nebentypus. We are interested in 'natural' subspaces of the vector space of cusp
forms.

z..
It is easy to see that, if g(z) E S2(M) and MIN, then g(dz) E S2(N) for
dl So we define the space of old forms of S2(N) as:
S~'d(N) := (g(dz) I g(z) E S2(M) with MIN; M "I N; dl z.). (4)
18 G. Frey, M. Muller

Definition 2.11. The orthogonal complement of S~ld(N) with respect to the

Petersson inner product

(/,g) := /, f(z)g(z)dxdy with f,g E S2(N), z = x + iy

ro(N)\H*

is denoted by S!jew(N), the space of new forms. fez) E S!jew(N) is called a new
form, if fez) = q + I:n;?:2 anqn and fez) is a Hecke eigenform.
The Heeke operator Tn with gcd(n,N) = 1 maps S!jew(N) (S~ld(N), resp.) to
itself and is selfadjoint with respect to the Petersson inner product. Hence S2(N)
decomposes into a direct sum of simultaneous eigenspaces and all eigenvalues are
real.
For elements in S!jew(N) we get more: Let E be a simultaneous eigenspace of
S!jew(N) under the Hecke algebra. Then dim (E) = 1 (Multiplicity one theorem)
[2].
Theorem 2.12. Let R be an commutative ring. The pairing

has no left and right radical.

Since we know that S2(N)(C) = S2(N)(Z) ® C we get
Corollary 2.13. Hom({l1(Xo(N)), C) is a free rank one 1l'N ® C- module and
1l'N is a free Z-module of rank g(Xo(N)).
Moreover we get a construction principle for cusp forms over R:
Proposition 2.14. Let P E HOm(1l'N,R). Then
00

E p(Tn)qn E S2(N)(R). (5)

n=1

(See [8] or [31] for a proof.) We use this property to compute the Fourier expan-
sion of cusp forms (see Sec. 3).
Since 1l'N is a free Z-module of finite rank acting on S2 (N) we get
Lemma 2.15. Let f = q + I:~=2 anqn E S2(N) be a Hecke eigenform and
T E 1l' N. Then the eigenvalue AT is a totally real integral algebraic integer and
the field
(6)
is a finite extension of Q.
By definition 1l'N is a subring of End(Jo(N)).If N is square-free then
1l'N ® Q = End(Jo(N)) ® Q
(Ribet), and if N is a prime we even get
1l'N = End(Jo(N))
(cf. [28]).
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 19

Remark 2.16.

1. The explicit description of the Atkin-Lehner involutions on cusp forms is as

follows: Let p a prime number and ord,,(N) = a, i.e. p"'IIN. Set

Wr := (He:, :d)' with a,b,c, dE Z,r:= p"',det(Wr ) = r. (7)

Then the Atkin-Lehner operator

S2(N) -+ S2(N)j J(z) I-t J(Wr)(z) (8)

is an involution on the space of cuspforms and

II 0 1)._
W r -- ( -N 0 .-
WN
"IN,,, prime
is the Fricke involution.
2. One can define the Hecke and Atkin-Lehner operators for cuspforms with
nebentype and higher weights (see [2]).
3. Without using the modular interpretation, but the theory of parabolic coho-
mology Shimura [45] proved the existence of a basis of modular (cusp) forms
with rational Fourier coefficients. For S2(N) this follows from the existence
of a non-degenerate pairing

Ht(Xo(N), Z) x S2(N) -+ Cj (u, J(z)) I-t L

J(z)dz (see (14))

of the integral homology with the cusp forms. This pairing is compatible
with the action of the Heeke operators, see [8].
4. A second way to define Heeke operators Tn is via the double coset

ro(N)\L1/ ro(N),

with L1 = {a E M2X2(Z) I det(a) = n}. This is the point of view in [45],

Chap. (3).

2.3 The Arithmetic of Jo(N)

Let J = q + En>2 anqn E S2(N) be a new form of weight 2 and Kf =

Q( al , a2, ... ) the neld generated by the coefficients of J. As we have seen in
the previous section, Kt/Q is a totally real field of degree d.
Let It := {Ub ... ,Ud} be the set of all distinct embeddings of K f into C. Fol-
lowing a construction due to Shimura ([45] and [47]) we associate to J an abelian
variety:
The cusp form J induces an algebra homomorphism
20 G. Frey, M. Miiller

Let If := kern(>'f) n TN. The image If(Jo(N)) is a subgroup scheme of the

Jacobian of Xo(N). Define:

(9)

Fact: A f is an abelian variety.

It is easy to see that Af is defined over Q and has good reduction at prime
numbers not dividing the level N (since the same holds for Xo(N)).
The description of Af as complex torus is due to Shimura, too. It is a special
case of the following construction. Let GQ := Gal(Q/Q) be the absolute Galois
group of Q and V a d-dimensional GQ-invariant subspace of S2 (N) with a basis
{fl, ... ,fd}. The image of the Abel-Jacobi map

is a full lattice A v , i.e a discrete free Z-module of rank 2d in Cd. The complex
torus Av := (;d / A v has the structure of an abelian variety. For a proof see [45] or
[47]. Especially, given a new form f we construct the d-dimensional GQ-invariant
space
Vf := (fu, lUi Elf)

and the abelian variety Av! which we shall denote by AI. Shimura proved that
AI is the dual abelian variety of Af ® C
(See [45] or [8]).
To AI we associate - in the usual way - a geometric L-series:
For a prime number £ we define the £-adic Tate module as

where Af[£n] is the group of tn-torsion points of Af. Set

The natural action of GQ on the £-adic Tate module induces an £-adic repre-
sentation:

For a prime number p =1= £, we define the local Euler factor

(10)

where up is the F'robenius automorphism of a prime p in Q lying above p, ICp)

the inertia group of p and pi is the adjoint representation to Pl on the dual
Vi"CAI) of Vt(AI)· It is easy to prove that the local Euler factor depends only
on p and not on the choice of p or 0"p. A much deeper result is that the the right
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 21

hand side of (10) does not dependent on £ and is an element of the polynomial
ring Z[t] (see [43]). Let
2d
Lp(Af, t) = IT (1 - Ok,pt) (11)
k=l

be the factorization of the local Euler factor over the complex numbers. Then
the theorem of Hasse-Wei! states that IOk,pl ::; Vii and that we have equality if
Af has good reduction at p ( see [37]). Furthermore Lp(A" 1) is equal to the
number of points of the abelian variety Af ® lFp defined over the finite field lFp.
It follows that the L-series defined by

L(Af , s) := II Lp(Af,p-S)-\ SEC

p

is convergent for all s with Re( s) > ~.

Next we define the analytic L-series attached to the new form f again by an
Euler product:
Take

and define
L(f,s):= II Lp(f,p-S)-\ SEC.
p

Using properties of cusp forms one shows that: L(f' s) is a holomorphic function
on Re( s) > ~ and has an analytic continuation to the entire complex plane, see
[43].
A fundamental result is
Theorem 2.17. For a prime number p not dividing the level N, we have:

Lp(Af, t) = II Lp(j"", t) (12)

(TEl!

and the conductor N (A f ) of A f is equal to Nd.

Corollary 2.18. L(A f , s) is a holomorphic function for Re(s) > ~ and can
be extended to an entire function to the whole complex plane which satisfies a
functional equation.

The first statement, formula (12) of theorem (2.17), is a consequence of the

all-important Eichler-Shimura-relation between Hecke operators and Frobenius
elements acting on Jo(N)IF, and related objects. The second statement of the
theorem (2.17) is a deep result of Carayol (see [5]).
The following theorem states the Eichler-Shimura-relation for the Tate module
Tt(A f ):
22 G. Frey, M. MUller

Theorem 2.19. Let p f= £ a prime number, p a prime lying above p and up a

Probenius automorphism. Then

as endomorphism of the Tate module Tt(A I ) where u~ is the transposed Probenius

endomorphism.
For a proof and the definition of the transposed Frobenius endomorphism see
[46) or [43).
Corollary 2.20. The coefficients of new forms satisfy the inequality

(13)

We summarize further properties of the abelian subvariety AI, see theorem 7.14
in [46).

Theorem 2.21. Let f = q + L:::'=2 anqn E S2(N) be a Hecke eigenform and let
KI = lQl(anln E N) be the field generated by the Fourier coefficients of f. Then
there exists an abelian subvariety AI of Jo(N) and an isomorphism 8 from KI
to End(Jo(N)) 01Ql with the properties:

1. dim(AI) = [KI : 1Ql)

2. /fgcd(n,N) = 1, then 8(an ) coincides with the restriction of Tn to AI'
3. AI is defined over 1Ql.
Moreover these properties determine the pair (AI, 8) uniquely and AI is a simple
abelian variety defined over 1Ql.

Theorem 2.22. Let f and AI be as above and let in addition N be a square-free

integer. Then the abelian variety A I is absolutely simple.

A most important consequence of the Eichler-Shimura relation is that every

cusp form induces a two-dimensional £-adic representation. This result is due
to Shimura [46) and can be extended to arbitrary weight, c.f. [10) or [45) for an
overview.
Theorem 2.23. Let f = q + L:n=2 anqn be a new form of weight k and level
N, f a prime number not dividing Nand KI := lQl(anln EN). Then there exists
a unique semi-simple f -adic representation

such that Pi is unramified outside fN and

where up is a Probenius automorphism at p.

 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 23

3 The Basic Algorithms

The aim of this section is to describe the algorithm which computes S2(N) as
a 'fN[GQ]-module. The basic idea of the algorithm is to use Ht(Xo(N),Z), the
(+1)-eigenspace under the involution induced by i: Z f-+ -z on H 1 (Xo(N),Z),
instead of S2(N). This is possible since we have a good description of the ho-
mology space Ht(Xo(N),Z) by generators and relations and a non-degenerate
pairing

Ht(Xo(N), Z) x S2(N) ----> Cj (a, J(z)) f-+ [J(Z)dZ, (14)

compatible with the action of the Hecke operators, i.e.

(Tp(a), f) = (a, Tp(f)).

Remark 3.1. We restrict ourselves to the case of weight 2 cusp forms with
trivial nebentype. For more general cases see [32] and [50]. Merel makes use of the
Manin-Shokurov theory and Wang applied the Eichler-Shimura isomorphism
relating the space of cusp forms to the parabolic cohomology group, see [46].

3.1 Modular Symbols and Relative Homology

Let Hl (Xo(N), Z) be the singular homology group of the Riemann surface

Xo(N)1R which is the abelianization of the fundamental group 71'1 (Xo(N), z)
where Z is any base point. With H 1(Xo(N),cusp,Z) we denote the relative ho-
mology of Xo(N) with respect to the set of cusps.
We get the exact sequence

(15)

where 1100 is the number of cusps of Fo(N). An element of H1 (Xo(N), cusp, Z) is

called a modular symbol. A modular symbol can be represented as the projection
of a path in lHl* beginning and ending at a cusp to the modular curve Xo(N).
Since lHl is simply connected all paths [Z1' Z2] between two fixed points Z1, Z2 E lHl*
are equivalent and therefore their homology class depends only on the endpoints.
We denote the image of [ZbZ2] by {Zl,Z2}. The main properties of modular
symbols are (see [28] or [6]):

Remark 3.2. For all x, y, Z E lHl*

1. {z,z} = 0 and {x,y} = -{y,x},

2. {x,y}+{y,Z}+{Z,x} =0,
3. {ax,ay} = {x,y} for all a E ro(N).
24 G. Frey, M. MUller

One can show that the relative homology group splits into three direct summands
[32]
HI (Xo(N), cusp, Z) = Eis(N) EEl S2(N) EEl S2(N)
where Eis(N) corresponds to the Eisenstein series of ro(N) and S2(N) (S2(N))
to the holomorphic (anti-holomorphic) cusp forms.
Denote by J the right cosets r o(N)\SL 2 (Z). According to remark (3.2.3) the
map
if?: J - + HI(Xo(N),cusp,Z),j ....... {g(O),g(oo)} with 9 E j
is well defined.
Manin [28] proved:
Theorem 3.3. HI (Xo(N), cusp, Z) is a free Z-module of rank 2g + 1100 - 1 gen-
erated by the modular symbols {{g(O),g(oo)} I 9 E SL 2 (Z)}.
Recall: The projective line over Z/N is defined by

pl(Z/N):= {(c,d) E (Z/N)21 gcd(c,d,N) = 1}/ rv

where
(c,d) rv (c',d') iff cd' == c'dmod N.
We denote the class of (c, d) by (c : d). It is a simple exercise to show that the
map

J - + pI (Z/N), j ....... (c: d) mod N with j 3 9 = (~~) (16)

is a bijection between J and the projective line pl(Z/N). Extending this map
by linearity we get the Z-linear map

is: Z[J]-+ HI(Xo(N),cusp,Z)

Remark (3.2.3) yields that the elements

j+jS
j +jR+jR2

belong to the kernel of the map is.It can be shown that the kernel of the map is
is generated by these elements, see [28]. Therefore we get the isomorphism

Z[Jl/ (j + jS,j + jR + jR2 I j E J) ~ HI (Xo(N), cusp, Z). (17)

Using the bijection (1£) we get an explicit description of HI(Xo(N), cusp, Z) as

the Z-module generated by

pI (Z/N)
with the relations
(18)
(c: d) + (c : d)S
(c: d) + (c : d)R + (c : d)R2.
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 25

The involution i : z 1-+ -z acts by

i((c: d)) = (c : d) (-;/ n.

Define

M := Z[]P'l(Z/N)] / (u + uS, u + uR + uR2 I u E ]P'l(Z/N)) .

The Hecke correspondences induce an action of '][' N on the relative homology. It

is easy to check that on modular symbols we get:

Tp( {c, d}) = {pc, pd} + ~{C+k

L -,-d+k}
- .
k=O P P

The next aim is to express this action on M. We follow Manin and Merel [32]
and collect their results in
Theorem 3.4. Let Mn := {a E M2x2 I det(a) = n} and

(c: d)M := { 0 rt
if (c : d)M ]P'l(Z/N)
(c: d)M if(c: d)M E ]P'l(Z/N).

1. For all integers n E N there exists an element

such that

L un(M(oo) - M(O)) = (00) - (0) (condition (Cn ))

holds.
2. For any en satisfying condition (Cn ) and for gcd(n, N) = 1 the n-th Hecke
operator acts on Z[]P'l(Z/N)] by

Tn((c: d)) = (c: d)e n = L UM(C: d)M

Regarding the complexity of computations it is important that en is "not too
long":
Refinement 3.5. There is a en such that #{M I UM i- O} ::; O(nlog(n)).
Example 3.6.
Let Rn the set of all integral 2 x 2 matrices of the form A = (:' 7) where
det(A) = n and one of the following three properties holds

- x >
- y = 0, and
-
Iy'l ::;
y' = 0, and Iyl ::; 2X.
tx'
Iyl > 0, x' > Iy'l > 0, and yy' >0
26 G. Frey, M. Miiller

Then en = I:AER n A satisfies the condition (en) (cf. [32]).1

Example 3.7.

e2 = [20]
01 + [21]
01 + [10]
12 + [10]
02

Remark 3.S.

1. en does not depend on the level N and the weight k.

2. The 'claBsical' method of computing the Hecke operator on M is to use the
isomorphism (17) to compute the Hecke operator on H1 (Xo(N), cusp, Z)
and to map the result back to the space M. To do this explicitly one has
to calculate a continued fraction expansion of some rational numbers (see
[6] or [28]). The complexity of this method is equal to the complexity of the
method due to Mere!'
3. The same formula holds if we replaces M by M+ corresponding to the
+l-eigenspace under complex conjugation (see below).

Here is a small numerical example:

Example 3.9.
Take N = 31. Then 0 and 00 are the only cusps of ro(31) and H 1(Xo(N),cusp,Z)
is a free 'Z-module of rank 5. The Hecke operator T2 on H 1(Xo (N),cusp,Z) is

3 0 0 0 0
-1 0 0 0-1
T2 = -1 0 0-1 0
-1 0-1 1 0
-1 -1 0 0 1

and the characteristic polynomial XT 2 (t) is

XT2 (t) = (t - 3) (t 2 - t-1) (t 2 - t - 1)

'-v--" '---v---' '---v---'
Eisenstein part cusp form part anti holomorphic cusp form part

Next we compute the space Ht(Xo(N),Z). The map [) in the exact homology
sequence (15) is:

(19)

where a, b, c, d are integers and [%], [~] are cusps of ro(N). We divide out the
additional relation induced by the condition that the complex conjugation acts
1 This description of Hecke operators can also be found in the paper of Zagier [55J.
We thank the referee for this information.
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 27

trivial. (Of course, we can do this at the same time as we deal with the other
relations.) The quotient is denoted by M+. Via the isomorphism (17) we get the
map corresponding to 6 and we can compute the kernel of the boundary map 8.
Result: This kernel is dual to the space of cusp forms S2(N).
Remark 3.10.
1. There is a different method to identify the cusp form part in M+. It is
well known (see [46]) that there exists a basis {ft, ... ,fvoo-d of Hecke
eigenforms in the space of Eisenstein series which can be described explicitly.
Especially there are easy to compute formulas for the Fourier coefficients
of the J;. Therefore we know the operation of Tp on t:is(N) and so its
characteristic polynomial on this subspace of H 1 (Xo (N), cusp, Z). We use
this to find an element f in M which lies in the subspace S2(N), see [36].
2. With a similar trick as above we even find a vector f which lies in the 'new
part' of M or in the ±1 eigenspaces of the various Atkin-Lehner opera-
tors. This speeds up the computation of the minimal (characteristic, resp. )
polynomial which we have to determine.
3. One problem to calculate in the 'It-module M (see (18)) is to find a basis
for this space. To do this one has to use GauE elimination or sparse matrix
techniques to find a basis which can be rather painful since the matrices are
very large. But with a nice trick due to X. Wang (see [36]) we have a very
efficient implementation which avoids entirely such matrix operations.
4. We described the algorithm over C but we have a Z-structure on the symbols
and on the Hecke algebra '][' N. Therefore we can use the algorithm over Z
and over finite fields.
5. It turned out that for large n (about 109 ) and medium sized level N (~ 103 )
a rearrangement of the matrices can speed up the computation. For this
result and the implementation see [3].
Example 3.11.
The modular curve Xo(41) has genus 3 and the matrix for the Hecke operator
Tp with p = 109 + 7 is:

-15916-19368 -2773)
ATp = ( -52558 22820 35963 .
30417 -2773 -35284

The characteristic polynomial is:

XTp(t) = t 3 + 28380t 2 -1440675460t - 27479384514602.

For a larger example see table (5.2).

Since the action of the Hecke operator is compatible with the pairing

(20)
28 G. Frey, M. Muller

we calculate the integral matrices representing Tn on S2(N). They coincide with

the transpose of the corresponding matrix acting on the dual w.r.t. this pairing.
Therefore we can split the space of cusp forms into simple 'll'N[GQ]-invariant
spaces and compute the splitting of Jo(N) into simple abelian subvarieties as we
have seen in theorem (2.21). Below one finds a small table for the splitting of
Jo(N) with large prime levels N. For a table for levels 11 ::::: N ::::: 80 we refer to
the appendix, table (5.1).

N I dim(S2(N» I Splitting I
10009 833 393440
10037 836 398438
10039 836 384452
10061 838 383454
10067 839 399440
10069 838 406432
10079 840 1 353486
10091 841 1 382458
10093 840 410430
10099 841 1 1 396443

The description of the table is as follows: The first column is the level, the
second the dimension of the space of cusp forms. In the third column one finds
the dimensions of the 'll'N[GQ] invariant subspaces of S2(N). For example, for
N = 10099 the space S2(N) splits into two one dimensional subspaces, one 396
dimensional and one 443 dimensional subspace as 'll'N[GQ]-module. Since this
splitting induces a decomposition of Jo(N) in Q-simple abelian subvarieties (see
theorem (2.21)) we get:

The subvarieties El and E2 are modular elliptic curves.

3.2 Computation of Fourier Expansions of Bases of S2(N)

In the last section we have determined the structure of S2(N) (or equivalently
of !71(Xo(N») as'll'N[GG]-module.
Now we want to compute explicitly a basis of S2(N)(Z) respectively a ba-
sis consisting of eigenforms. The elements f of these bases will be given by
the Fourier expansion of such forms. To identify them it is sufficient to com-
pute "enough" coefficients: If the level is N then f is determined by the first
If
L Dpl N(l + ~)J coefficients.
Later on we want to get finer information. For instance we want to compute
linear subspaces with special properties inside of the cusp forms and then we
shall need much more coefficients. So the performance of our algorithm will be
of great importance.
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 29

Here is the procedure: Choose an element e in S2(N) found by the method

described above. We know by proposition 2.14 that

L
<Xl

if!(Tne)qn E 8 2(N)(Z) for if! E Hom(S2(N), Z). (21)

n=l

By varying the random element e and the linear form if! we get a Z-basis of
8 2(N). (cf. [32]). More precisely: We use a sequence el := e, ei+1 = Tm(ei) with
gcd(m, N) = 1 and m as small as possible. This speeds up the computations
since we have to compute fewer matrices, see (3.4) and (3.5). We find with GauB
elimination or the Wiedemann algorithm (see [22]) an integer d such that the
set Bl := {ei I 1 ~ i ~ d} is linearely independent. If d = dim(S2(N)) we
have found a basis of S2(N) and we can use (21) to find the coefficients in the
q-expansion for each ei' In the case that d < dim(S2(N)) we choose another
random element e' or - alternatively - we take another Hecke operator Tn and
compute a second sequence e~. We add the new elements to the set Bl and test
linear independence again. We repeat this until we have a basis of S2(N) and
then we use (21) to find the Fourier coefficients of the corresponding cusp forms
and therefore a basis of 8 2 (N). In practice we have only to choose 2 or 3 random
elements e to find a basis of S2(N).
Example 3.12.
Take N = 45. The dimension of 8 2 (45) is equal to 3 and
{II =q- q4 _ qlO _ 2q13 _ q16 + 4q19 + 41 2 + ... ,
12 = q2 _ q5 _ 3q8 + 4qll _ 2q17 + q20 + ... ,
h =l - l - l - q12 + q15 + q18 + ... }
is a basis of 8 2 (45)(Z).

As said above an analogous algorithm works in the case of higher weight

(cf. [32] or [50]).
We give an example for the weight k = 4 and level N = 22:
{II = q + 10l - 6q7 - 24q8 - 13q9 - 30qlO - lOOqll + 64q12 + 292q13 - 14q14
+130q15 + 464q16 - 286q18 _ 804q19 ... ,
12 = q2 - 2q6 + 8q7 - 16q8 - 32q9 + 15qlO + 16qll + 64q13 + 98q14 _ 40q15
_64q 16 _ 32 q 18 _ 95q19 ... ,
h = l- 2q6 - 5q7 + 8q8 - 12l- lOqlO + 26qll + 16q12 + 20q13 - 42q14
_15 q 15 + 16q 16 + 20q17 + 52q18 _ 100q19 ... ,
!4 = q4 - q6 _ 4q7 _ 6q8 + 16l + 5l o - 8qll _ 4q12 - 32q13 + 47q14 + 201 5
_28 q 16 + 16q17 _ 66q18 + 40q19 ... ,
15 = q5 - 2l + 2q7 - 8l + 10l + 6qlO - 8qll - 38q13 + 54q14 + 14q15
_16 q 16 _ 32 q 17 _ 44 q 18 + 88q19 ... }
30 G. Frey, M. Miiller

is a basis of S4(22)(Z).

To obtain bases of simultaneous eigenfunctions we have to decompose SJj:ew(N)

w.r.t. all Hecke operators. We pick a Tn and decompose S2(N) into a sum of Tn
eigenspaces. If the eigenvalue An has multiplicity one we find (up to scalars) an
unique eigen vector e with Tne = Ane. This must be an simultaneous eigenvector
for all Hecke operators T E TN. As a consequence of (20) we get:

If the eigenspace EAn is not one-dimensional we apply another Hecke operator

Tm to EAn and refine the decomposition until we find a decomposition into
one-dimensional factors. This procedure must terminate after a finite number of
steps. To make the computation fast we use reduction modulo a prime p which
splits totally in the totally real field extension Q(Al. A2, A3, ... ) over Q and use
the Hasse-Weil bound to determine the Fourier coefficients.
Example 3.13.
Let N = 88. Then dim(S2(N)) = 9, the dimension of SJj:ew(N) is 3 and SJj:ew(N)
decomposes over Q into a a two-dimensional and one-dimension factors related
to the eigenforms:

fi = q + Qiq3 + (2 - Qi)q5 - 2Qiq7 + (Qi + l)l- qll + (2Qi - 2)q13

+(Qi - 4)q15 + 2q17 - 4q19 - (8 + 2Qi)q21 + (4 + Qi)q23 + ...
with i E {I, 2} and Q~ - 0'.; - 4= o.
13 = q - 3q3 - 3q5 - 2q7 + 6q9 _ qll + 9q15 _ 6q17 + 4q19 + 6q21 + q23 + 4q25
_9q27 _ 8q29 _ 7q31 + 3q33 + 6q35 _ q37 + 4q41 + 6q43 _ 18q45 + ...

3.3 Some Remarks about the Implementations

The main tool is a fast program which computes the module M and the ac-
tion of the Hecke operators on the elements of M. For the decomposition of
the Hecke operator Tn we have to calculate the minimal (characteristic, resp.)
polynomial of Tn. If n is small w.r.t. the level N it turned out that the repre-
sentation matrix of Tn is a sparse matrix and so we can use an algorithm due
to Wiedemann [22] to compute the minimal polynomial of Tn over various finite
prime fields IFp (with p ~ 231 ) and apply the Chinese remainder theorem to lift
the coefficients to Z. The Hasse-Wei! bound for the eigenvalues gives a bound for
the coefficients of the minimal polynomial. Then we have to factor the minimal
(characteristic, resp.) polynomial over Z to get informations on the decomposi-
tion of S2(N) into simultaneous eigenspaces. The problem is that the degree of
the polynomials is approximately N /12. If we want, for example, to compute the
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 31

minimal polynomial of Tn acting on 8 2 (12007) we have to factor a polynomial

of degree 1000 over Z. At this point we use the C++-library ntl (the author is
V. Shoup) which is a very fast public domain package to factor polynomials over
prime fields and over Z. As additional libraries we used cIn, an efficient package
for multi-precision and polynomial arithmetic (author B. Haible) 2. The other
parts of the program were written by X.Wang and the second author. For the
computation of integral bases we used gp due to H. Cohen.
Actually we used some more tricks like using the Atkin-Lehner involutions to
decompose 8 2 (N) and factoring the minimal polynomial of an Hecke operator Tn
over IFp and we combined this with our knowledge about the degree of the factors
of the polynomial over Z (here again the Hasse-Weil bound plays a helpful role).
More details can be found in [36].

4 Applications
4.1 Cusp Forms of Weight 1 and ~
In the previous section we described how one can compute cusp forms of weight
2: 2. The algorithm depends on the geometric interpretation of these forms. Such
an interpretation is not available for cusp forms of weight one and weight 3/2.

Cusp forms of weight ~:

We define

I; d:= 1 mod 4
Cd . - {
.- H;d:=3mod4

and take (cz + d)1/2 as square root of cz + d with non negative imaginary part.
Definition 4.1. Let N E 4N. For k E ~ + Z define Mk(N, X) (8dN, X), resp.)
as the set oj holomorphic Junctions on lHl bounded near the cusps (vanishing at
the cusps, resp.) such that Jor (~ ~) E ro(N) we have:

J (;::!) = Xed) G) 2k cd 2k (cz + d)1/2) 2k J(z)

(cf. [47]).
In loco cit. one can find the definition of the" Shimura-Shintani" lift 'Pk which
maps these forms into forms of weight 2k - 1.
2 We want to thank V. Shoup and B. Raible for providing us with ntl resp. cin
32 G. Frey, M. Muller

In the frame of elliptic curves the case k = 3/2 is of special interest: Due
to the beautiful theorem of Waldspurger [49] one can compute the value of the
L-series at s = 1 of twists ED of a modular elliptic curve E with corresponding
modular form JE by the Fourier coefficients of a form FE of weight 3/2 with
<p;}.(FE) = fE. (For the precise formulation see [1].)
2
By multiplying with 8-functions one maps S ~ (N) into a product of spaces
S2(N') and then one describes the image as linear subspace ("Tate's trick"). For
example:
If 161N, then the map

<p: S~(N) ---> S2(N) x S2(N)

(22)
J(z) 1-4 (f(z)8 2 (z), J(z)8 3 (z))

where
L L
00 00

qm 2 and 8 3 (z) := 1 + 2 qm 2
m=l,m odd m=l

is injective. Having an element (12, h) = <p(F) in Im(<p), one finds easily F by

the formula
F(z) = h(z) .
8 2 (z)
J. Basmaji implemented this algorithm in his thesis [3] and computed the form
FE for many elliptic curves E. He uses this to get a lot of empirical material
concerning the distribution of values of L-series at s = 1 (and so, according to
the conjecture of Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer, of orders of Selmer groups) of families
of twists of modular elliptic curves. It would be very interesting to have a better
theoretical understanding of these data.

Cusp forms of weight 1:

Another weight which is not accessible directly is k = 1.
Cusp forms of weight 1 are very interesting since they are related to irre-
ducible complex odd two-dimensional Galois representation of GQ for which
Artin's conjecture holds. See [45] or [13] for this topic.
Using again Tate's trick one can find the space of cusp forms of weight one as
an (explicitly describable) subspace of cusp forms of higher weights and levels.
This is used in [24] to determine a of the space Sl(N, X), the cusp forms of level
N, weight 1 and nebentypus X for N = 2"'· n, n odd square-free, lcm(N,4N) S
104 and X a quadratic character. By computing all odd representations of G Q
with corresponding Artin conductors and determinants one can verify Artin's
conjecture numerically in these cases.

4.2 The Degree of Modular Elliptic Curves

Let X be a compact Riemann surface. We denote by (.,.)x the intersection

pairing on H 1 (X,Z) which takes values in Z.
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 33

In the case of X = Xo(N) Wang [51] gives an explicit description of a pairing

on the cuspidal cohomology group Hj,(ro(N), Z) which comes from the cup
product on the cohomology (see also Hida [17] and Haberland [15]). We use
this and the knowledge of H1(Xo(N),Z) to calculate the intersection pairing on
Xo(N) (c.f. [36]).
First we apply this to modular elliptic curves. Let E be an elliptic curve
defined over Q with conductor N associated to a new form f E S"2ew(N) (this
is the special case that dim(A f ) = 1 in (9)). Then we have a modular parame-
terization, i.e. a non-constant morphism

cp: Xo(N) ---> E (23)

of the elliptic curve E. We want to calculate the degree of cpo The map cp induces
a homomorphism
rp: H1(E,Z) ---> Hl(Xo(N),Z).
Since dim( HI (E, Z)) = 2 it has two generators w, W as tl-module. A simple
calculation shows:

(rp(W),rp(W))Xo(N) = deg(cp)(w,w)E

and furthermore 21(w,W)EI = c with c = 1 if E(R) has one real connected

component and c = 2 in the other case. This implies
2
deg(cp) = -1(rp(W),rp(W))xo(N) I
c
and so the degree can be computed if we know the intersection pairing.
Example 4.2.
Let Xo(ll) : y2 + y = x 3 - x 2 - lOx - 20. Then deg(cp) = 1.
For the two modular elliptic curves of level N = 132

El : y2 = x 3 + x 2 + X
E2 : y2 = x 3 - x 2 - 77x + 330

we find deg(cp) = 6 for El and deg(cp) = 30 for E 2 .

For more informations and tables see [54], [7] or [36].
There is another way to interpret deg( cp ) :
Assume that E is a "strong" modular curve, i.e. it does not factor through an
intermediate elliptic curve, and let Cp* (cp*) be the induced maps from Jo(N) to
E (to it's dual, resp.). Then cp* is injective and the kernel of Cp* is an abelian
variety A<p. It is easy to see that

IA<p n cp*(E)1 = deg(cp?

Hence deg(cp)2 describes the order of the largest group of torsion points which
cp*(E) and A<p have in common, and this group is GQ-invariant by definition. In
34 G. Frey, M. Miiller

other words:
There is an abelian variety A defined over Q which has no factor isogenous to E
but which contains a GQ-invariant subspace of order deg( rp? Galois isomorphic
to Edeg(<p), the kernel of the multiplication by deg(rp) on E.
Let us give a third interpretation of deg(rp). Since

II/W = deg(rp)Vol(E),

where II/W = (I, f) is the Petersson inner product and Vol(E) is the volume of
the fundamental discriminant of E we get a relation with the Faltings height,
see [14]:
Let hQ(E) be the Faltings height of E. Then

1 1
hQ(E) = "2log(deg(rp)) -log(lc<p1) - 27r log(11/11)

where c<p is the Manin constant (conjecturally IC<p1 = 1). The height conjecture
for elliptic curves predicts that

(24)

with constants C and d. It is well known that this conjecture implies the ABC-
conjecture. Estimates for IIIII (c.f. [12] and [35]) give: (24) holds if and only
if
log(deg(rp)) ~ O(log(N)).
Therefore it is of great interest to know more about the degree of the modular
parameterization.
One can regard analogous questions in the theory of cusp forms. This is the
subject of the very interesting theory of congruence primes which played a crucial
role in Wiles' proof of a large part of the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture. Let I be
a normalized cusp form oflevel N with integer coefficients. L := (I).l.. nS2(N)(Z)
where the orthogonal complement is taken with respect to the Petersson inner
product. Define r as the largest positive integer such that there exists a cusp
form gEL, with
g == I mod r.

Definition 4.3. A prime number p is called a congruence prime, if p divides r.

Question 4.4. Let Ef be a strong modular curve, rp: Xo(N) ---t Ef be the
modular parameterization of Ef: Does the identity

hold?

It was proved by Ribet [42] (see also Zagier's paper [54]) that

rl deg(rp)lrN i
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 35

for some positive integer i. Furthermore if N is a prime number then the answer
of question (4.4) is yes, see [54].
At the end of this section we come back to the interpretation of deg( cp) as
order of cp*(E) n AlP and ask whether a part of this intersection can be realized
as an intersection between E and another elliptic curve E' defined over Q which
is not isogenous to E. In the language of cusp forms this means that

fE == fE' mod n

for some number n > 1. In the language of mod n representations we have

E[n] ~ E'[n]

as GQ-modules.
The question concerning the existence of such pairs of elliptic curves was
posed by Mazur, [30], page 133. It gave rise to various conjectures (cf. [14], (lb)).
The strongest formulation (due to Kani-Darmon) predicts that for primes l ~ 23
the set of such pairs should be finite and even empty if l is large enough (see also
Kani-Schanz [23] and Kraus-Oesterle [21] for this topic). By checking Fourier
coefficients of cusp forms corresponding to elliptic curves we find examples up
to primes l = 13 (for composite numbers see [18]). In the appendix table (5.3)
we give a list of these examples, see also [36].

4.3 Finding Curve Equations

Again we use our knowledge of the intersection pairing and the holomorphic
differential forms on Xo(N) which we get by the Fourier expansion of cusp
forms. We shall study simple abelian factors A of Jo(N).
We want to calculate the period matrix and the invariants of such an abelian
variety A. Furthermore we want to decide whether A is isogenous to the Jacobian
of a hyperelliptic curve C. If this is the case we determine a model of this curve
Cover Z.
First of all we collect some basic facts about abelian varieties defined over C.
We know that A,t, the coarse moduli space of isomorphism classes of principally
polarized abelian varieties of dimension d, can be parameterized by Sp2d(Z)\IHId
where
IHId := {fl E CdXd I flt = fl; Im(fl) positiv definite} .
The action of SP2d(Z) on IHId is given by:

Sp2d(Z) X IHId -----> IHId; « ~ 15) ,fl) ....... (Afl + B)(Cfl + D)-l
with A,B,C,D E Zdxd.

Remark 4.5. In the case of d = 1 (elliptic curves) we have Yo(l) = SL2(Z)\IHI1 .

An abelian variety A of dimension d defined over the complex numbers can be
viewed as a pair (Cd/A, H), where A is a full ;F;-lattice in Cd and H is a non
36 G. Frey, M. Muller

degenerated Hermitian form such that ImH(A, A) c Z. Furthermore there exists

a {WI, ... ,W2d} of 2d lR-linearly independ vectors of the lattice A, such that

(ImH(wi,Wj)kj=l, ... ,2d = (_OLl fi) E Z2dx2d

with the diagonal matrix

(25)

{WI, ... , W2d} is called a symplectic basis. We form the two complex d x d matrices

It can be shown that

[.?2 [.?i = [.?l [.?~ and

(26)
2i([.?2n~ - [.?l[.?~) is positiv definite.

As a consequence of (26), [.?2 is invertible. We call the matrix

1 -1
[.? := -[.?2 [.?l
ed
the period matrix of the abelian variety A and the coset Sp2d(Z)[.? represents
the isomorphism class of A in Sp2d(Z)\lHld.
Let f be a new form of level N. The corresponding At is a Q-simple factor
of Jo(N) (see theorem (2.21)). In Wang [51] it is shown that the pairing

ImH(A, A) -+ Z

corresponds to the intersection pairing on HI (Xo(N), Z). In the same paper,

Wang proves that one can compute the period matrix as

The next step is to decide whether A f is Q-isogenous to a principally polarized

abelian variety. A sufficient condition (see [51]) is that

holds. Let us assume now that this is the case.

In general there is no criterion to decide whether a principally polarized
abelian variety is isogenous to the Jacobian of a curve (Schottky problem, see
[38]) but in the special case of hyperelliptic curves there is a result due to Mum-
ford and Poor ([41]): If A is simple over Q, principally polarized and certain
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 37

B-series vanish, then A is isogenous to the Jacobian of an hyperelliptic curve.

In the special case d = 2 this is always satisfied [53].
Now we assume that Af is isogenous to the Jacobian of an hyperelliptic curve
C. We want to determine a affine model for this curve over the rational integers.
The algorithm to do this depends mostly on results given in Mumford's Theta-
lectures [39]. To compute the equations over Z one uses a method due to Mestre
[34]. This was worked out and implemented by X. Wang for the case d = 2 and
by H.-J. Weber in his thesis (see [52]) for d::; 5.
We give an example for the simplest case d = 2. For the general case we refer
the reader to [52].
Example 4.6.
For N = 87 = 3·29 the genus of Xo(N) is 9 and the dimension of the space of
new forms is 5. The Jacobian splits in

where Al arises from an old form coming of level 29, A3 is a 3-dimensional factor
and A2 is isogenous to the Jacobian of a hyperelliptic curve of genus 2 associated
to the cusp form of level 87 and weight 2, with Fourier coefficients:

a2 = a, a3 = 1, a5 = -2a + 2 ,a7 = -2a - 1, all = 2a + 1,

al3 = 4a - 3, a17 = 3, . . . . . . a2971 = -70a + 57, a2999 = -4a + 12, ...
with a 2 - a - I = O.
We calculate the intersection matrices for a symplectic basis as

((Wi, Wj)xo(N)kj=l,oo.,4 = (-~f ~f) E Z4x4 with l1f = (5 g) .

The period matrix is

0= ( .
i
0.63235869 ... + 0.89156287 ... -0.01791153 ... + 0.5141950 ...
-0.01791153 ... + 0.5141950 ... t -0.3085645 ... + 1.21905454 ... t
.
i) .
We find a model of the curve C over the complex numbers:

with
Xl = -0.200591196 ... - 0.027617620 ... i
X2 = 0.404999977 ... - 0.374771692 ... i
X3 = 1.314698500 ... - 0.312863721 ... i
and then we compute the absolute invariants as complex numbers

il = 243457.564392771 ... - 0.38641 ... ·1O- 120 i

i2 = 2.855338295 ... - 0.22809 ... ·1O-122i
i3 = 3676.120933706 ... - 0.43387 ... ·1O-122i.
38 G. Frey, M. Miiller

Since we know by theoretical reasons that these complex numbers are rational
numbers with denominators divisible at most by 2,3,29, we guess that

. 23 . 73 5 . 73 3 . 31 . 67 . 73 2 . 181
tl = 34 . 292 t2 = 2. 34 . 292 t3 = 23 . 34 . 292

To determine the curve equation we follow Mestre and have to intersect a cubic
with a quadric both defined over the rational numbers. In our case the quadric
is:
9417394 2 233886344942080 2 248292512862455513309184 2
48627125 Z1 + 9761465990744321 Z2 + 126163850622565659581977625 z3 = 0(27)

We have parameterize the quadric (27), and so we have to find an integral point
on it. One solution is:

Zl = -85739778180234548859481007438550060000
Z2 = -275094235504262977000201272298610147525
Z3 = 230658543012038610306820488436146680226
Now the intersection with the cubic is easily computed and gives a polynomial
f6(X) of degree 6 in Z[x].

Result: y2 = f6(X) is an equation for the curve C.

But the coefficients of f6(X) are rather huge. For example the smallest coefficient
is:
145936780265720849968485226881259356486225191409816304511641352426792208059893706563334033746130944000.

An elementary reduction method due to Lagrange (connected to continued

fractions) makes the coefficients much smaller and we get

(28)

Remark 4.7. We have to test the correctness of (28). We know the expected
conductor of C ( = N9 = 872 ) and the Euler factors of the L-series because
of the Eichler-Shimura relation (see Sec. (4.4)). Therefore we compute the con-
ductor of C and the local Euler factors for primes p by counting points on the
curve C modulo p. If these data match (for sufficiently many Euler factors) we
can be sure that the equation is the correct one (Theorem of Faltings).

With this method, Wang found hyperelliptic curves of genus 2 whose Jacobians
are factors of Jo(N). In the appendix 5 table (5.4) one finds a table computed
by him and partly published in [51].
E. Schaefer and V. Flynn used this table to verify the Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer
conjecture in these cases.
In the appendix table (5.5) there are examples of curves of higher genus
computed by H. -J. Weber.
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 39

4.4 Mordell-Weil Groups over Finite Fields

We consider the following task: Let Cp be an irreducible projective regular curve
of genus 9 over the finite field kp. Let Jcp (kp) be the Jacobian variety of Cpo
Determine #Jcp(kp).
Of course one can try to do this by counting k'-rational points of extension
fields k' of kp. But since k' has to run through all extensions of degree ~ 9 it
is obvious that this is only possible for very small fields kp and small genus g.
The alternative is to determine the L-series Lp(Cp, t) of Cp over kp by a more
structural approach. Then one can use the identity
Lp(Cp, 1) = #Jcp(kp).
In the case of hyperelliptic curves this can be done, at least in principle, by using
the Schoof algorithm which computes Lp(Cp, t) in polynomial time (see Schoof
[44] and Kampk6tter [19]). It turns out that despite of the "nice" complexity of
this algorithm it is rather inefficient if one does not use further information about
Cpo If the genus of Cp is one this additional information is given by a careful
study of modular curves Xo(N) for suitable levels N. This approach goes back
to Atkin and Elkies and was much refined by Morain and Couveignes as well as
by the research group of J. Buchmann in Darmstadt.
At present we do not know such an efficient version of the Schoof algorithm
for curves of genus larger than one. But if we know that Cp is the special fiber
of a curve C whose Jacobian AI is a factor of Jo(N) we can use the Eichler-
Shimura relation (theorem (2.19)) to determine the L-series of Cpo To do this we
only have to compute the characteristic polynomial XTp of the Hecke operator
Tp (p E p) restricted to Jc. In the simplest case kp = Zip we get
XTp(p + 1) = #Jcp(kp)
Therefore we can use the results of subsection 3.1 to compute #Jcp(kp). This
was implemented by J. Basmaji [3]. We give one example:
Example 4.8.
For N = 284 Jo(N) has an 3-dimensional factor AI which is isogenous to the
Jacobian variety of
C: y2 = X7 + 3x6 + 2x5 - X4 - 2x 3 - 2X2 - X - 1.

For P = 1000011149 the characteristic polynomial is

XTp (t) = t 3 + 34755t 2 - 69189426t - 7700504141987
and therefore we find
#Jc)'Fp) = XTp(P+ 1) = 1000068206078811809058120613
which is a prime.
Remark 4.9. The determination of Jcp (kp) has applications to public key cryp-
tosystems based on the discrete logarithm problem. With the described method
one finds interesting examples for this purpose if the genus of Cp is ~ 4.
40 G. Frey, M. Muller

4.5 Mordell-Weil Groups over IQl

We now come to the task of computing the Mordell-Weil group of the Jacobian
of a curve C in the global case. Of course we have to restrict ourself to a very
special situation. We assume that C is a hyperelliptic curve and that Jc is
isogenous to a factor of Jo(N).
We recall the theorem of Mordell-Weil: For a number field K and an abelian
variety A defined over K A(K) is a finitely generated Z-module and hence

where r K is the (geometric) rank ofthe abelian variety A and A( K}tor is the sub-
group of elements of finite order. Moreover A(K) @R has a Euclidean structure
induced by the Neron-Tate height h. We denote by

(P,Q, := ~ (h(P + Q) - h(P) - h(Q))

the corresponding bilinear form on A(K) (see [25]).

Definition 4.10. Let {Pl , ... ,Pr } be elements in A(K) which form a basis of
A(K) @R. Then
R(A(K)):= Idet((hPj,)1
is the regulator of A.
The regulator does not dependent of the choice of the elements {Pt. . .. ,Pr }.
The fundamental conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer relates the arith-
metic invariants of the abelian variety A to analytic properties of the correspond-
ing L-series. In the following we restrict ourselves to the case K = IQl and so we
state this conjecture only in this case. We assume that L(A, s) has an analytic
continuation to C.
Conjecture 4.11. The rank r of A(IQl) is equal to the order of the L-series
L(A,s) at s = 1 and

~L(r)(A, 1) = #III· R(A(IQl)) . Coo~ IIp prime Cp

r. #A(IQl)tor . #A(IQl)tor
holds. Here cp are the Tamagawa numbers at the (finite) places p and Coo is the
Tamagawa number at infinity, III denotes the Tate-Shafarevich group of A(IQl)
and A is the dual of A.
We mentioned in the introduction Manin's conditional algorithm for comput-
ing a basis of the Mordell-Weil group of an abelian variety A assuming the
Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. This algorithm reduces the search for base
points to the computer search for points with Neron-Tate height bounded by an
explicit estimate.
In our case A is a factor of Jo(N) and isogenous to the Jacobian of an hyperellip-
tic curve C. Hence L(C, s) satisfies the assumption on holomorphy. Even better:
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 41

Since we can compute the Fourier expansions of the corresponding cusp forms
we can determine its value at s = 1 very precisely. So the most difficult part of
Manin's algorithm is to compute the height pairing. For elliptic curves there are
several implementations available which do this very efficiently (e.g. in SIMATH
or APECS.) For g( C) 2:: 2 and C hyperelliptic Ch. Hahne developped a method
to compute this height pairing by using Arakelov's intersection theory on the
arithmetic surface associated to C (see [16]). He implemented his algorithm for
curves of genus 2 and applied it to the curves given in the table table (5.4). He
succeeded to find a basis of Jc(IQ) in these cases. The results are:

Level curve equation C / generators Tor/rank

67 y2 + (x 3 + x 2 + l)y = 3x5 + 9x 4 + lOx 3 + 6x 2 + 2x #JC(Q}tor = 1
[x 2 + 2x + 2, 4x + 3], [x 2 + 3x + 6, lOx + 7] rank = 2
73 y2 + (x 3 + x 2 + l)y = _3x 5 _ 4X4 _ x 3 + x 2 + X #JC(Q)tor = 1
[x 2 + 2x - 1, 9x - 2], [x 2 + 2x - 2, lOx - 7] rank = 2
93 y2 + (x 3 + x 2 + l)y = _2x 5 + x4 + x 3 #JC(Q)tor = 1
[x 2 + 3x - 6, 24x - 29], [x 2 - 4x - 3, x + 2] rank = 2
103 y2 + (x 3 + x 2 + l)y = x 5 - 5x 4 + 5x 3 _ 3x 2 #Jc(Qhor = 1
[x 2 - 4x + 2, 18x - 11], [x 2 + 11x - 6, 72x - 37] rank = 2
107 y2 + (x 3 + x 2 + l)y = x 5 + 2x4 + 4x 3 + 4x 2 + 2x #Jc(Qhor = 1
[x 2 + 3,x +4], [x 2 - x+ 1,x] rank = 2
115 y2 + (x 3 + x 2 + l)y = x 5 + x4 + 2x 3 #Jc(Qhor = 1
[x 2 + 1,x - 2], [x 2 + 6,6x + 13] rank = 2

The equations fa of the curve C are changed in order to have minimality at

p=2.
A point of Jc(IQ) corresponds to an ideal class of the integral closure of lQ[x] in

F(x, y) := lQ[x, y] IUd

which is a free module of rank 2 over lQ[x] with integral basis (1, Ll c ) (Lla is
the discriminant of F). In the table a point is given by its coordinates w.r.t. this
basis.
42 G. Frey, M. Miiller

5 Appendix
Table 5.1.
Splitting of SJ]ew(N)

11 1 1 1(1) 46 5 1 1(1)
12 0 0 47 4 4 4(1)
13 0 0 48 3 1 1(1)
14 1 1 1(1) 49 1 1 1(1)
15 1 1 1(1) 50 2 2 1(2)
16 0 0 51 5 3 1(1), 2(1)
17 1 1 1(1) 52 5 1 1(1)
18 0 0 53 4 4 1(1), 3(1)
19 1 1 1(1) 54 4 2 1(2)
20 1 1 1(1) 55 5 3 1(1), 2(1)
21 1 1 1(1) 56 5 2 1(2)
22 2 0 57 5 3 1(3)
23 2 2 2(1) 58 6 2 1(2)
24 1 1 1(1) 59 5 5 5(1)
25 0 0 60 7 0
26 2 2 1(2) 61 4 4 1(1), 3(1)
27 1 1 1(1) 62 7 3 1(1), 2(1)
28 2 0 63 5 3 1(1), 2(1)
29 2 2 2(1) 64 3 1 1(1)
30 3 1 1(1) 65 5 5 1(1), 2(2)
31 2 2 2(1) 66 9 3 1(3)
32 1 1 1(1) 67 5 5 1(1), 2(2)
33 3 1 1(1) 68 7 2 2(1)
34 3 1 1(1) 69 7 3 1(1), 2(1)
35 3 3 1(1), 2(1) 70 9 1 1(1)
36 1 1 1(1) 71 6 6 3(2)
37 2 2 1(2) 72 5 1 1(1)
38 4 2 1(2) 73 5 5 1(1), 2(2)
39 3 3 1(1), 2(1) 74 8 4 2(2)
40 3 1 1(1) 75 5 3 1(3)
41 3 3 3(1) 76 8 1 1(1)
42 5 1 1(1) 77 7 5 1(3), 2(1)
43 3 3 1(1), 2(1) 78 11 1 1(1)
44 4 1 1(1) 79 6 6 1(1), 5(1)
45 3 1 1(1) 80 7 2 1(2)

Explanation of the fourth column: The notation a(b) means that SJ]ew(N) has b
a-dimensional'll'N[GQ]-invariant subspaces.
 ;3 ;3
t?::f
tr tr
(D (D
~ ><
I» 01 01
~
~(D ~ ~
~ ~ II'" ., Large example of a Heeke operator
':'. ,;,; H ~ N = 95,p = 1000002667,9 = 9
~ ~ '" "' ... S'
'1
"' ... II ~ + ..
/I ,;,; H •• H ~'" ~ ~ 23806 -7956 -4126 -8456 20272 -16620 -8164 7070 474
!i", '" /I ~.
"'«:e..,'; /I 0
1IIIII00HDl .....
..... 0 -7752 18882 594 -13176 20272 -21340 -8164 7460 474
H ~ I-'" "" C"'f" oq
:!3"'R5H",~+ ~ =
'1
~ I ~ I 0 H -12482 -5280 6330 -7202 21232 -18724 -11522 16802 4694
(1)
= >
",,""00 g; "'13 ::l.
H~H~""+O (')
(1) 10000 636 -76 27152 -11522 15542 1922 -16328 -3944
1++IH""g. .,=
W<oooW+ H - tr
::i ..... ~.,.'-"+ (1) ATp = 32756 -2040 3000 12366 1050 17646 5280 ~26060 -8164
[,;-
I-"'OOW ~tV ....
.....
'" '-"
W 0
'" g,
"" ""
.,. W
~
(1)
-960 -20390 -12366 -3000 12482 5252 -5280 2850 8164
W
s:::
o
(1)
= -27464 -23466 -12658 -30758 26776 -33640
o
'" 10650 21944 19522
'-" :::: ~
"" -6"
.... ~
4330 -13380 9050 -9050 o -9050 0 22508 0 o
:f: :f: :f: i'i"
(')
II /I II 12484 -10204 -9108 258 -3734 844 586 -13202 25530
... ~ ... ~':::'~bl '1
=
Ol~ 01 .....
~/i~/iO/lg­
=:i . . . =
.,~ Characteristic polynomial of the Heeke operator Tp
i
II ~ /I ~ II :;:; g.
8.
-.lO')-':'O')~O ~ .6'"
XATp (x) = (x 4 - 41852x 3 - 1705573680x 2 + 99715463270960x - 1145905723637314144) '0
""...... .....
"" .....
<0
(x 3 - 72244x 2 + 1423292512x - 4544597778992) (x - 13532)2
'" '" 0 ~
'-" ..... '"
'-" f-~-
""-:rg;""",oo~ ~
00 "" .,. .,. '" y"
o 0 ~ 1)

.,.
W
 44 G. Frey, M. Millier

Example for p = 13:

Weierstra.6 model Conductor

y2 = x 3 + X - 10
El : Nl = 52
E2 : y2 = x 3 - 362249x + 165197113 N2 = 988 = 19· 52 13260
There are no congruences for p > 13 up to N = 3000.

Table 5.4.
Tables of equations of hyperelliptic curves whose Jacobians are factors of Jo(N)

Hyperelliptic curves of genus 2 with real multiplication

Level Affine curve equations defined overZ[ ~]
23 y2 = x 6 + 4x5 _ 18x4 - 142x3 - 351x2 - 394x - 175
29 y2 = x 6 + 2x5 _ 17x4 - 66x 3 - 83x 2 - 32x - 4
31 y2 = x 6 + 4x 5 _ 14x4 - 94x3 - 159x 2 - 98x - 27
63 y2 = x 5 + 27x 4 + 280x 3 + 1512x2 + 7056x + 21168
65 y2 = 3(5x 6 _ 30x5 + 63x4 - 62x3 + 9x 2 + 36x - 8)
65 y2 = _x 6 + lOx5 - 32x4 + 20x 3 + 40x 2 + 6x - 1
67 y2 = x 6 + 8x 5 _ 18x4 + 14x3 - 3x 2 - 2x + 1
73 y2 = x 6 -10x 5 -15x 4 - 2x 3 + 6x 2 +4x+ 1
87 y2 = x 6 + 6x 5 + 13x4 + 18x3 + 10x2 - 3
93 y2 = x 6 _ 6x5 + 5x4 + 6x 3 + 2X2 + 1
103 y2 = x 6 + 6x 5 _ 19x4 + 22x 3 - 10x2 + 1
107 y2 = x 6 _ 4x5 + lOx4 - 18x3 + 17x2 - lOx + 1
115 y2 = 25x6 + 90x 5 + 137x4 + 110x3 + 50x2 + 12x + 1
117 y2 = 3x5 + 150x4 + 3250x3 + 39000x2 + 264147x + 799370
117 y2 = _3(x 6 + 4X4 + 6x 3 + 16x2 + 12x + 9)
125 y2 = x 6 + 4x5 - lOx 4 - 90x 3 - 215x 2 - 230x - 95
133 y2 = -3x6 + 40x 5 - 190x4 + 370x 3 - 251x 2 + 70x - 7
133 y2 = x 6 _ 4x5 _ 18x4 - 26x 3 - 15x2 - 2x + 1
135 y2 = x 6 + 12x5 + 66x4 + 198x3 + 333x2 + 270x + 45
147 y2 = x 6 + 30x5 + 371x 4 + 2422x 3 + 8813x 2 + 16968x + 13524
161 y2 = x 6 _ 12x5 + 26x4 - 22x3 + 17x2 - 6x + 1
167 y2 = x 6 _ lOx 5 + 37x4 - 70x 3 + 70x 2 - 32x + 1
175 y2 = x 6 + 4x5 + 2X4 - 18x3 - 55x 2 - 70x - 35
177 y2 = x 6 + 6x5 + 5x 4 + 6x 3 + 2X2 + 1
188 y2 = x 5 _ X4 + x 3 + x 2 - 2x + 1
189 y2 = 3x5 + 96x4 + 1498x3 + 13356x2 + 64827x + 132300
191 y2 = x 6 _ 18x5 + 125x4 - 402x 3 + 506x 2 + 144x - 607

We remark that the models defined over Z[~] are calculated with a program of Liu
[26] and some corrections are made by E. Schaefer.
 Arithmetic of Modular Curves and Applications 45

Table 5.5.

Hyperelliptic curves of genus 3 with real multiplication

N 41
Curve y2 = x 8 + 4x7 _ 8x 6 _ 66x 5 - 120x4 - 56x 3 + 53x 2 + 36x - 16
Ll.3 ( -1) . 2 16 . 41 6
N 95 = 5·19
Curve y2 = 19x. _ 262x 7 + 1507x 6 - 4784x 5 + 9202x' - 10962x 3 + 7844x 2 - 3040x + 475
Ll.3 216 . 56 . 194
N 284 = 22·71
Curve y2 = x 7 + 3x 6 + 2x5 _ X4 - 2x 3 - 2X2 - X - 1
Ll.3 (_1).71 3
N 385=5·7·11
Curve y2 = x 8 + 12x7 + 68x 6 + 114xs + 282x4 + 176x 3 - 123x 2 - 170x + 25
Ll.3 (_1).216.54.719.116

Hyperelliptic curves of genus 4 with real multiplication

N 47
Curve y2 = x'D + 6x 9 + 11x. + 24x 7 + 19x 6 + 16x 5 _ 13x' - 30x 3 - 38x 2 - 28x - 11
Ll. 4 220 .478
N 119 = 7 ·17
Curve y2 = x 10 + 2x 8 _ llx 6 - 14xs - 40x 4 - 42x 3 - 48x 2 - 28x - 7
Ll.4 220 .76 . 176

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 Local and Global Ramification Properties of
Elliptic Curves in Characteristics Two and Three

Ernst-Ulrich Gekeler

Fachbereich Mathematik, Universitat des Saariandes, Postfach 15 11 50,

D-66041 Saarbriicken, Germany ([email protected])

Introduction
As is well-known, the arithmetic of elliptic curves E in characteristics two and
three shows some special features peculiar to these characteristics.

Let for example E be defined over a local field K of residue characteristic p. The
conductor f(EI K) has the form ftame + fWild with ftame E {O, 1, 2} and fwild = 0
if p > 3. If char(K) = 0 then fwild is bounded by a constant c(K) depending
only on K, but this fails to hold in the case of equal characteristic.
The aim of the present article is twofold.

First, we study the possible conductors f(E I K), where K is a local field of
equal characteristic p = 2 or 3. It turns out that for p = 2, each non-negative
integer n may be realized as a conductor f(EIK) (Thm. 3.3, Cor. 3.4). This
contrasts with the case p = 3, where the set of conductors is {n E No I
n = 2 or n ~ 2 (mod 3)}, or equivalently, the set of wild conductors> 0 is
{n E N I n ~ 0 (mod 3)} (Thm. 3.10). Proofs of these facts are given by
specifying several series of ElK which give rise to the stated conductors, and
examining the possible output of Tate's algorithm. They do not give particular
insight why for p = 3 some conductors are missing.
Second, we consider curves ElK over the global field K = IF'q (T) of character-
istic two or three which are Tate curves at the infinite place and whose finite
ramification is concentrated in one rational place (without restriction, the place
corresponding to T = 0). (Without the condition at infinity, such a curve E
was twisted constant, cf. Prop. 4.2, 4.3.) Using the function field analogue of the
Shimura-Taniyama-Weil correspondence and some properties of Drinfeld modu-
lar curves, we obtain a complete classification of these curves (Thm. 5.4, Cor. 5.5
and 5.6). In some cases, dealt with in sect. 6, we are able to determine the torsion
of the Mordell-Weil group and the possible isogenies between such curves.

The results of this paper had their origin in calculations of Hecke operators in
spaces of automorphic forms over function fields. These were performed in the
framework of the "Schwerpunktprogramm Algorithmische Zahlentheorie und Al-
gebra" of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), whose support is gratefully
acknowledged.

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
50 E.-U. Gekeler

1 Generalities on Elliptic Curves in Characteristics Two

and Three.

In most cases, an elliptic curve E over a field K with algebraic closure K will
be given in WeierstraB form (WF)

(Ll)

This form is preserved by coordinate changes

(1.2) X = u 2X' + r, Y = u 3y' + su 2X' + t with u 1= 0, r, s, t E K.

Such a coordinate change is an r-transformation, s-transformation, t-transforma-

tion if it is given by parameters (u,r,s,t) = (l,r,O,O), (I,O,s,O), (I,O,O,t),
respectively.
Let first the characteristic of K be two. The usual quantities b2, b4, b6, bs , Ll and
j of E are then

b2 = ai, b4 = ala3, b6 = a~
bs = ara6 + ala3a4 + a2a5 + a~
(1.3)
Ll=~~+~~~+~~~+~~+~+~~
j = a~2/Ll.
Coordinate change with (u,r,s,t) yields

ua'l = al
u 2a'2 = a2 + sal + r + S2
u 3 a'3 = a3 + ral
u 4a'4 = a4 + sa3 + (t + rs)al + r2
u 6a'6 = a6 + ra4 + r 2a2 + r3 + ta3 + t 2 + rtal
(1.4) uSb's = bs + rb6 + r 2b4 + r3b2 + r 4
u 6b'6 = bs + r 2b2
u 4b'4 = b4 + rb2
u 2b'2 = b2
u l2 Ll' = Ll
j' =j.

If j 1= 0, we can find (u,r,s,t) that yields (upon replacing X', Y',a'i by X, Y,ai)
a short WeierstraB form (SWF)

(1.5)

s
Here Ll = as and j = a 1 . Note that among all coordinate changes, precisely
the s-transformations preserve (1.5).

(1.6) The condition (a) j 1= °

is equivalent with (b) E is ordinary, with (c)
Aut(E/K) = {±1}, and, if K is finite, with (d) #E(K) is even.
 Ramification of Elliptic Curves 51

(1.7) Let p be the map s t---t S2 + s, and for a E K, let K", / K be the separable
quadratic extension generated by a root s of pes) = a. If E is given in SWF
(1.5), its twist by K", (or simply by a, or by the corresponding character X'" of
Gal(K/K)) is
E", : y2 + XY = X 3 + (a2 + a)X2 + ae.
The set of isomorphism classes of E' / K that over K become isomorphic with
E corresponds bijectively to K/p(K) through a t---t E",. Note however that in
case j(E) = 0, (many) twists E' / K of E exist which are not of the form E",.

(1.8) If K is complete with respect to a discrete valuation v and v(j) < 0 then
(1.5) describes a Tate curve if and only if a2 E p(K) ([10] p. 33).

Let now K have characteristic three. Here the invariants are given by

~=~+~,~=~~-~,~=~+~
(1.9) bs = ara6 - ala3a4 + a2a6 + a2a~ - a~
Ll = -b~bs + b~, j = bVLl.
They transform under coordinate changes according to
ua'l = al - s
u 2a'2 = a2 - sal - S2
u 3a'3 = a3 + ral - t
u 4a'4 = a4 - sa3 - ra2 - (t + rs)al + st
uea'e = ae + ra4 + r 2a2 + r3 - ta3 - t 2 - rtal
(LlO) uSb's = bs + r 3b2
u 6b'6 = be - rb4 + r 2b2 + r3
u 4b'4 = b4 + rb2
u 2b'2 =b2
u 12 ,1' = ,1
j' =j.

Applying s- and t-transformations, we can achieve al = a3 = 0, which is pre-

served by r-transformations. Therefore, if j i- 0, we can even achieve a4 =
(use the r-transformation with r = a4/a2), which gives the SWF
°
(1.11)
y2 = X3 + a2 X2 + ae with
,1 = -a~a6 and j = aVLl = -aVa6.
(1.12) Again, the condition (a) j i- 0 is equivalent with (b) E is ordinary, and
with (c) Aut(E/K) = {±l}.

(1.13) For a E K*, let K",/ K be the extension K", = K( fo). The corresponding
a-twist of the curve E/ K given by (1.11) is
E", : y2 = X 3 + (a2 . a)X2 + ae . a 3.
The set of isomorphism classes of E' / K that over K become isomorphic with E
corresponds to K* / K*2 through a t---t E",. Again, this doesn't remain true if
52 E.-U. Gekeler

j(E) = o.
(1.14) IT K is complete with respect to the discrete valuation v and v(j) < 0
then (1.11) describes a Tate curve if and only if a2 E K*2.

2 Twists (see [5])

In this section, K is a local field, Le., complete with respect to a discrete valuation
v with finite residue class field k(v) of arbitrary characteristic p. We assume
that v is normalized. For an elliptic curve E/K, we let f(E/K) E ~ be its
(exponential) conductor. Then
(2.1) f(E/K) = O,I,~ 2 if and only if E has good, multiplicative, additive
reduction, respectively, and f > 2 implies p E {2,3}. Recall that E is a Tate
curve if and only if E has split multiplicative reduction, and that "multiplicative
reduction" implies v(j(E» < O.
We have ([1], [8]):
(2.2) IT char(K) = 0 then feEl K) :5 2 + 3v(3) + 6v(2), and this estimate is
sharp in the sense that there exists some E / K for which the bound is attained.
We will see that feE / K) is unbounded if char(K) E {2,3}.
Next, let K' be a separable quadratic extension of K. Thus K = KOt for some
a E K as in (1.7), if char(K) = 2, and K' = K(yCi) for some a E K* otherwise.
As usual, we write EOt for the corresponding quadratic twist of an elliptic curve
E/K and XOt for the quadratic character Gal(K/K) ~ Gal(KOt/K) <-+ {±1}.
The conductor f(K'/K) = f(KOt/K) is by definition the least i E ~ such that
every i-unit in K is a norm from K Ot , and equals the conductor of XOt. We have:

(2.3)
KOt/Kunramified ¢} f(KOt/K) =0 and
KOt/Kramified ¢} f(KOt/K) = 1, if p > 2.

Hence f(KOt/K) > 1 can occur for p = 2 only. The following is not difficult to
show (see e.g. [5]1.2, 1.3).
2.4 Proposition. Let char(K) = 2, i.e., K is isomorphic with a field of Lau-
rent series lFq «T»,
where q is a power of 2. The ramified separable quadratic
extensions K' of K are those K' = KOt where v(a) < 0 is maximal among all
v(a + s2 + s), s E K (or, what refers to the same, where v(a) < 0 is odd).
Writing v(a) = -k, the conductor is f(KOt / K) = k + 1.
The next result can easily be verified through a case by case consideration, using
(2.1) and (2.3), provided that p > 3. For the remaining cases of residue char-
acteristics p E {2,3}, the proof given in loco cit. Thm. 1.4 for K = lFq«T»of
characteristic two, applies verbatim.
 Ramification of Elliptic Curves 53

2.5 Theorem. Let ElK be an elliptic curve with conductor f(EIK) E No, and
let Eo: be its twist by the separable quadratic extension Ko:I K with conductor
f(Ko:IK). Then

f(Eo:I K) :::; max.{f(EI K), 2f(Ko:I K)}

with equality if f(EIK) i= 2f(Ko:IK).

Combining (2.4) and (2.5) already yields that in case char(K) = 2 each f E 4N
appears as a conductor of some elliptic curve over K.

3 Which Conductors Occur?

In this section, we determine the set of those f E No that occur as conductors of
elliptic curves over K, a local field of equal characteristic two or three. We denote
by OK, 7r, V, k(v) the ring of integers, a uniformizer, the normalized valuation,
the finite residue class field, respectively.

Let first char(K) = 2. We consider curves ElK of shape

(3.1)
and specify values (3 for which the output of Tate's algorithm can be predicted.
°
We observe that (3 = .d(E) i= and j(E) = (3-1. If v((3) ~ 0, E has good
reduction (v((3) = 0) or split multiplicative reduction (v((3) > 0, cf. (1.8)) with
°
f(EIK) = or 1, respectively.

Let therefore v((3) = -k with some natural number k, and put k = 6l - m

with m E {O, 1, ... , 5}. A coordinate change with (7r1, 0, 0, 0) yields an integral
equation

(3.2)

where v(7r 61 (3)= m. Write

jj:= 7r61 (3 = h m 7rm + h m +l 7r m +1 +... with hi E k(v) <-+ K.

3.3 Theorem. Equation (3.2) is minimal in each of the following cases: (a)
°
m = 1 (b) m = 3 (c) m = 5 (d) m = 2, h3 i= (e) m = 4, 1 ~ 2, h5 i=
(f) m = 0, hI i= 0.
°
The conductors f = f (ElK) and K odaira types of E are given by:
(a) f = 61 + 1 = k + 2, type = n (b) f = 6l- 1 = k + 2, type = 10
(c) f = 61- 3 = k + 2, type = n" (d) f = 6l - 2 = k, type = 10
(e) f = 61 - 4 = k, type = n" (f) f = 61 = k, type = II.
3.4 Corollary. Let K be a local field of equal characteristic two. Each non-
negative integer occurs as the conductor of some elliptic curve E over K.
54 E.-U. Gekeler

Proof. The cases (a), ... ,(f) yield all the conductors I = 61 + 1,61 - 1,61 - 3,61-
2,61 - 4,61 with I ~ 3. Clearly, I = 0,1,2 are also attained, e.g. I = 2 by the
curve
y2 + 1I"XY + 1I"Y = X3. 0
3.5 Remarks. Cases (a),(b),(c) of (3.3), leading to odd conductors I, were al-
ready treated in [5J. The non-vanishing condition in (d2,(e),(f) is independent of
the choice of uniformizer 11". Its content is that f3 and f3 cannot be well approxi-
mated by squares.

Proolof Theorem 3.3. We apply the Tate algorithm ([14J, pp. 47-52), using the
notation given there. The quantities al, . .. , Ll of (3.2) are al = 11"1, a2 = a3 =
a4 = 0, a6 = i3, b2 = 11"21, b4 = b6 = 0, bs = 11"21 i3, Ll = 11"61 i3. We first deal with
the cases (a),(b),(c), where k is odd. Here the algorithm terminates without a
coordinate transformation.
Ifm = 1, the algorithm stops in step 3 with type II and 1= v(Ll) = 61+1 = k+2.
If m = 3, we pass step 5, where the polynomial (8.1) of loco cit. is peT) =
T3 + 11"- 3i3. Since peT) (mod 11") has three different roots in the algebraic clo-
sure of k(v), the algorithm stops in step 6, the type is IQ, and I = v(Ll) - 4 =
61-1 = k + 2.
If m = 5, peT) has a triple root 0 (mod 11"). The algorithm stops at step 10 with
type II" and I = v(Ll) - 8 = 61 - 3 = k + 2.
In the remaining cases, the algorithm requires some coordinate changes.
Let first m = 2, h3 -=1= O. We pass step 5 as before, having 1I"Ial and a2, 1I"21a3 and
a4. To obtain 1I"31a6, we perform the t-transformation with some t E OK such
that v(t2 + i3) ~ 3. This preserves the case conditions accumulated so far. Note
that vet) = 1. We now have

where in view of our condition h3 -=1= 0, the valuation v(a6) is 3. The polynomial
peT) is peT) = T3 + t1l"1-2T + 1I"-3(t2 + i3), which has three different roots
(mod 11"). Hence the algorithm stops in step 6 with type 10 and I = v(Ll) - 4 =
61- 2 = k.
Next, assume m = 4, I ~ 2, h5 -=1= O. After passing step 5, the polynomial peT) =
T3 + 11"- 3i3 has zero as a triple root (mod 11"), hence we are in the third branch.
Furthermore, the polynomial Q(Y) = y2 + 11"- 4i3 has a double zero (mod 11").
Applying a t-transformation with t E OK such that v(t 2 + i3) ~ 5 (which again
preserves the preceding case conditions) gives (*) with v(a4) ~ 4 and v(a6) = 5.
Thus the algorithm stops in step 10 with type II' and I = v(Ll) - 8 = 61- 4 = k.
Let finally m = 0 and hi -=1= O. Already in step 2, we have to use at-transformation
with t E OK such that v(t 2 + i3) ~ 1.
We get (*) with v(a6) = 1, which lets the algorithm stop in step 3 with Type II
and I = v(Ll) = 61 = k. 0
Next, we deal with the analogous case where char(K) = 3. We use the curve
E / K with equation
(3.6)
 Ramification of Elliptic Curves 55

to show that each fEN with f ~ 3, f 1= 2 (mod 3) is a conductor. We observe

°
that (3 = .1(E) 7= and j(E) = (3-1. For the same reason as in characteristic
two, we restrict our attention to the case whtlre v«(3) = -k with some kEN,
k = 61 - m, m = {O, 1, ... , 5}. A coordinate change with (11'1,0,0,0) yields the
integral equation
(3.7)
where /3 := 11'61 (3 has v(/3) = m.
3.8 Proposition. Equation (3.7) is minimal if k is not divisible by 3, i.e., if m E
{I, 2, 4, 5}. The conductors f(EI K) and Kodaira types are f = 6l + 1 = k + 2,
type = II for m = 1, f = 6l = k + 2, type = IV for m = 2, f = 6l- 2 = k + 2,
type = IV* for m = 4 and f = 6l- 3 = k + 2, type = II* for m = 5.
Proof. The relevant quantities of (3.7) are a1 = a3 = a4 = 0, a2 = 11'21, a6 = /3,
b2 = 11'21, b4 = 0, b6 = /3, bs = 11'21/3, .1 = 11'61/3. From this, the first two
cases are straightforward. Suppose m ~ 4. The polynomial peT) ([14], 8.1)
°
is peT) = T3 + 11'2/-1 x 2 - 11'-3/3, which has as a triple zero (mod 11'). If
m = 4 then Q(Y) = y2 -11'-4/3 has different roots (mod 11'), hence the algorithm
terminates in step 8 with type IV* and f = v(.1) - 6 = 6l - 2. If m = 5 then
Q(Y) has a double root (mod 11') and we end up in step 10 with type II* and
f = v(.1) - 8 = 6l - 3. 0
Again, the occurrence of f = 0,1,2 as conductors is easily seen, take e.g. the
curve
y2 = X 3 + 1I'X 2 + 1I'X
for f = 2. Together with (3.8), this yields

(3.9)
{J E ~ I f = 2 or f 1= 2 (mod 3)} C
{J E No If = f(EIK) for some elliptic curve ElK}.
3.10 Theorem. The two sets in (3.9) agree. That is, a non-negative integer f
is the conductor of some elliptic curve E over the local field K of characteristic
three if and only if f = 2 or f 1= 2 (mod 3).
Proof. It remains to show that f = 5, 8, 11, ... cannot be a conductor. This will be
done by examining the possible output of the Tate algorithm. The case j(E) =
is easily dealt with directly. Among the three remaining cases v(j(E)) > 0,
°
v(j(E)) = 0, v(j(E)) < 0, only the first one may produce conductors f strictly
larger than 2, as follows from (2.1), (2.3), and (2.5).
Thus let ElK be an elliptic curve with v(j(E)) > 0 and f(EI K) ~ 2, given in
WF (1.1). We may suppose a1 = a3 = 0 and a2,a4,a6 E OK. Then

b2 = a2, b4 = -a4, b6 = a6, bs = a2a6 - a~,

.1 = -a~a6 + a~a~ - a~, j = a~/.1,
hence V2 := v(a2) > 0 and V4 := v(a4) > O. Applying a suitable r-transformation
if necessary, we may further assume that V6 := v(a6) > O. (Here and in what
56 E.-U. Gekeler

follows, we allow ai = 0 and use the intuitive rules for inequalities involving
Vi = 00.)
I
Since v{b 2) = V2 > 0, we are in step 3. Suppose that Va = 11, in which case the
algorithm stops with type II, f = v{,1). Among the valuations 3V2 + 1, 2V2 + 2V4,
3V4 of the three summands -a~aa, a~a~, -al of ,1, it is impossible that 2v2+2v4
is least. If 3V2 + 1 = 2V2 + 2V4 then 3V4 < 3V2 + 1 = 2V2 + 2V4, hence v{,1) = 3V4.
If 2V2 + 2V4 = 3V4 then 3V2 + 1 < 2V2 + 2V4 = 3V4, hence v{,1) = 3V2 + l.
Therefore in any case, f = v{,1) ~ 2 (mod 3).
For further use, we label the present argument giving v{,1) by a (#).
I
Now assume Va ;?: 2. Ifl v{bs) = 21 (or equivalently, V4 = 11), the algorithm stops
with type III, f = v{,1) - 1 = 2.
Assume v{bs ) ;?: 3. Iflva = 21, we have type IV with f = v{,1) - 2. As in (#),
v{,1) = min{3v2 + 2, 3V4}, and thus f = v{,1) - 2 ~ 2 (mod 3).
Assume Va = v{b a) ;?: 3. Since V2 ;?: 1, V4 ;?: 2, Va ;?: 3, the polynomial P{T) =
T3+7r-la2T2+7r-2a4T+7r-3aa has coefficients in OK. Let P{T) be its reduction
I I
modulo 7r. We distinguish the following cases: (a) V2 = 11 (b) V2 > 1, V4 = 21
(c) V2 > 1, V4 > 2.
Case (a) is ruled out since then v(j) = v{aV,1) = 6 - v{,1) ::; 0 contradicts the
assumption v{j) > O.
In case (b), P{T) = T3 + cT + d with 0 t= c E k{v), which has three different
roots. Hence the type is 10 and f = v{,1) - 4 = 2.
In case (c), P{T) has a triple root, which we may assume T = 0, using a suitable
r-transformation if necessary. We then have V2 ;?: 2, V4 ;?: 3, Va ;?: 4.
If IVa = 41, the type is IV" and f = v{,1) - 6. Arguing as in (#), we get v{,1) =
min{3v2 + 4, 3V4} and f = v{,1) - 6 ~ 2 (mod 3).
Next, assume Va ;?: 5. If IV4 = 31, we have type III" and f = v{,1) - 7 = 2.
Let now finally V4 ;?: 4. If IVa = 51, the type is II' and f = v{,1) - 8. By means
of (#), we get v{,1) = min{3v2 + 5, 3V4} and f = v{,1) - 8 ~ 2 (mod 3).
If on the other hand Va ;?: 6, we may replace (a2' a4, aa) by (7r-2a2, 7r-4a4, 7r-aaa)
and start over. Since the algorithm stops after a finite number of loops, the only
f == 2 (mod 3) that may appear is f = 2. 0

4 Pencils of Elliptic Curves with One or Two Places of

Bad Reduction

For the remainder, we adapt the following notation. lFq is a finite field with q
elements (of characteristic two or three in most cases), and A is the polynomial
ring lFq [T] with field of fractions K = lFq (T) and degree function deg: K-+
Z U {-oo}. For a place V of K, K v , Ov, k{v) denotes the v-adic completion,
the completed v-adic integers and the residue class field, respectively. We simply
write "v = 0" and "v = 00" for the places corresponding to (T = 0) and
 Ramification of Elliptic Curves 57

(T = 00). If E/K is an elliptic curve, we let

cond(E/K) = II (V)f(E/K v )
v place of K

be the multiplicatively written conductor of E. Its support as a divisor on K

consists of the places v where E has bad reduction. The following is well-known
(see e.g. [13]):

(4.1) If E/K is non-constant, cond(E/K) is a divisor of degree at least four.

Our aim is to describe those E / K whose conductor is essentially supported in

one rational place of K.

The next result is proven in [5] Prop. 2.1.

4.2 Proposition. Let q be even, and let E / K have good reduction outside of
{oo}. Then j(E) E IF'q.

Depending on (a) 01= j(E) E IF'q (b) j(E) = 0, E is a quadratic twist (see (1.7))
of
E(j) : y2 + Xy = X 3 + rl (j = j(E))
or a twist (not necessarily quadratic) of

E(O) : y2 + Y =X 3•
Classifying the possible twists is easy in case (a) (lac. cit.) and difficult/still to
be carried out in case (b) (see [15]).
The same statement is true in characteristic three.
4.3 Proposition. Let q be a power of three and E / K an elliptic curve with good
reduction off {oo}. Then j(E) E IF'q.

Proof. Suppose that j(E) is non-constant. Then it has a pole at the unique place
00 of bad reduction, and E/ Koo is a twisted Tate curve. From (2.3) and Theorem
2.5 we see that f(E/Koo) ~ 2, Le., cond(E) = oof(E/K~} of total degree ~ 2,
which is impossible. 0

Again, depending on (a) 0 =f. j(E) E IF'q, (b) j(E) = 0, E is a quadratic twist of

E(j) : y2 = X 3 + X2 - r 1

or a (non-quadratic in general) twist of the curve

E(O) : y2 = X 3 - X.

Since the requirement of good reduction outside of one rational place v leads to a
twisted constant curve (in characteristics two and three; in larger characteristics,
58 E.-U. Gekeler

such curves ElK cannot exist at all), we now admit two rational places v, w of
bad reduction of ElK. Again from (2.3), (2.5) and (4.1) (see also [5J 3.3), we
have the next two statements.

(4.4) There doesn't exist an elliptic curve ElK with multiplicative reduction at
the two rational places v,w of K and good reduction off {v,w}.

(4.5) Let ElK have multiplicative reduction at wand good reduction off {v, w},
where v i- w are rational places of K. Such curves ElK can only exist in char-
acteristics two or three, in which case v(j{E)) ~ o.

Given ElK as in (4.5), we can always assume that v = 0, w = 00. FUrther,

replacing E by its K'-twist if necessary, where K' = IFq2 (T) is the unramified
quadratic extension of K, we may further achieve that EI Kw = EI Koo is a Tate
curve, i.e., has split multiplicative reduction. In what follows, we will therefore
study elliptic curves ElK subject to the following condition:

(4.6) ElK has good reduction outside of {O, oo} and split multiplicative reduc-
tion at 00.
These curves will be classified in the next section.

5 A Property of Drinfeld Modular Curves

For what follows, we introduce some more notation. More details, precise defi-
nitions and statements etc. can be found in [3J, [4], [7J.
Let C = Coo be the completed algebraic closure of Koo and [l = C - Koo the
Drinfeld upper half-plane. For a subgroup r of finite index of r{l) = GL{2, A),
we let Xr be the associated compactified Drinfeld modular curve. It is a smooth
projective algebraic curve defined over a finite abelian extension K' of K con-
tained in K oo , and with set of C-points Xr{C) = r \ [l u r \ JP'l{K). (As usual,
r acts through fractional linear transformations.) The finite set r\ JP'l{K) is the
set of cusps of X r . If r is a congruence subgroup, Xr is (one component of)
the generic fiber of an A-scheme the points of which classify rank-two Drinfeld
A-modules with a certain level structure depending on r. In this case, also the
special fibers Xr x k{v) (va place of K) are defined, and may be described via
the modular interpretation.

Let n be a monic element of A and

r = ro{n) = { (;~) E r{l) I c == 0 (mod n) }

the Hecke congruence subgroup with conductor n. The curve Xo{n) := Xr is
defined over K and has good reduction off 00 and the places dividing n. In the
present context, the importance of the Xo{n) results from the following theorem,
the K -analogue of the Shimura-Taniyama-Weil conjecture, see [7J.
 Ramification of Elliptic Curves 59

5.1 Theorem. For each elliptic curve ElK with the properties
EIKoo is a Tate curve, and cond(EIK) = (n)(oo)
((n) and (00) being regarded as divisors on K),

there exists a "Weil uniformization", i.e., a dominant K -morphism from Xo(n)

to E. Equivalently, E is an isogeny factor of the Jacobian Jo(n) of Xo(n).

In the following, by a "curve" we understand a smooth geometrically connected

projective algebraic curve.
5.2 Definition. A curve X over an algebraically closed field of characteristic p
is called ordinary if the p-rank r(X) of its Jacobian J(X) equals its genus g(X).
A curve X over K is ordinary at a place v of good reduction if the geometric fiber
X x k(v) over the algebraic closure of the residue class field k(v) is ordinary.

Let 1r : Y ~ X be a galois cover of curves over an algebraically closed field

of characteristic p. Suppose that G = Gal(YI X) is a p-group. For each closed
point y of Y, we let Gy,i be the i-th ramification group at y ([12), ch. IV). The
following criterion is Proposition 1 in [9].
5.3 Proposition (Raynaud). Y is ordinary if and only if X is ordinary and for
all y E Y, the second ramification group G y ,2 vanishes.

The preceding will be used as follows. We show that certain Drinfeld modular
curves Xo(n) are ordinary at certain places v of K. Together with (5.1), this
yields the ordinarity of elliptic curves ElK with cond(E) = (n)(oo) at v and,
using (1.6) and (1.12), (non-) divisibility properties of the j-invariants of such
ElK.
5.4 Theorem (cf. [5] 3.5). The Drinfeld modular curve Xo(Tk) is ordinary at
all the finite places v =f. 0 of K.

Proof. For convenience, we give here the proof of loco cit.

(i) For kEN, let Gk be the subgroup

Gk ={ (;!) E r(1) I a == d == 1 (mod T), c == 0 (mod Tk)}

of r(1). Each Gk+1 is normal in Gk with factor group G k lGk+l -=+

IF'q.
(ii) Let Xk := XO k be the modular curve attached to G k . Like Xo(Tk), it is
defined over K (see e.g. the proof of VII, Thm. 1.9 in [3]).
(iii) X k has good reduction at v, the cusps of Xk are K-rational points, and the
reduction map redk from {cusps of Xk} to {cusps of X k x k(v)} is bijective.
This follows from the interpretation of Xk as a moduli scheme.
(iv) X k x K is ordinary. This is a general property of Drinfeld modular curves.
(v) Let 1rk : Xk+l ~ Xk be the natural projection map, which by (i) and (ii)
is galois with group Qk ~ IF'q. The generic fiber 1rk x K is unramified off
60 E.-U. Gekeler

the cusps. In view of (iv) and Raynaud's criterion, the second ramification
group Qk,y,2 is trivial for each cusp y of Xk+l.
(vi) The Hurwitz formula ([12] VI sect. 4) together with (iii) implies that 7rk x K
and 7rk x k(v) have precisely the same ramification structure. That is, both
are unramified off cusps, and for each cusp y of Xk+l, redk+l identifies Qk,y,i
with Qk, red k+l(y),i.
(vii) Combining ~ (vi) with (5.3), we see that Xk+l x k(v) is ordinary if and
only if Xk x k(v) is.
(viii) As is well-known (e.g. [3] VII Thm. 5.13, or [6] Cor. 5.7), Xl has genus
zero and is therefore ordinary, as is its special fiber Xl x k(v).
(ix) By (vii) and (viii), X k x k(v) and therefore also its quotient Xo(Tk) x k(v)
is ordinary for all kEN. D

5.5 Corollary. Assume that K = IF'q(T) has characteristic two, and let E/K be
an elliptic curve as in (4.6).

(i) E is K -isomorphic with a curve

where (3 = c· T- k , C E~, kEN and a E T-llF'q[T- l ].

(ii) Each E a ,f3 as in (i) has the properties (4.6).
(iii) E is K -isogeneous with some E a ,f3 as above, where k is odd and a is an odd
polynomial in T- l . Such an E a ,f3 is called a standard curve in characteristic
two.
(iv) For E = E a,f3 as in (iii), we have cond(E/K) = (0)/(00) with f =
max{k + 2,2 + 2 deg- a}.

(Here and in the sequel, an "odd" polynomial in T-l is some a E T- l lF'q[T- 2 ].

By "deg- a" in (iv), we mean the degree in T- l .)

Proof (cf. [5], Cor. 3.6). (i) Since E/ Koo is a Tate curve, its j-invariant j = j(E)
doesn't vanish, and E has a SWF (1.5). Now j = a 6l has a pole at 00 and,
by (1.6), (5.1) and (5.4), no other finite prime divisors than T, which yields the
shape of (3 = a6. Let a := a2. By (2.5), the extension Ka/K (see (1.7)) must
be unramified off {O} and split at 00 in order that E a,f3 = (Eo,f3)a satisfy the
conditions of (4.6). From (2.4) we see that a can be chosen as stated.
(ii) The arguments of (i) may be reversed.
(iii) Let ""," denote K-isogeny. We have Ea,f3 '" Ea2,f32 ~ Ea,f32 by the Frobenius
isogeny. Since the constant field IF'q is perfect, we can achieve k odd in the same
isogeny class. Replacing further a by a + pes) if necesary, we can annihilate the
even terms in a.
(iv) results from (2.4), (2.5) and (3.3). D

5.6 Corollary. Assume that K = IF'q (T) has characteristic three, and let E/ K
be as in (4.6).
 Ramification of Elliptic Curves 61

(i) E is K -isomorphic with a curve

EfJ : y2 = X 3 + X2 - /3,
where /3 = c' T- k , C E W;, kEN.
(ii) Each EfJ as in (i) has the properties (4.6)
(iii) E is K -isogeneous with some EfJ as above, where k is not divisible by three.
Such an EfJ is called a standard curve in characteristic three.
(iv) For E = EfJ as in (iii), we have cond(E/K) = (O)k+2(oo).

Proof. Analogous with the proof of (5.5), using (3.8) instead of (3.3). 0

Note that no quadratic twists of EfJ occur since there is no quadratic exten-
sion K",/ K unramified off {O} except for the quadratic constant field extension.
Standard curves in characteristics two and three are studied in more detail in
section 6.

(5.7) The proof scheme of Theorem 5.4 may be applied to more general sit-
uations. Suppose that X = Xo(n) is covered by some X k , where the series
XkH ~ Xk --t ... Xl of Drinfeld modular curves satisfies:
(i) All the Xk are defined over K and have good reduction at the place v of K;
(ii) For each k, 1Tk is galois with a p-group as its Galois group;
(iii) Xl is ordinary at v.
Then all the X k and therefore X are ordinary at v. (The condition that all
the Xk must be defined over K can be weakened, if we accept some technical
complications in the proof.) We illustrate that generalization with two examples.
More examples and a systematic study of the generalization alluded to will be
found in [11].
5.8 Example. Let K = lF2 (T). For each pair (k, l) of natural numbers and each
place v f; 0,1 of K, the Drinfeld modular curve XO(Tk(T + 1)1) is ordinary
at v. Consequently, each elliptic curve over K with conductor cond(E/ K) =
(O)k(I)I(oo) and Tate reduction at 00 has a j-invariant of the form j(E) =
TT(T + 1)8 with some r, s E Z, r + s > O. It may therefore be written in SWF
y2 + Xy = X 3 + aX 2 + T-T(T + 1)-',
where a E K is such that the quadratic extension K",/ K is unramified off {O, I}
and split at 00. (Such a are easily classified, using (2.4).)

Proof. Let X k = Xo(Tk(T + l)k). Each Xo(Tk(T + 1)1) is covered by X m , where

m = max{ k, l}, and the three conditions of (5.7) hold. «i) is well-known, (ii) is
easily verified and (iii) holds since Xl = Xo(T(T + 1)) has genus zero.) 0

5.9 Example. Again, let K = =

lF2 (T), but n T2+T+1. The Drinfeld modular
curve Xo(n k ) is ordinary at all finite primes v f; (n), with similar consequences
for elliptic curves E/K with cond(E/K) = (n)k(oo).
62 E.-U. Gekeler

Proof. Xo(n k ) is covered by X k , the modular curve corresponding to

G := == 1 (mod n) }.
{(acdb) E GL(2 ' A) I ca==== 0d(mod
k nk)

The series (Xk) satisfies the conditions of (5.7) except that the X k are defined
over the ray class field K(n) of K with conductor (n), and (i) and (iii) hold only
for all the extensions v' of v to K (n). (This weakening suffices for the conclusion.)
o

6 Some Global Properties of Standard Elliptic Curves

Here we give some results about the curves E"',f3 and Ef3 that appear in (5.5)
and (5.6).
6.1 Theorem ([5), Thm. 5.5). Let q = 2, i.e., K = lF2(T).
(i) The standard curves E""f3 are pairwise non-isogeneous.
(ii) The isogeny class of the standard curve E""f3 consists of E""f3, E""f3 2 , E"',f34, . ..
(iii) The Mordell- Weil group of any standard curve is torsion-free.

Proof. In view of (5.5), (ii) will follow from (i).

(i) Suppose that E := E""f3 '" E"",w =: E'. Let f be the common conductor of
E and E' at v = 0, and let d, d' be the degrees of a, a' in T-l, respectively.
Case f odd. Then max{2d,2d'} < f - 2. If (3 = T-k, (3' = T-k', we have
k = f - 2 = k', hence (3 = (3' and E x K ~ E' x K. In view of EndK ( E) = Z,
any K -isogeny from E to E' is some multiplication, so E ~ E' and a = a'.
Case f even. Twisting both E and E' by a', we get E",+"" ,13 = (E"',f3 )"" =
(E)"" '" (E')"" = (E"" ,13' )"" = E o,f3" whose common conductor is odd. From the
case f odd, (3 = (3' and a + a' = 0, i.e., a = a'.
(iii) Let w be the place of K corresponding to T + 1, with residue class field
k(w) ~ lF2 • Since a standard curve E has good ordinary reduction E at w, the
number nw of k(w)-rational points of E is even, hence nw = 2 or 4. Now the
reduction map from E(K) to E(k(w)) is injective on the odd torsion part of
E(K), which shows that E(K)tor is a 2-group. Since the non-trivial 2-torsion
point (0, T- k / 2 ) of E(K) fails to be K-rational, actually E(K}tor = {O}. 0

6.2 Theorem. Let q = 3, i.e., K = lF3 (T).

(i) The standard curves Ef3 are pairwise non-isogeneous.
(ii) The isogeny class of the standard curve Ef3 consists of Ef3, Ef33, Ef39, . ..
(iii) The Mordell- Weil group of any standard curve is torsion-free.

Proof. As before, (ii) follows from (i) and (5.6).

(i) Let E = Ef3 '" Ef3' = E' have conductor f at v = o. Then (3, (3' = ±T2 -!,
i.e., (3 and (3' agree up to sign. Let w be the place (T -1) of K. Mod w, Ef3 and
E-f3 reduce to the curves with equations y2 = X3 + X2 ± 1, which have 6 (for
 Ramification of Elliptic Curves 63

the +sign) and 3 (for the -sign) rational points over k(w) ~ IF'3. Hence E(3 and
E_(3 are non-isogeneous and {3 = {3', which shows (i).
(iii) From the above, a standard curve has at most cyclic 2- or 3-torsion and
no l-torsion for primes 1 > 3. Suppose that E has a non-trivial 2-torsion point.
It yields an isogeny cp: E --+ E' to some E' which itself is isogeneous with
some standard curve E" through a purely inseparable isogeny 7/J: E" --+ E'.
We see from (i) that E = E". The composite of 7/J with the transpose of cp is an
endomorphism of E of degree 2 x power of 3, which contradicts the fact End(Z) =
Z. The non-trivial 3-torsion points of ETk and E_Tk are (T- k/3, ±T-k/3) and
(_T- k/ 3, ±T-k/3), respectively, and are not K-rational for standard curves. 0

For a not necessarily prime constant field IF'q, we still can describe isogenies of
standard curves in some cases.

6.3 Theorem. Let q be a power of p E {2,3}, K = IF'q (T), and E a ,{3 (resp. E(3)
the standard curves in the two cases. There are no K -isogenies between standard
curves sharing the conductor (0)1 (00) at least in the following cases:
(i) p = 2, f = 3
(ii) p = 2, f = 4
(iii) p = 3, f = 3

Proof. First, recall some properties of the zeta functions of elliptic curves E / K
subject to (4.6).
For each place v i- 0,00 of K, let qv = #k(v), nv = #Ev(k(v)), the number of
k( v )-rational points of the reduction Ev, and Cv = qv + 1- nv. The zeta function
is

v
with Pv(s) = (1- cvq;S + q~-2s) if v is different from 0 and 00, Poo(s) = 1- q-S,
and Po(s) = 1. It is actually a polynomial in q-S of degree deg(cond(E/ K)) - 4
(which "explains" why cond(E/ K) has always degree at least 4. More details
about zeta functions can be found in [13], where however a different normaliza-
tion is used).
(i) The curves in question are the E O,{3, where {3 = b· T- 1 with some b E ~. The
multiplicative group ~ acts transitively on these through coordinate changes
"Iu : T = u . T' in K. Suppose that E = E o,{3 ,..., E O,{3' = E', where E O,{3' =
"I~(Eo,{3) with some u E ~ of order r. If v' = "I~(v) is the place v transformed by
"Iu, we have cv(E) = cv,(E') = cv,(E). Hence v f---t cv(E) is constant on orbits
of the subgroup (u) generated by u. In particular,

L cv(E) == 0 (mod r).

deg{v)=l
v¢o,oo

But 1 + E cv(E) is the coefficient of q-S in (E, s), hence vanishes since (E, s)
equals the constant 1. Therefore, r = 1 and {3 = {3'.
64 E.-U. Gekeler

(ii) Here we deal with curves Ea,{J, where a = aT-I, /3 = bT-I and a, bare
non-vanishing elements of lFq • Suppose two such are isogeneous, corresponding
to (a,/3) = =
(aT-I,bT- 1) and (0',/3' ) (aIT-1,b'T- 1), respectively. Applying
the ai-twist to Ea,{J and Ea',{J' yields Ea+a',{J""" EO,{J" which implies a+a' 0, =
hence a = a ' and EO,{J ,...., EO,{J' and finally /3 = /3' by (i).
(iii) The proof is identical to the one given in case (i). 0
6.4 Corollary. Let Jo(Tf) be the Jacobian of the Drinfeld modular curve Xo(Tf),
and Jeew(Tf) the corresponding new part. According to the cases of (6.3), we
have the following isogenies:
(p = 2)
(p = 2)
(p = 3),
where a = aT-I, /3 = bT- 1, and a, b run through F; .
Proof. The genera of Xo(Tf) equal 0, q - 1, q2 - 1 for f = 2,3,4, as results
from e.g. [1] Satz 3.4.18 or [6] Thm. 2.17. Therefore, JO(T3) =
J8 ew (T3) and
dim Je eW (T4) = (q _1)2. The assertion now follows from (5.1) and (6.3). 0

References
1. A. Brumer and K. Kramer: The conductor of an abelian variety. Compo Math. 92
(1994), 227-248.
2. E.-U. Gekeler: Drinfeld-Moduln und modulare Formen iiber rationalen Funktio-
nenkiirpern. Bonner Math. Schriften 119 (1980).
3. E.-U. Gekeler: Drinfeld modular curves. Lect. Notes Math. 1231, Springer 1986.
4. E.-U. Gekeler: Analytical construction of Weil curves over function fields. J. Th.
des Nombres de Bordeaux 7 (1995), 27-49.
5. E.-U. Gekeler: Highly ramified pencils of elliptic curves in characteristic two. Duke
Math. J. 89 (1997), 95-107.
6. E.-U. Gekeler and U. Nonnengardt: Fundamental domains of some arithmetic
groups over function fields. Int. J. Math. 6 (1995), 689-708.
7. E.-U. Gekeler and M. Reversat: Jacobians of Drinfeld modular curves. J. reine
angew. Math. 476 (1996), 27-93.
8. P. Lockhart, M. Rosen and J. Silverman: An upper bound for the conductor of an
abelian variety. J. Alg. Geom. 2 (1993), 569-601.
9. M. Raynaud: Mauvaise reduction des courbes et p-rang. C.R. Acad. Sci. Paris 319
(1994), 1279-1282.
10. P. Roquette: Analytic theory of elliptic functions over local fields. Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, Giittingen 1970.
11. A. Schweizer: In preparation.
12. J.-P. Serre: Corps locaux. Hermann, Paris 1968.
13. T. Shioda: Some remarks on elliptic curves over function fields. Asterisque 209
(1992), 99-114.
14. J. Tate: Algorithm for determining the type of a singular fiber in an elliptic pencil.
In Lect. Notes Math. 476, Springer 1975, 33-52.
15. A. Weil: Exercices dyadiques. Invent. Math. 27 (1974), 1-22.
 Techniques for the Computation of Galois
Groups

Alexander Hulpke

School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences,

The University of St. Andrews,
The North Haugh,
St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS, United Kingdom
email:ahulpke!Ddcs.st-and.ac . uk

Abstract. This note surveys recent developments in the problem of

computing Galois groups.

Galois theory stands at the cradle of modern algebra and interacts with many
areas of mathematics. The problem of determining Galois groups therefore is of
interest not only from the point of view of number theory (for example see
the article [39] in this volume), but leads to many questions in other areas of
mathematics. An example is its application in computer algebra when simplifying
radical expressions [32].
Not surprisingly, this task has been considered in works from number theory,
group theory and algebraic geometry. In this note I shall give an overview of
methods currently used.
While the techniques used for the identification of Galois groups were known
already in the last century [26], the involved calculations made it almost imprac-
tical to do computations beyond trivial examples. Thus the problem was only
taken up again in the last 25 years with the advent of computers.
In this note we will restrict ourselves to the case of the base field <Q. Most
methods generalize to other fields like <Q(t), <Qp' lFp(t) or number fields.
The results presented here are the work of many mathematicians. I tried to
give credit by references wherever possible.

1 Introduction

We are given an irreducible polynomial f E <Q[x] of degree n and asked to

determine the Galois group of its splitting field L = Spl(J). This group G =
Gal(J) = Gal(L/<Q) is usually called the Galois group of f. We denote the roots
of f by {a1,"" an}. Without loss of generality (as one can replace f (x) by
an f(x/a) without changing splitting field nor Galois group) one can assume
that f is monic with integer coefficients. Thus the ai are algebraic integers. We
denote the ring of algebraic integers in L by O(L). Groups act from the right by
exponentiation. The orbit of a under G is written as aG = {a 9 I 9 E G}.

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
66 A. Hulpke

The determination of elements of G explicitly is in general infeasible: To ex-

press elements of G, we need to represent the splitting field they act on. If the
degree of the splitting field in not very small ([L : Q] up to 50 say), however,
construction of the splitting field is beyond any reasonable computational capa-
bilities. An algorithm for the calculation of splitting fields has been published
in [1], algorithms for the determination of elements of G for number fields are
given in [27].
Instead we observe that (as J(OCT) = J(O)CT = OCT = 0 for a E G) the Galois
group acts on the roots of J. This action is transitive because J is irreducible
and faithful as L = <Q( 01, ... , On). Any arrangement of the roots therefore yields
an embedding of G as a subgroup of the symmetric group Sn. Our aim will be
to determine this image and - if possible - also identify the arrangement of the
roots Oi that yields that image. This arrangement is usually determined by a
labelling of approximations of the 0i.
In the sequel we will often use the embedding implicitly and consider G as a
transitive permutation group.

2 Local Analysis
For a prime p we denote reduction modulo p by 1r. This reduction extends nat-
urally to the algebraic integers and to polynomial rings. If p does not divide the
discriminant of J, a theorem of DEDEKIND shows that the Galois group G of the
reduced polynomial J7r E IFp[x] embeds into G ([42, (II.7.12)], a proof in a more
computational context can be found in [49, §66]).
This Galois group G over IF p is cyclic, its orbits on the approximate roots
0i7r are simply given by the IFp-irreducible factors of J7r. We thus have

Lemma 1. If p does not the discriminant disc(J), the irreducible factors of J7r
correspond to the cycle structure of an element of G; if J7r = ITi fi, this element
is of the form (... ) . (... ) ..... C···) .
~~ ~
deg" deg h deg f~

(For ramified primes we can embed the Galois groups over <Qp into G. For
practical purposes however this usually does not yield new information.)
While this yields cycle structures of elements of G, the corresponding ar-
rangement of the 0i is only determined modulo p. Without further information
about the Galois group G there is no possibility to "connect" the arrangements
for different primes. Thus the cycle structures obtained this way can only be
used to rule out candidates for G which are too small to contain all cycle struc-
tures found. This however permits to identify symmetric and alternating groups
quickly [15], which is of practical importance as asymptotically all polynomials
have the symmetric group as Galois group [48]. As it requires only factorizations
over Fp this test is very cheap and should always be run as a first filter to restrict
the type of G.
Using analytic number theory, one can generalize Lemma 1 to TSCHEBOTA-
REFF'S theorem [47], by which the density of primes corresponding to a given
 Techniques for the Computation of Galois Groups 67

cycle structure equals the frequency of this cycle structure among the elements
of G. Effective bounds for the probability that all shapes have been found when
considering only a limited number of primes are given in [31). This permits a
probabilistic approach to finding G by factoring I modulo different non-ramified
primes and checking for which transitive subgroup of Sn this approximates the
shape distribution best. Besides its probabilistic nature, this approach gets into
problems if the shape distribution does not identify groups uniquely. It happens
first in degree 8 with the groups TsNlO = [22)4 and TsNu = Qs : 2.
As the Galois group of lover a local field <Qp is usually a proper subgroup of
G, such local methods alone cannot determine G, but we have to look at global
properties:

3 Invariants

The approach to identifying the Galois group G will be to show that certain
relations between the roots of I are respected by G. This permits to identify G
from a list of transitive subgroups of Sn by finding enough relations that hold
(or do not hold) to determine one subgroup from this list uniquely.
The algorithms therefore usually rely on lists of transitive subgroups of Sn.
These subgroups are classified up to degree 31 [24) which covers the currently
interesting range for n. Explicit lists up to degree 15 can be found in [12).
The tool for the identification of G is the polynomial ring R = L2"[Xl, ... , xn).
The symmetric group Sn acts on R by permutation of indeterminants. We call
hER an invariant for U ::; Sn if h U = h for all u E U. The ring of all U-
invariants is traditionally denoted by R U . To abbreviate notation we shall write
~ for (Xl, ... , xn).
The specialization homomorphism cp: R -+ O(L), h t-+ h(al, ... , an) con-
nects the permutation action of G on R (by permuting the indeterminants)
with the Galois action of G on L; it is a homomorphism of G-modules. As
O(L) n <Q = L2", G-invariance of hER implies that cp(h) E L2". The con-
verse of this is not true in general: The polynomial I = x4 - 2 has Galois group
D( 4), generated by the permutations (1,2,3,4), (1,3) with respect to the root ar-
rangement {-v2, i-v2, --v2, -i-v2}. Then h = X1X2 -X3X4 is not D(4)-invariant,
though cp(h) = 0 E L2". This however is an "accidental" relation among the roots
which is not due to the Galois group. The following lemma shows under which
conditions this can be avoided

Lemma 2. II
cp(l) 1= cp(h) lor all l E h Sn \ {h} (1)

then h is G-invariant il and only il cp(h) E L2".

Proof. Assume that h is not G-invariant and cp(h) E L2". Then there is agE G
such that h 9 1= h, so we have by the assumption (1) that cp(h) 1= cp(h9), and
because cp respects the actions cp(h 9) = cp(h)9 = cp(h) holds, contradiction.
68 A. Hulpke

f by a Tschirnhaus transfor-
If the condition (1) is not fulfilled, one can change
mation to another polynomial j which defines the same field (and thus has the
same Galois group). It is shown in (21) that for a given h it is always possible
to find such a transform j such that condition (1) is fulfilled for 'Pi' Care how-
ever has to be taken to ensure that the coefficients of j do not become too big.
Therefore in practice only very simple Tschirnhaus transformations are used and
it may be well worth to try an alternative h instead.
As the roots 0i are only known by approximations ai, in practice however 'P
is only known by an approximation fP: h I-t h(al' ... ,an)' The test for integrality
therefore has to rely on the approximation being good enough.

4 Descending Approach

If V < U we call hEn aU-relative invariant for V, if h is invariant under V

but not under U. If G is known to be a subgroup of U then G :::; V if and only
if h is G-invariant.
The first computational approach towards finding G has been described in
(46): We form the partial lattice of transitive subgroups of Sn and determine for
each minimal "step" U > V (V being a maximal subgroup of U) in this partial
lattice a U-relative invariant for V. This information is determined once and for
all. As the invariants for a conjugate of V are simply images of the invariants of
V, it is sufficient to determine these invariants up to Sn conjugation.
The algorithm now determines G by stepping downwards through this partial
lattice, starting with U = Sn. For a maximal subgroup V < U it then tests
whether a V-invariant h is invariant under G and if this is the case continues
with V being the U for the next step. If on the other hand G is not contained
in any proper transitive maximal subgroup of U, G must be equal to U and the
algorithm stops. As there are only finitely many transitive subgroups, this will
always happen. Of course all subgroups V, which do not contain cycle shapes
known to occur in G by Lemma 1, can be excluded as well.
The test for G-invariance of a V-invariant h is performed by testing whether
'P(h E 7Z (provided of course that condition (1) holds). An example for this is
disc(J) = fIi<j(oi - OJ) which is integral if and only if G is contained in An.
To reduce the storage requirements of transitive groups down to storing only
representatives up to conjugacy, the following approach is used: For each pair
U > V, the subgroups V are stored up to U-conjugacy (respectively: for each
pair of Sn-representatives U,V the embeddings V Y U are stored up to U-
conjugacy). For each class representative V with invariant h the resolvent poly-
nomiall R = fIgE(hU)(x - 'P(g» E 7Z[x) is formed. As h is not U-invariant, the
degree of R is [U : V). Then R is tested for integer roots. An integer root of R
determines a U-image of h and thus a U-conjugate of V in which G is contained.

1 The name resolvent dates back to Lagrange. Polynomials of this type can be used to
construct subfields and thus were used for solving polynomial equations.
 Techniques for the Computation of Galois Groups 69

Instead of continuing with this conjugate, the algorithm then re-sorts the roots
appropriately and continues with V.
A further advantage of forming the resolvent R is that R must be invariant
under the Galois action of G and thus has integer coefficients. When computing
with approximate roots (and using <p instead of <p) therefore the coefficients of
R can be rounded to the next integer. This permits to use exact methods to test
for integral roots.
Finally, as G-invariance is tested via c.p, a condition like (1) must be fulfilled.
As G ::; U the symmetric group Sn can be replaced in (1) by U; sufficiency holds
if R is square-free (a formal proof can be found in [46]).

4.1 Root Approximation

Bounds for the needed accuracy of root approximation are given in [17, 2.1.3].
If the coefficients of f become big, however, these bounds can become infeasibly
large and thus some of the implementations work by standard with lower, non-
guaranteed bounds.
For the approximation of the roots ai essentially two methods have been
used; numerical approximation and p-adic approximation. The main advantage
of numerical approximation is that it is probably more likely available in a pro-
gramming language and that it allows to obtain quickly results which are not
guaranteed to be correct. Its main disadvantage is that approximation is not a
ring homomorphism and thus error propagation is difficult to keep under control.
To the authors knowledge there are neither theoretical results, nor implementa-
tions ("validated numerics") which analyze error propagation in these cases and
thus give proven results.
On the other hand p-adic approximation behaves much nicer from an alge-
braic viewpoint in that the approximation is a ring homomorphism and thus no
error propagation will happen. To compute bounds, estimates for the absolute
values lail are still needed. These can be obtained from general estimates as
found in [41, section 4.3].
The approach of p-adic approximation, combined with numerical approxi-
mation to obtain better bounds for the lail, has been used in [14] to verify
polynomials with Galois groups Mn and M 12 .
The problem of approximation can be avoided completely if deferring the
evaluation c.p as shown in [9]: If h is a U-relative invariant for V, the coefficients
of the unevaluated resolvent R = TIgE(hU)(t- g) E <Q(~)[t] are invariant under U
and therefore expressible in generators of the invariant ring <Q[~]u. On the other
hand, the elements {I, h, h2, ... , hlu:vI} form a <Q(~)U -Basis of <Q(~) v and [11]
gives an algorithm to express V-invariants in this basis explicitly. This permits
the following inductive approach: We start with U := Sn whose invariants are
generated by the elementary symmetric polynomials. At each step we assume
that we can express every U invariant polynomial in terms of the elementary
symmetric polynomials and known relative invariants of U and of subgroups
Sn ~ W ~ U. This certainly holds for U = Sn. If we descend to a subgroup V
70 A. Hulpke

there is a new invariant ring Q(~) v which is generated by Q(~)U and the invari-
ant h. The above mentioned algorithm now permits to express every V -invariant
in terms of Q(~)U and h. By the assumption on Q(~)U this yields an expres-
sion of every V-invariant in terms of the elementary symmetric polynomials and
known invariants of subgroups Sn 2: W 2: V. This however is the necessary
assumption for the induction once V becomes itself a new U in the next step.
By using the evaluations tp( ei) of the elementary symmetric polynomials, which
are (up to a sign) the coefficients of j, and the evaluations tp(h) of invariants of
larger subgroups, which are the integral roots obtained in earlier steps, we can
thereby express any tp-evaluated U-invariant. One thus obtains the evaluated
resolvents TIgE(hU)(t - tp(g)) needed for the algorithm.
If not tp( h) but the evaluation tp(g) of a conjugate is an integral root, of course
this conjugate 9 = h U (which is an invariant for the corresponding subgroup V U )
must be used.
In the process of specialization, denominators in expressions in Q(~) might
vanish. If this is the case, another invariant h(P(xd, ... ,p(xn)) for P E Q[t] is
chosen. It is shown in [9] that there always is a transform for which denominators
do not vanish when specializing.
There are various implementations of the descent method available [20, 18,
17,19] as standalones or in the systems PARI [4] and KANT [13].

4.2 Variations
To overcome the problem of a large index [U : V] when evaluating invariants, J.
McKAY suggested the following approach: Suppose we know an element e E G
by its explicit action on the approximate roots. This is the case, for example, for
the complex conjugation when using numerical approximation of the roots, or
for the FROBENIUS automorphism when using p-adic approximation. If hER-
is an invariant for V < U, an invariant image hg (g E G) is invariant under G
only if it is invariant under e. This permits to reduce the number of images of
hg that have to be evaluated via tp from [U : V] to lEI with
E = {g E Repres(V\U) I hg = (hgy = hge }
= {g E Repres(V\U) I Vg = Vge}.
A group theoretic argument shows that if the class of e in G is stable under
automorphisms, it is possible to choose E = Repres(Cv(e)\Cu(e)) and therefore
lEI = [Cu(e) : Cv(e)]. In the case of M12 < A 12 , for example this permits to
reduce 2520 potential images to 24.
For identification purposes, of course, E may not be chosen a priori for one
representative V, but must be selected from h and e. The reduction saves however
evaluations cpo Usually the images hg (g E E) do not contain full orbits of G,
therefore no resolvent is formed and the evaluated images cp(hg) must be tested
directly.

Another variant of the descending approach has been suggested in [51]: Here
the test for rationality of tp(h) is replaced by testing whether (h - tp(h)) is
 Techniques for the Computation of Galois Groups 71

contained in ker <p <l R. This ideal is generated by the elementary symmetric
functions equating the coefficients of f. The ideal membership test is done using
p-adic approximation of idempotents in R/ ker<p.

In reversion of the identification process, knowledge of the Galois group can

be used to deduce relations among the roots of f [40].

4.3 Invariants
For the determination of invariant polynomials it is of course sufficient to obtain
one V-invariant polynomial which is not U-invariant, instead of generating the
full invariant ring for V. This invariant however should be chosen in a way to
keep the necessary approximation accuracy low for deducing that VJ(h) E LZ from
the value of ip(h). The needed accuracy grows with the absolute value IVJ(h)l. A
good heuristic to keep this value low is to select h to be of lowest possible degree.
Therefore the trivial possibility h = LVEV(XIX~.· .. ·x~)V is usually unsuitable.
An algorithm to compute a better h is given in [22].
If numerical approximation of the roots is used, the evaluation order in ip
can become crucial. In this situation it might be necessary to use the invariant
h in factorized form or to select other invariants to avoid exaggerated error
propagation.

A main problem of this approach is in the first steps down from the sym-
metric group. It is known [37] that almost all transitive maximal subgroups of
Sn or An have large index. Thus for almost all possible Galois groups G every
descendant chain from Sn down to G will contain a step with large index. A
large index however implies a large resolvent degree and in turn the need for a
high approximation accuracy.

5 Subfields
Subfields of <Q(o) form an important Galois invariant. Over the past years a
couple of algorithms for their computation have been suggested [33,16,34,5,23,
28,27], the last probably being the most effective at the moment. By the Galois
correspondence subfields correspond to subgroups of G which properly contain
the point stabilizer Staba (0). They therefore correspond to block systems of G as
permutation group. Suppose that <Q < <Q({3) < <Q(o) is a subfield with {3 = k(o)
and that m is the minimal polynomial of {3. Then by the embedding theorem for
imprimitive groups [29], G is a subgroup of the wreath product W := Sn I M,
where M is the Galois group of m. This embedding information can be used to
start the descent for the determination of G not with Sn but with W. To this end,
one has to determine the arrangement of the roots corresponding to this wreath
product: The arrangement of the blocks is determined by the arrangement of the
roots {3j of m corresponding to M, the root 0i is in the block corresponding to {3j
if k( Oi) = {3j. This arrangement ofthe roots to the blocks determines a conjugate
72 A. Hulpke

W' of W such that the descent process can be started with U = W. If several
block systems exist one can embed simultaneously in different wreath products
and thus start with U being the intersection of all these wreath products.
For imprimitive groups, this approach permits to avoid the large steps down
to maximal subgroups (which are in most cases wreath products and thus con-
tain W) of Sn, respectively An. It has been used successfully in the KANT
implementation [19].

6 Orbits of the Galois Group

As the computation of resolvents can be hard any information they convey should
be used. The descent method just checks for linear factors, that is orbits of G of
length one. As the roots of an irreducible polynomial form an orbit of the Galois
group, a complete factorization of a resolvent however exhibits also other orbits
of G and therefore may give further information about the Galois group. For
example [10] obtains an invariant for a subgroup of U containing G by complete
factorization of a resolvent for another subgroup V < U which not necessarily
contains G.
Let 1i c n be a set of polynomials which is invariant under G. Then
R = R(1i, f) = I1hEll(x - cp(h)) has rational coefficients. If condition (1) is
fulfilled (that is if R is square-free, again this can be ensured by a Tschirn-
haus transformation on 1) the irreducible factors of R correspond to the orbits
of G on 1i in the following way: Every orbit K C 1i corresponds to a factor
I1kEdx - cp(k)) and all factors of R arise this way. Furthermore, the image of
the operation of G on the orbit K is the Galois group of the corresponding poly-
nomial factors. So for example the factor discriminant is a square if and only if
the image group is a subgroup of the alternating group.
Similarly, by the Galois correspondence, orbits of a subgroup U < G corre-
spond to factors over a subfield <Q < <QCB) < L which is the field of elements
fixed by U. Such subfields of the splitting field can be obtained for example from
factors of (other) resolvents.
For a given degree and certain resolvents this information (mainly orbit
lengths) can be tabulated for all transitive subgroups of Sn a priori by sim-
ple group theoretic calculations. By considering sufficiently many resolvents to
distinguish all groups this permits to eliminate all but one conjugacy class of
transitive groups (all properties are conjugacy invariant as no roots are labelled),
which in turn has to contain the Galois group. This approach has been suggested
in [44,45]. In this form no arrangement of (approximate) roots will be obtained.
Because usually no subgroup U < Sn with corresponding root arrangement
is known a priori, the sets 1i are typically full orbits of Sn. We shall write
R(h,1) for R(h Sn , f). In [45] it is suggested to use linear polynomials for h.
For h = Xl + ... + Xm or h = Xl . . . . . Xm the set 1i correspond to the family
of m-subsets of {I, ... ,n}, similarly h = Xl + 2X2 + ... + mXm corresponds to
m-tuples. In [6] formulae for both types of set resolvents are given which require
only rational arithmetic. Resolvents arising from more general h are considered
 Techniques for the Computation of Galois Groups 73

in [3J and [35J which use techniques from commutative algebra like resultants for
the computation.
Again shapes are used as a first filter. The existence of subfields, respectively
block systems, can be used as a further restriction.
A possible advantage of this method is that the resolvents considered do not
necessarily have to be "fitted" to subgroups containing the Galois group: The
resolvent R(h, 1) can be considered as an resolvent for the pair Stabsn (h) < Sn,
but if G ~ Stabsn (h) (up to conjugacy) this resolvent has no linear factor,
nevertheless the factor degrees will restrict the possibilities for G. This some-
times permits to use resolvents of smaller degree than used in the pure descent
approach. Also for groups G for which the chain G < Um < ... < U1 < Sn
contains many steps, not for every step a new resolvent has to be evaluated.
In this approach the approximation of roots takes place in the polynomial
factorizing algorithm and can therefore be considered to be under control. The
factorization of resolvents however can become a major obstacle: Because it is
an orbit length of Sn, the set sizes IhSn I - and thus the resolvent degrees - soon
become big. In addition, the resolvent polynomials are essentially of the worst
possible kind for the traditionally used Hensel-lifting based factorizing approach
[52J: By Lemma 1 they will split modulo each prime in factors whose degrees
are orders of elements of G while they factorize in characteristic zero in fac-
tors whose degrees are orbit lengths of G. Unless G is in regular representation
both measures can differ substantially and therefore many potential combina-
tions of the lifted factors have to be tried before the true factorization is found.
The most extreme are elementary abelian 2-groups, for which the resolvents are
Swinnerton-Dyer polynomials.
On the other hand the coefficients of the resolvents become that big, that the
break-even point for a polynomial time factoring algorithm [36] is yet beyond
the runtime for the classical approach.
The algorithm of [45] is implemented in Maple [7] up to degree 7. An ex-
tension to degree 8 for polynomials over <Q(t) is described in [38]. It is again
implemented in Maple. Tabulating further data for linear resolvents and using
also factorization over algebraic extensions to determine orbits of subgroups, this
approach has been implemented by the author in GAP 3 [43] up to degree 15, but
for some groups calculations in degrees 12 and beyond become infeasibly slow.
The factorizations of various resolvents not arising from the symmetric group is
tabulated for degree up to 11 in [2].

7 Relation Stabilizers

Evaluation of ij5(h) (h E 11.) and a test, of which resolvent factor the result is an
approximate root, permits to obtain the orbits of G on 11. from the factorized
resolvent. If approximation modulo p is used the additional computing time for
this is neglectable. This permits to compute the set-wise stabilizer Stab sn (11.)
of the orbit in the symmetric group. This stabilizer certainly must contain the
Galois group G. Thus subgroups containing G can be obtained without requiring
74 A. Hulpke

precomputed subgroup lattices and invariants or factorization tables [25]. Such

stabilizers can be different even if all orbit lengths are the same. Therefore they
yield a better distinction of groups.
For the linear resolvents which correspond to the action on sets and tuples,
these stabilizers are the m-closure G(m), respectively the m-set closure G{m}
of the Galois group G. These closures have been studied in permutation group
literature [50]. The problem of identifying G uniquely then can be interpreted as
a permutation group theoretic problem about groups having the same closure.
A result that some closures (obviously G(n) = G, but then IHI = n! which is
infeasible) determine G uniquely would lead to an effective algorithm that does
not rely on precomputed information. This is of importance as the number of
transitive groups grows substantially for higher n (there are 301 classes of degree
12, 1954 classes of degree 16 and 26813 classes of degree 24) and therefore such
a preparation will not be reasonable beyond degree 15.
As this approach does not only filter the group abstractly from a list of
candidates but also obtains an (partial) arrangement of the approximate roots,
it is possible to use not only resolvents arising from full orbits of Sn, but also
resolvents from orbits of the current approximation U > G. The resolvents used
in the descent method are exactly of this type and the methods described in
Sect. 4 can be used for their computation.
An additional advantage of this approach is that the partial root arrangement
obtained from the factors of previous resolvents can be used to pre-sort the
resolvent factors modulo p when factoring which in turn can help to ease the
exponential factor combination step.
The use of block stabilizers is of course also possible here. However as the
2-set closure G{2} already determines all block systems this will not necessarily
improve the discrimination of potential Galois groups.

8 Capabilities of the Algorithms

As mentioned before current implementations are all still degree-dependent.

They work in theory (that is information is precomputed) for degrees up to
9 [20], 11 [18], 12 [19] or 15 [43], but sometimes for higher degrees the actual
computations required to identify the group (using proven bounds) are too hard
to make them feasible. In general for degrees up to 10 the algorithms should
always finish in reasonable time, for the higher degrees they will work for some
cases but for some groups it will not finish in reasonable time. Concretely, cal-
culations for degree 8 will usually finish in under a minute, degree 10 may take
a few minutes, but degree 12 (and some particular groups in lower degrees) may
take an hour or even much more.
The worst case for the identification are (for all algorithms likewise) highly
transitive groups which do not contain the alternating group. Such groups are
usually maximal of high index in the alternating group and because of their
high transitivity require resolvents of high degree to distinguish them from Sn
or An by their orbits. Fortunately, as a corollary of the classification of finite
 Techniques for the Computation of Galois Groups 75

simple groups it is known that beyond triply transitivity the only offenders are
the Mathieu groups.

9 Final Remarks
Many of the implementations mentioned are available on the internet:
- The implementation of Y. Eichenlaub and M. Olivier can be found at
ftp://megrez.math.u-bordeaux.fr/pub/galois
- KANT (containing the routines by K. Geissler) is obtainable from
ftp://ftp.math.tu-berlin.de/pub/algebra/Kant/Kash/
- GAP (which contains the authors implementation) can be found under
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/-gap/lnfo/distrib.html
This article benefitted implicitly from explanations by and discussions with
J. Kliiners, J. McKay, and L. Soicher, whom I would like to thank. The authors
implementation would have been impossible without many example polynomials
constructed by G. Malle, whom I would also like to thank for extensive tests of
the algorithms. Last, but not least, I would like to thank DFG, EPSRC and the
EU HCM program for their financial support.

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 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie
Prof. H.-W. Leopoldt zurn 70. Geburtstag

B. Heinrich Matzat

IWR, Universitat Heidelberg

1m Neuenheimer Feld 368
69120 Heidelberg

Dieser Bericht setzt die mit Matzat (1988,1991b) begonnene Reihe von Uber-
sichtsartikeln uber konstruktive Galoistheorie fort und gibt einen Uberblick uber
seither erreichte neue Resultate. Da inzwischen mehrere einfUhrende Texte in
Buchform von Matzat (1987), Serre (1992), V61klein (1996) sowie Ishkhanov,
Lure und Faddeev (1997) vorhanden sind, kann ich mich bei der Zusammenstel-
lung der Grundlagen sehr kurz fassen. Eine ausfUhrliche Darstellung mit Bewei-
sen der meisten der hier zusammengestellten Resultate wird im Ergebnisbericht
Malle, Matzat (1998) enthalten sein.
Der Artikel gliedert sich in zwei Teile. Der erste, Galoisabstieg und Starrheit,
enthaIt Resultate uber Definitionski:irper von Galoiserweiterungen und starre Er-
zeugendensysteme endlicher Gruppen, der zweite, Geometrische Einbettungspro-
bleme, uber eigentliche Li:isbarkeit zerfallender Einbettungsprobleme mit Ein-
schluB von GAR-Realisierungen, Li:isungen spezieller Frattini-Einbettungspro-
bleme sowie uber explizite Konstruktionen von Galoiserweiterungen.
Ausgeklammert sind Resultate im Zusammenhang mit der Grothendieck-
Teichmuller-Gruppe und der Abhyankar-Vermutung, da hier umfassende Uber-
sichtsartikel von Ihara (1991) und Nakamura (1997), bzw. Harbater (1995) vor-
liegen.

1. Galoisabstieg und Starrheit

§1 Fundamentalgruppe und das Umkehrproblem der Galoistheorie

(1.1) Unter dem Umkehrproblem der Galoistheorie tiber einem Ki:irper K

beztiglich eventuell einer Menge § von StelIen versteht man eines der beiden
folgenden Probleme:
Problem 1: Die Bestimmung der Menge ~K(§) alIer endlichen Gruppen G,
die als Galoisgruppe einer (auBerhalb von § unverzweigten) Galoiserweiterung
vorkommen. Dies ist das Umkehrproblem der Galoistheorie fUr §-Erweiterungen
iiber K.
Problem 2: Die Beschreibung der Galoisgruppe GK(§) der maximal sepa-
rablen (auBerhalb von § unverzweigten) Korpererweiterung tiber K. Dies ist die
Frage nach der §-Fundamentalgruppe von K.

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
80 B.H. Matzat

Diese beiden Probleme sind eng miteinander verknUpft. Die Kenntnis von
G K (§) zieht selbstverstiindlich die Kenntnis von Q; K (§) als Menge aller endli-
chen Faktorgruppen von GK(§) nach sich. Umgekehrt kann aber zumindest im
Fall einer endlich erzeugten Fundamentalgruppe auch die Gruppe G K (§) ohne
Miihe aus Q;K(§) gewonnen werden (siehe Fried, Jarden (1986), Prop. 15.4).

(1.2) Ein erster Vergleichssatz ist durch den Hilbertschen Irreduzibilitatssatz

in der fUr die Galoistheorie adaquaten Form gegeben:

Satz 1.1. (Hilbert (1892)) Es seien K ein iiber Q endlich erzeugter Korper
und t ein iiber K trans zen dentes Element. Dann gibt es zu jedem separablen
Polynom f(t, X) E K(t)[X) unendlich viele a E K mit
Gal(f(a, X)) ~ Gal(f(t, X)).
Ein Korper K heiBt nun ein Hilbertkorper, wenn der Satz 1.1 fUr K gilt. Zu
diesen ziihlen unter anderem auch die Uber IFp(t) (Franz (1931)) und dem ma-
ximal absolut abelschen Zahlkorper Q'b (Weissauer (1982)) endlich erzeugten
Korper. FUr diese gilt in der obigen Bezeichnungsweise:

Folgerung 1.2. Fiir einen Hilbertkorper K gilt Q; K(t) = Q; K.

(1.3) Damit kann das Problem 1 auf rationale Funktionenkorper zuriickge-

fiihrt werden. Das klassische Beispiel hierfiir ist der rationale Funktionenkorper
C(X) ~ C(t) der Riemannschen Zahlenkugel X rl(C). Bedeutet
S = {Pl, ... , P s } eine endliche Teilmenge von X und ist Po E X\S, so wird
die topologische Fundamentalgruppe 71"1 (X\Sj Po) durch die Homotopieklassen
Ii der Schleifen von Po aus urn Pi (z.B. im Gegen-Uhrzeigersinn) erzeugt mit der
einzigen Relation 11 •• 'IS = 1. Insbesondere ist 71"1 (X\Sj Po) eine freie Gruppe
vom Rang s - 1.
Nach dem Riemannschen Existenzsatz gehort zu jeder auBerhalb von S un-
verzweigten endlichen galoisschen Uberlagerung mit der Gruppe G eine auBer-
halb von § = {I,lh, ... , '-Ps} mit den Zahlerdivisoren '-Pi von (t - Pi) unverzweigte
galoissche Korpererweiterung mit einer zu G (anti-)isomorphen Galoisgruppe.
Durch Ubergang zum projektiven Limes erhalt man hieraus die Galoisgruppe
der maximalen, auBerhalb von § unverzweigten Galoiserweiterung Ms/C(t).

Satz 1.3. Die Fundamentalgruppe GC(t) (§) = Gal(Ms/C(t)) ist eine freie
proendliche Gruppe von Rang s -1 mit s := I§I. Die eingebetteten Erzeugenden
Ii E 71"1 (X\Sj Po) sind Erzeugende von iiber '-Pi liegenden Triigheitsgruppen in
Ms/C(t).

Obiger Satz wird haufig auch als proendlicher Riemannscher Existenzsatz

bezeichnet.

(1.4) Mit dem Grothendieckschen Spezialisierungssatz fUr Fundamental-

gruppen (siehe Grothendieck (1971)) zeigt man, daB Satz 1.3 richtig bleibt fUr
 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 81

alle algebraisch abgeschlossenen Korper der Charakteristik 0 (anstatt von C).

Insbesondere ergibt sich hieraus auch:

Folgerung 1.4. Fur einen rationalen Funktionenkorper K = k(t) uber

einem algebraisch abgeschlossenen Korper k der Charakteristik 0 gelten:
(a) Fur S ~ r(K/k) mit lSI = s ist GK(S) eine freie proendliche Gruppe
vom Rang s - 1.
(b) 1st K abzahlbar, so ist GK eine freie proendliche Gruppe von abzahlbar
unendlichem Rang, und C15K ist die Menge aller endlichen Gruppen.

Man uberlegt sich leicht, daB (a) fUr char(K) =p > 0 falsch ist, hingegen
bleibt (b) richtig, wie wir in §6 sehen werden.

§2. Definitionskorper von Galoiserweiterungen

(2.1) Aus der Folgerung 1.4 ergibt sich sofort, daB jede endliche Gruppe G
als Galoisgruppe einer Korpererweiterung N / K uber K := Q(t) vorkommt. Wir
wollen jetzt der Frage nachgehen, unter welchen Voraussetzungen eine soIche
Galoiserweiterung uber einem vorgegebenen Zwischenkorper K von Q(t)/Q(t)
definiert ist. Eine notwendige Voraussetzung hierfUr ist, daB die Fortsetzungen
der Automorphismen 8 E Gal(K/K) auf N den Korper N auf sich abbilden
und auf Gal(N / K) als innere Automorphismen operieren. Der Fixkorper K aller
8 E Gal(Q(t)/Q(t» mit dieser Eigenschaft heiSt der Modulkorper der Galoiser-
weiterung N / K. Dieser ist ein Dejinitionskorper von N / K, falls eine Galoiser-
weiterung N / K mit der Gruppe G existiert mit N K = N (in einer algebraisch
abgeschlossenen Hiille von K). Aus einem einfachen Resultat uber Gruppener-
weiterungen ergibt sich:

Satz 2.1. Die Obstruktion dafii.r, daft ein Modulkorper Keiner Galoiser-
weiterung N / K mit der Gruppe G ein Dejinitionskorper ist, liegt in der K oho-
mologiegruppe H2 (G K, Z (G» mit trivialer Operation von G K auf demo Zentrum
Z(G) von G.

Insbesondere ist ein Modulkorper stets ein Definitionskorper, falls GK eine

projektive proendliche Gruppe ist oder wenn Z(G) = 1 ist. Etwas allgemeiner
gilt:

Folgerung 2.2. Besitzt das Zentrum Z(G) von G = Gal(N / K) ein Kom-
plement in G, so ist der Moduikorper von N / K auch ein Dejinitionskorper.

Fur einen Beweis und weitergehende Resultate wird auf Matzat (1987), II
§2, Satz 2 bzw. Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm. 1.3.9 verwiesen.

(2.2) Ais nachstes benotigt man eine hinreichend konstruktive Beschrei-

bung des Modulkorpers von N / K. Hierzu verwendet man, daB die Galoisgrup-
82 B.H. Matzat

pe Gal(Ms/ N) der maximalen auBerhalb von § unverzweigten Galoiserweite-

rung Ms/K Kern eines Epimorphismus 'I/J von GJ(§) auf eine zu Gal(N/K)
isomorphe Testgruppe Gist. Dieser bildet das Erzeugendensystem (,1, ... , ,.)
von GJ(§) auf ein Erzeugendensystem 0" = (0"1, .•• ,0".) von G mit der Relati-
on 0"1 ••• 0"s = 1 ab und wird dementsprechend mit 'l/Ju bezeichnet. Die Men-
ge derartiger Erzeugendensysteme von G sei E. (G). Flir 0", TEE. (G) haben
die Epimorphismen 'l/Ju, 'I/J-r genau dann denselben Kern und beschreiben damit
denselben Zwischenkorper N von Ms/ K, wenn es ein 0: E Aut(G) gibt mit
0"0 = T; sie beschreiben genau dann den Zwischenkorper N sogar bis auf Ope-
ration mit inneren Automorphismen auf Gal(N / K), wenn es ein 0: E Inn(G) gibt
mit 0"0 = T. Dementsprechend kennzeichnen wir (bei gegebenem 'I/J) N durch

N- C T.-
·-
M- Kern(.pa)
S , (2.1)

und mit ru := b E Aut(Nu/Q(t)) I , E Inn(Gal(Nu/K))} erhalt man den

Modulkorper von Nu/K als

(2.2)

(2.3) Offenbar permutiert ru und allgemeiner rs .- Aut(Ms/Q(t)) die

Menge § = {~1' ... , ~.} der verzweigten Primdivisoren von Ms/ K. Dementspre-
chend werden durch 8 E rs Erzeugende ,i
liber ~i liegender Tragheitsgruppen
von Ms/ K auf Erzeugende liber ~(i)o liegender Tragheitsgruppen abgebildet,
d.h. es gibt ci(8) E ZX derart, daB,i in GJ(§) konjugiert zu '(:)~) ist. Durch
inverse Ubertragung dieser Operation auf G erhalt man eine Operation von rs
auf Es(G) mit [O"t] = [O"(:)~~:)], wobei [0"] die Konjugiertenklasse von 0" in G
bedeutet. Genauer gilt mit .1s := rs/ G J( (§) und dem Kreisteilungscharakter

C:.1s -t Zx, 8t--tc(8) mit 8«() = (c(o)

fUr alle Einheitswurzeln ( E Q die

Bemerkung 2.3. .1s operiert auf Es(G)/Inn(G) vermoge

( [0" ],8
) t--t [0" ]0 mit []O
O"i = [C(0-1)]
0"(i)0-1 • (2.3)

Bei dieser Operation gilt Nu6 = N;.

Der Beweis kann z.B. bei Matzat (1987), Kap. II, §1, Satz 1, bzw. bei Malle,
Matzat (1998), Prop. 1.4.2 und Prop. 1.4.3 nachgelesen werden.

(2.4) Die Operation von .1s auf Es(G)/Inn(G) ist durch (2.3) eindeutig
bestimmt, falls es fUr alle T E E.(G) mit [O"i] = h]. ein von i unabhangiges 0: E G
gibt mit O"r = ri. Dann heiBt 0" ein starres Erzeugendensystem von G; es heiBt
ein rational starres Erzeugendensystem, falls zusatzlich die Konjugiertenklassen
 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 83

[O"i) in G rational sind, d.h. wenn aile primitiven Potenzen von O"i in G zu O"i
konjugiert sind.
1m Falle rationaler Verzweigungspunkte ergibt sich damit der folgende Starr-
heitssatz:

Satz 2.4. Es sei G eine endliche Gruppe mit einem starren Erzeugendensy-
stem u = (0"1, ... ,0".), und es operiere Gal(Q(t)/Q(t)) trivial auf§ ~ IP(Q(t)/Q).
Dann wird der Modulkorper Ku von Nu/Q(t) fiber Q(t) durch die Charakterwer-
te von G auf den Klassen [O"i] fUr i = 1, ... , s erzeugt. Insbesondere gilt Kcr = Q(t)
im Faile eines rational starren Erzeugendensystems.

(2.5) Zusammen mit Folgerung 2.2 erhiHt man daraus den folgenden Exi-
stenzsatz fUr geometrische Galoiserweiterungen fiber q>b (t) und Q(t). Diese wer-
den im folgenden auch kurz als G-Realisierungen von G fiber q>b bzw. fiber Q
bezeichnet.

Satz 2.5. Es sei G eine endliche Gruppe, deren Zentrum ein Komple-
ment in G besitzt. Besitzt G ein starres Erzeugendensystem u = (0"1, ... ,0".), so
gibt es zu vorgegebenem § = {s.}Jt, ... , ~.} ~ IP(Q(t)/Q) mit Grad(~i) = 1 eine
geometrische Galoiserweiterung

Dabei wird Kcr fiber Q(t) durch die Charakterwerte auf den Klassen [u;) von G
erzeugt. 1st hierbei u sogar rational starr, so ist Kcr = Q(t).

Ffir einen Beweis wird wieder auf Matzat (1987), Kap. II, §4, Folg. 3, bzw.
Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm. 1.4.8 verwiesen. Weitergehende Aussagen kann man
unter Umstanden erhalten, wenn man eine nichttriviale Operation von
Gal(Q(t)/Q(t)) auf § zulafit (loc. cit. Thm. 1.4.11). Insbesondere fUhren auch
diejenigen starren Erzeugendensysteme zu einer G-Realisierung fiber Q, die bis
auf Konjugation invariant unter der Operation (2.3) sind. Diese nennen wir hier
kurz hinreichend rational.

§3 Starre Erzeugendensysteme endlicher Gruppen

(3.1) Nach den Resultaten des letzten Abschnitts stellt sich die Frage, welche
endlichen Gruppen (hinreichend rational) starre Erzeugendensysteme besitzen.
Zum Nachweis k6nnen verschiedene Methoden benutzt werden. Die nachstliegende
besteht darin, Starrheit direkt mittels der Definition nachzuweisen. Dies ffihrt
zum Beispiel bei der symmetrischen Gruppe Sn zum Ziel (siehe Shih (1974)). Da
bei der zugehOrigen G-Realisierung der Sn fiber Q der Fixk6rper der alternie-
renden Gruppe An ein rationaler Funktionenk6rper ist, erhaIt man damit auch
G-Realisierungen der An fiber Q fUr n ;::: 3.
84 B.H. Matzat

(3.2) Die zweite von Belyi (1979) eingefUhrte Methode verwendet Matri-
zendarsteIlungen. Dazu nennen wir eine Matrix U E GLn(k) eine Pseudospie-
gelung (oder PerspektiviUit), falls u eine Hyperebene punktweise festli:i13t bzw.
einen (n - 1)-dimensionalen Eigenraum zum Eigenwert 1 besitzt.

Bemerkung 3.1. Es sei G eine irreduzible endliche Matrizengruppe uber

einem Korper k mit NGLn(k)(G) = G· CGLn(k) (G). Dann ist jedes Erzeugen-
densystem u = (Ul,U2,U3) von G mit UIU2U3 = 1, in dem etwa Ul eine Pseu-
dospiegelung ist, ein starres Erzeugendensystem.

Derartige Erzeugendensysteme von irreduziblen Untergruppen G von GLn(k)

(auch ohne die Nebenbedingung an den Normalisator von G in GLn(k» werden
nunmehr Belyi-Tripel genannt. Solche konnte Belyi (1979,1983) fUr aIle klassi-
schen Gruppen nachweisen (siehe Malle, Matzat (1998), II, §3 fUr eine Neufas-
sung des Beweises).

(3.3) Nichtklassische Gruppen vom Lie-Typ und sporadische Gruppen be-

sitzen im allgemeinen keine Matrizendarstellungen mit Belyi-Tripeln. DafUr kann
man hier haufig auf Charaktertafeln zurtickgreifen. Hierzu bezeichnen wir fUr
u E GS

(3.1)

als normalisierte Strukturkonstante von u (vergleiche Matzat (1987), III, §6.1).

Bemerkung 3.2. Ein Erzeugendensystem u von G mit n(u) < 2 ist ein
starres Erzeugendensystem.

(3.4) Das nachstehende Resultat konnte unter Zuhilfenahme dieser Hilfsre-

sultate durch Arbeiten mehrerer Autoren, hauptsachlich Belyi (1979,1983), Feit,
Fong (1984), Thompson (1984), Malle (1988,1992) und LUbeck, Malle (1998) ge-
zeigt werden, wobei in der jUngsten Arbeit exzeptionelle Gruppen vom Lie-Typ
in ungerader schlechter Charakteristik behandelt wurden.

Satz 3.3. Alle endlichen einfachen Gruppen besitzen G-Realisierungen

ilber Q'b bis auf hOchstens die folgenden exzeptionellen Gruppen vom Lie- Typ
in Chamkteristik 2:

Davon sind zumindest ftir E7(2m) inzwischen G-Realisierungen tiber Q'b von
U. Schmidt (1998) angektindigt worden.

(3.5) Ftir den Nachweis von G-Realisierungen tiber IQ gentigt die Existenz
starrer Erzeugendensysteme noch nicht. Hinreichend ist nach Satz 2.5 die Exi-
 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 85

stenz eines (hinreichend) rational starren Erzeugendensystems. Diese Voraus-

setzung kann unter Umstanden abgeschwacht werden, falls die G-Realisierung
mittels einer rationalen Korpererweiterung so verschoben werden kann, daB
zusatzliche Symmetrien entstehen, die dann fUr einen Galoisabstieg im Sinne
der Anmerkung nach Satz 2.5 genutzt werden konnen. Insbesondere gentigen
hierfUr haufig sogenannte semirational starre Erzeugendensystemtripel, das sind
starre Erzeugendensysteme (0"1,0"2,0"3) von G, bei denen 0"1 und 0"2 rational und
etwa 0"3 nur semirational ist, d.h. daB die primitiven Potenzen von 0"3 in zwei
Konjugiertenklassen von G fallen (siehe Matzat (1987), III, §2.4j Malle (1991),
Geyer (1997), oder auch Malle, Matzat (1998), I, §7).

(3.6) Als ein sehr erfolgreiches Hilfsmittel fUr den Nachweis (semi-)ratio-
naler Belyi-Tripel hat sich eine auf Malle (1996), Reiter (1997) und V61klein
(1998a) zurtickgehende konstruktive Version des Belyi-Kriteriums erwiesen, die
hier in der eleganten Version von V61klein wiedergegeben wird (vergleiche auch
Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm. 11.2.6). Ein analoges Resultat im FaIle k = <C geht
bereits auf Levelt (1961) zurtick (zitiert in Beukers, Heckmann (1989), Thm. 3.5).

Bemerkung 3.4. Es seien f, 9 E ll"q [Xl teilerfremde normierte Polynome

vom Grad n mit f(0 )g(O) =f. O. Dann gibt es ein Belyi-Tripel u = (0"1, 0"2,0"3) in
GLn(q) mit charakteristischen Polynomen h u -' = f, hU3 = g.
2

Diese Bemerkung liiBt aber zunachst noch offen, welche irreduzible Unter-
gruppe von GLn(q) durch u erzeugt wird. Hierzu konstruiert man zu geeig-
net gewahlten hinreichend rationalen Belyi-Tripeln zuerst invariante Bilinear-
formen, welche die moglichen Gruppen einschranken. AnschlieBend benutzt man
die Klassifikation der irreduziblen Pseudospiegelungsgruppen von Wagner (1978,
1980), Kantor (1979) und Zalesskii-Serezhkin (1980), urn schlieBlich die erzeug-
ten Gruppen zu identifizieren.

(3.7) Mit diesen Methoden konnten Malle (1996) und Reiter (1997) die
tiber ll"p definierten einfachen klassischen Gruppen weitgehend als Galoisgrup-
pen tiber Ql(t) und Ql realisieren. Zusammen mit iilteren Resultaten von Feit,
Fong (1984) und Malle (1988,1992) fUr exzeptionelle Gruppen vom Lie-Typ so-
wie eine Reihe weiterer Autoren fUr die sporadischen Gruppen (siehe Matzat
(1991b) fUr eine Bibliographie) ergibt sich:

Satz 3.5. Die folgenden einfachen endlichen Gruppen besitzen G-Realisie-

rungen ilber Ql:
(a) die altemierenden Gruppen An fUr n ~ 5,
(b) die Serien der Gruppen vom Lie-Typ Gn(P) fUr je eine Primzahlmenge
positiver Dirichletdichte bis auf hOchstens E7(P) und 2E7(P).
(c) die sporadischen Gruppen bis auf hochstens M 23 .
86 B.H. Matzat

Dabei werden die Primzahlmengen in (b) durch Kongruenzen beschrieben

wie etwa p 't ± 1 (mod 24) fUr L2nH (p), 02nH (p) und S2n (p) mit je der Dirich-
letdichte 8 = ~. Einen Sonderfall bildet bislang die fUr alle p E II' realisierte Serie
G 2 (p) mit 8 = 1.

§4 Zopfoperationen

(4.1) Um groBere Gruppen liuBerer Automorphismen handhaben zu konnen,

muB man diese bislang als Automorphismengruppe des rationalen Grundkorpers
darstellen konnen. Dies geht im allgemeinen aber nicht bei Funktionenkorpern
einer Variablen.
Fur einen mehrdimensionalen Ansatz geht man anstatt von der mehrfach
gelochten Riemannschen Zahlenkugel X\S aus von dem r-fachen unvollstandigen
Produkt von X:

mit dem Funktionenkorper C(X~) = C(t l , ... , t r ) bzw. von dem r-fachen unvoll-
standigen symmetrischen Produkt X; := X~/Sr mit C(X;) = C(tl, ... ,tr)' wobei
ti die elementarsymmetrischen Funktionen der ti bedeuten. Die bezuglich der
Projektion Po auf X~ von Po = (1, ... , r) E X; als Ausgangspunkt gebildete
Fundamentalgruppe

1l'1(X;, Po) = < f31, ... ,f3r-IIf3if3j = f3jf3i fur Ii - jl > 1,

f3if3i+lf3i = f3i+lf3if3i+1, f31 ... f3r-If3r-1 ... f31 =1 > (4.1)

heiBt die volle Hurwitzsche Zopjgruppe, und der zu X; gehorige Normalteiler

1l'1 (X~, Po) wird als reine Hurwitzsche Zopjgruppe bezeichnet. Beide sind wie
auch die endlich erzeugten freien Gruppen koendliche Gruppen, das heiBt, der
Durchschnitt der Normalteiler von endlichem Index ergibt die Einsgruppe. Ins-
besondere sind die kanonischen Abbildungen der Hurwitzschen Zopfgruppen in
deren proendliche Komplettierungen fIr bzw. Hr injektiv.
Mittels des Riemannschen Existenzsatzes und durch Ubergang zum projekti-
ven Limes der Galoisgruppen erhlilt man hieraus in Analogie zu Satz 1.3 den Teil
(a) des folgenden Satzes, der Teil (b) ergibt sich daraus dann wieder mit dem
Grothendieckschen Spezialisierungssatz fUr Fundamentalgruppen (Grothendieck
(1971), siehe auch Serre (1992), Thm. 6.3.3):

Satz 4.1. (a) Die Galoisgruppe der maximalen uber X~ unverzweigten al-
gebraischen Korpererweiterung Mr /C(tl , ... ,tr) ist die proendliche Hurwitzsche
Zopjgruppe fIr. Dabei gehort zu der Uberlagerung X; die proendliche reine Hur-
witzsche Zopjgruppe Hr als algebraische Fundamentalgruppe.
(b) Die A ussagen in (a) bleiben richtig fUr jeden algebraisch abgeschlossenen
K orper k der Charakteristik 0 anstatt von C.
 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 87

(4.2) Ab jetzt werde (3; E 1l"l(X;, Po) mit seinem kanonischen Bild in fIr
identifiziert, und es sei

(4.2)

Drum erzeugen 'Y1, .. ·,'Yr-1 in fir eine freie proendliche Gruppe G r - 1 vom Rang
r - 2 mit der definierenden Relation 'Y1 ... 'Yr-1 = 1 . Weiter operieren die (3i fUr
1 ::; i ::; r - 2 auf den 'Yi vermoge

('Y1, ... , 'Yr-1),8, = ('Y1, ... , 'Yi-b 'Yi'Yi+1 'Yi 1,'Yi, 'Yi+2, ... , 'Yr-1). (4.3)

Fur den Fixkorper von G r- 1 in der Galoiserweiterung Mr/Q(ii, ... ,ir) aus Satz
4.1 fUr Q statt <C gelten (siehe Matzat (1991a), §3.3 bzw. Malle, Matzat (1998),
III, §2.4):

Folgerung 4.2. (a) Fur r ~ 4 ist der Fixkorper von Mr unter dem ab-
geschlossenen Normalteiler G r - 1 von Hr gerade M r - 1(t r ) .Dabei ist M r -1 alge-
braisch abgeschlossen in Mr.
(b) Die Korpererweiterung M r /Mr - 1(tr) ist eine maximale auflerhalb der
Menge § = P-P1, ... , ~s} der Ziihlerdivisionen ~i von (ti - tr ) in M r - 1(t r )/ M r - 1
unverzweigte Galoiserweiterung.

(4.3) Damit ist man nun in einer der Folgerung 1.4 vollig entsprechenden
Ausgangssituation mit s = r - 1. Entsprechend gelten die Aussagen von §2 auch
fUr den Korperturm Mr/Mr-1(tr)/Q(t1 ... ,tr) anstatt von Ms/Q(t)/Q(t). Ins-
besondere gibt es zu jeder Galoiserweiterung Nu / Ms (t r) fUr s = r - 1 einen
Modulkorper Ku ~ Q(t) = Q(t1, ... ,tr).
Die Korpererweiterung Ku/iQ(t) laBt sich nun aufspalten in eine Konstan-
tenerweiterung ku(t)/iQ(t) gefolgt von einer geometrischen Korpererweiterung
Ku/ku(t), wobei der Grad letzterer mit der Lange der Hs-Zoptbahn von [0-] auf
E.(G)/Inn(G) libereinstimmt. Dabei ergibt sich die Zopfoperation von Hs auf
E.(G)/Inn(G) analog zu (2.3) aus (4.3) durch Substitution von 'Yi durch Ui und
Inversion:

(4.4) In Verallgemeinerung zu §2 nennt man nun eine H.-Zoptbalm B ~

E.(G)/Inn(G) mit [T] E Beine starre Zop/bahn, wenn sie alle Erzeugenden-
systemklassen [0-] E Es(G)/Inn(G) mit [Ui] = [Ti] umfaBt oder schwacher nur
diejenigen dieser [0-], welche in H. modulo Aut(Hs) konjugierte Stabilisatoren
besitzen. Weiter heiBt die Zoptbahn B bzw. [o-J E B hinreichend rational, wenn
die Potenzierung der Konjugiertenklassen [UiJ mit zu IGI teilerfremdem n E N
eine Permutation dieser Klassen verursacht. Drunit erhalt man die folgende Va-
riante der Satze 2.4 und 2.5:

Satz 4.3. (a) Es sei G eine endliche Gruppe mit einer starren H.-Zop/bahn
B C E.(G)/Inn(G) von Erzeugendensystemen. Dann ist fUr jedes
88 B.H. Matzat

[u] [(0"1, ... ,0"8)] E B der Modulkorper Ku von Nu lM8 regular uber dem
Korper ku der Charakterwerte von u. Insbesondere ist ku = Q falls [u] (hinrei-
chend) rational ist.
(b) Besitzt weiter Z(G) ein Komplement in G und Kulku(t) eine unverzweig-
te rationale Stelle, so gibt es eine geometrische Galoiserweiterung

Ffir den Beweis dieses Satzes und Verallgemeinerungen wird auf Matzat
(1991a), §6.1 und §8.1, Matzat (1993) bzw. Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm. IlL5.3,
Thm. IlL6.5 und Thm. IlL8.9 verwiesen. Insbesondere kann auch hier wie in
Satz 2.5 ku durch Q ersetzt werden, wenn (die Zopfbahn von) [u] im Sinne der
obigen Definition hinreichend rational ist.
1m Vergleich zu den Satzen 2.4 und 2.5 wird in Satz 4.3 die Starrheitsfor-
derung abgeschwacht zur Starrheit von Zopfbahnen. Daffir hat man aber eine
arithmetische Zusatzvoraussetzung in Form der Existenz eines rationalen Punk-
tes zu erfiillen. Letztere kann in Einzelfallen durch das Studium der Struktur
von Ku verifiziert werden. Damit wurde unter anderem die bisher einzige G-
Realisierung der M24 fiber Q (mit dem Klasssenvektor (2A, 2A, 2A, 12B) und
der Zopfbahnlange 144) gefunden. Weitere derartige Beispiele sind in Matzat
(1991a), §9, zusammengestellt.

(4.5) Der Existenznachweis eines rationalen Punktes entfallt definitions-

gemaB fiber PAC-Korpern k. Da zudem von Conway und Parker bewiesen wurde
(siehe Fried, VOlklein (1991), App. bzw. Malle, Matzat (1998), III. §6.3 und 4),
daB jede endliche Gruppe G, deren Multiplikator durch Kommutatoren erzeugt
wird, eine hinreichend rationale starre Zopfbahn besitzt, und daB jede endliche
Gruppe Faktorgruppe einer solchen Gruppe ist, folgt unter Verwendung von Fol-
gerung 1.2 aus Satz 4.3 sofort:

Folgerung 4.4. (a) Uber einem PAC-Korper k der Charakteristik 0 be-

sitzt jede endliche Gruppe eine G-Realisierung, insbesondere ist IBk{t) die Menge
aller endlichen Gruppen.
(b) 1st dabei k ein Hilbertscher PAC-Korper, so ist auch IBk die Menge aller
endlichen Gruppen.

(4.6) In einem weiteren Spezialfall ist die Existenz eines rationalen Punktes
in trivialer Weise erffillt, wenn namlich das Erzeugendensystem u selbst starr
und damit Ku = ku(t) ist. Solche Erzeugendensysteme mit s ~ 4 sind erst
kfirzlich von VOlklein (1998a) und Dettweiler, Reiter (1998) entdeckt worden
und stellen eine direkte Verallgemeinerung der Belyi-Tripel dar. Dazu heiBt ein
s-Tupel u = (0"1, ... ,0"8) von Elementen O"i E GLn(k) fiber einem Korper k mit
0"1" '0". E Z(GLn(k» linear starr, wenn es starr im Sinne von §2 ist (aber
nicht notwendig erzeugend). Es heiBe weiter irreduzibel, wenn es eine irreduzible
Untergruppe von GLn(k) erzeugt. Irreduzible linear starre s-Tupel lassen sich
folgendermaBen nachweisen (Volklein (1998b»:
 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 89

Bemerkung 4.5. Es sei k ein Korper und u = (0"1, ... ,0".) ein irreduzibles
s-Tupel in GLn(k). Dieses ist linear starr, falls gilt
•
l: dim(C(O"i)) = (s - 2)n 2 + 2. (4.5)
i=1

Hierbei bedeutet dim(C(O")) die Dimension des Zentralisators von 0" in GLn(k)
als algebraische Gruppe uber k. 1m Spezialfall algebraisch abgeschlossener Kor-
per kist (4.5) sogar eine hinreichende Bedingung fur die lineare Starrheit irre-
duzibler s-Thpel (siehe Katz (1996), Ch. 1.1 fUr k = C, bzw. Volklein (1998b)
fUr k allgemein).
1m Kapite16 von Katz (1996) wird eine Konstruktionsmethode fUr irreduzible
linear starre s- Thpel - diese beschreiben dort physikalisch starre lokale Systerne
- uber algebraisch abgeschlossenen Korpern der Charakteristik 0 entwickelt. In
der Regel kann man aus diesen durch Spezialisierung irreduzible linear starre s-
Thpel in linearen Gruppen uber gewissen endlichen Korpern k gewinnen. Diese
ergeben dann sogar starre Erzeugendensysteme der erzeugten Untergruppe G,
falls noch die Zusatzbedingung an N(G) in der Bemerkung 3.1. erfUllt ist (siehe
Katz (1996), Ch. 7, und Dettweiler, Reiter (1998), §4).

(4.7) Ais erste Erfolge konnten Dettweiler und Reiter (1998) mit dieser
Methode die ersten beiden Aussagen des folgenden Satzes gewinnen, der G-
Realisierungen uber IQ klassischer Gruppen mit Korperautomorphisrnen enthalt:

Satz 4.6. Die folgenden einfachen Gruppen besitzen G-Realisierungen uber

IQ:
(a) Ln(q) fUr q > 3 ungerade, n > t.p(q -1) und (n,q -1) = 1,
(b) Un(q) fUr q > 3 ungerade, n > t.p(q + 1) und (n, q + 1) = 1,
(c) S2n(q2) fur q ungerade und n :::: q.

1m Gegensatz zu den Teilen (a) und (b) von Satz 4.6 beruht die Aussage (c)
von Thompson, VOlklein (1998a) nicht auf der Existenz starrer Erzeugendensy-
sterne, sondern grundet sich auf eine hinreichend rational starre Zopfbahn der
Lange 2n - 1 mit rationalern Definitionskorper KtT/lQ. Fur gerade q und n sind
zu (a) und (b) analoge Aussagen bereits von VOlklein (1993) bewiesen worden
(vergleiche auch Malle, Matzat (1998), Cor. I1I.9.12 und Cor. III.9.14).

II. Geometrische Einbettungsprobleme

§5 Reduktionssatze fiir Einbettungsprobleme

(5.1) Urn eine vorgegebene Galoiserweiterung in eine solche mit groBerer Grup-
pe einbetten zu konnen, ist ein sogenanntes Einbettungsproblem zu lOsen. Die-
90 B.H. Matzat

ses laBt sich wie folgt prazisieren: Die Galoiserweiterung M / K mit der Grup-
pe H = Gal(M/K) fiber einem Korper K mit der Fundamentalgruppe G K
sei gegeben durch die Restriktion 0 : GK ~ H und die Gruppenerweiterung
G =F . H (pro-)endlicher Gruppen durch einen Epimorphismus (3 : G ~ H
mit Kern((3) = F. Dann heiBt die Frage nach der Existenz eines (stetigen) Ho-
momorphismus 'Y : GK ~ G mit 0 = (3 0 'Y ein Einbettungsproblem, abgekfirzt
durch £(0,(3). Der Homomorphismus 'Y heiBt Liisung von £(0,(3), im Falle ei-
nes Epimorphismus eine eigentliche Liisung. Weiter heiBt der Fixkorper N von
Kernb) Liisungskiirper von £(0, (3); fUr diesen gilt im Falle einer eigentlichen
Losung Gal(N/K) = G.

Y
GK

10
1-F-G-H-l (5.1)
(3
(5.2) 1st. bei einem Einbettungsproblem £(0,(3) der Grundkorper K ein
Funktionenkorper mit Konstantenkorper k und ist M/k regular, so heiBt £(0,(3)
ein geometrisches Einbettungsproblem, und eine Losung 'Y von £ (0, (3) heiBt eine
geometrische Liisung, falls auch der zugehOrige Losungskorper N fiber k regular
ist. Bei der Untersuchung geometrischer Einbettungsprobleme haben sich soge-
nannte Parameterlosungen bewahrt. Diese erhillt man folgendermaBen: Durch
Adjunktion einer Transzendenten t gewinnt man aus dem Einbettungsproblem
£(0,(3) mit O(GK) = Gal(M/K) ein neues Einbettungsproblem £(0*,(3*) mit
0* : GK{t) ~ H* := Gal(M(t)/K(t)) und (3* : G ~ H* ~ H. Eine Losung
'Y* dieses Einbettungsproblems heiBt Pammeterliisung von £ (0, (3), falls der zu-
gehorige Losungskorper N* regular fiber Mist. Offensichtlich ist bei diesem
Sprachgebrauch eine eigentliche Parameterlosung von £(0, (3) mit der Einsgrup-
pe H = O(GK) eine G-Realisierung von F = G.
Die folgenden Aussagen, die fast unmittelbar aus der Definition folgen, zeigen
die Universalitli.t von Parameterlosungen (vergleiche Matzat (1995) fUr Teil (b)).
Dabei heiBt ein Einbettungsproblem £(0, (3) endlich, falls Bild(o) und Kern((3)
endliche Gruppen sind.

Bemerkung 5.1. (a) Besitzt ein endliches Einbettungsproblem iiber ei-

nem Hilbertkiirper K eine (eigentliche) Pammeterliisung, so besitzt es auch eine
(eigentliche) geometrische Liisung.
(b) Besitzt ein Einbettungsproblem iiber einem Funktionenkiirper K eine (ei-
gentliche) Pammeterliisung, so besitzt es auch eine (eigentliche) geometrische
Losung.

(5.3) Mit dem folgenden Satz von Nobusawa (1961) (siehe auch Malle,
Matzat (1998), Thm. IV.5.2) lassen sich endliche Einbettungsprobleme in zwei
wesentlich verschiedene Klassen aufteilen:
 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 91

Satz 5.2. Jedes endliche (geometrische) Einbettungsproblem uber einem

Korper K lapt sich zerlegen in ein (geometrisches) Frattini-Einbettungsproblem
uber K gefolgt von einem zerfallenden (geometrischen) Einbettungsproblem mit
demselben Kern F uber K.

Hierbei heiBt zerlegen, daB eine Lasung des zweiten Einbettungsproblems

eine Lasung des urspriinglichen Einbettungsproblems enthalt. Weiter heiBt ein
Einbettungsproblem ein Frattini-Einbettungsproblem, falls F = Kern(fJ) in der
Frattinigruppe <p(G) von G liegt, und es heiBt ein zerfallendes Einbettungspro-
blem, falls die Gruppenerweiterung G = F· H zerfallt, d.h. G = F ~ H ein
semidirektes Produkt ist.

(5.4) Diese beiden Typen von Einbettungsproblemen zeigen ein vallig ver-
schiedenes Lasungsverhalten:

Bemerkung 5.3. (a) Jedes endliche zerfallende (geometrische) Einbet-

tungsproblem besitzt eine (geometrische) Losung.
(b) Jedes lOs bare (geometrische) Frattini-Einbettungsproblem besitzt eine ei-
gentliche (geometrische) Losung.

Dabei erhalt man (a) durch Komposition von a mit dem definitionsgemaB
existierenden homomorphen Schnitt t : H -+ G und (b) aus (F,,(GK)) = G.
Letzteres hat im Falle einer projektiven Fundamentalgruppe G K unmittelbar
zur Folge:

Folgerung 5.4. 1st die Fundamentalgruppe G K eine projektive proendliche

Gruppe, so besitzt jedes endliche Frattini-Einbettungsproblem eine eigentliche
Losung.

§6 Zerfallende Einbettungsprobleme
(6.1) Zerfallende Einbettungsprobleme lassen sich iiber eine Hauptreihe des
Kerns F = Fo t> Fl t> ••• t> Fr = 1 weiter zerlegen in ein zerfallendes Einbettungs-
problem mit charakteristisch einfachem Kern D ~ Fo / Fl (d.h. D ist das direkte
Produkt mehrerer Kopien einer einfachen Gruppe E) und ein wei teres Einbet-
tungsproblem mit dem Kern F 1 , so daB wir uns hier durch Induktion mit Satz
5.2 auf den Fall eines charakteristisch einfachen Kerns zuriickziehen kannen. 1st
hierbei E eine zyklische Gruppe, so wird E(a, fJ) ein zerfallendes Einbettungs-
problem mit abelschem Kern D. Diese wurden im Zahlkarperfall bereits von
Scholz (1929), im geometrischen Fall von Saltman (1982) und im parametri-
schen Fall schlieBlich in Matzat (1995) ge16st (siehe auch Malle, Matzat (1998),
Thm. IV.2.4).

Satz 6.1. Jedes endliche zerfallende Einbettungsproblem mit abelschem

Kern besitzt eine eigentliche ParameterlOsung.
92 B.H. Matzat

Damit sind zerfallende Einbettungsprobleme mit abelschem Kern in jeder nur

gewtinschten Allgemeinheit eigentlich 16sbar. Insbesondere besitzen alle diejeni-
gen Gruppen, die sich durch sukzessives Losen von zerfallenden Einbettungspro-
blemen mit abelschem Kern und Faktorgruppenbildung gewinnen lassen, tiber
jedem Korper eine G-Realisierung. Diese sogenannten semiabelschen Gruppen
sind durch Dentzer (1995b) und Stoll (1995) charakterisiert worden.

(6.2) 1m Falle einer nichtabelschen einfachen Gruppe E mtissen wir eine

Zusatzvoraussetzung einfUhren: Eine endliche Gruppe H mit trivialem Zentrum
besitzt eine GAR-Realisierung uber k, wenn gelten:
(G) H besitzt eine G-Realisierung tiber k, d.h. es ist H 3! Gal(M/k(t» mit
M/k regular.
(A) A := Aut(H) ist Untergruppe von Aut(M/k) mit M1nn(H) = k(t).
(R) Jeder Erweiterungskorper R/ M A mit kR = k(t) ist rational tiber R n k.
Hierbei bedeutet k eine separabel abgeschlossene Htille von k. Damit gilt nach
Matzat (1985,1995) der folgende zweite element are Einbettungssatz (vergleiche
Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm. IV.3.5):

Satz 6.2. Es sei E eine nichtabelsche ein/ache endliche Gruppe mit einer
GAR-Realisierung uber k. Dann besitzt jedes endliche Einbettungsproblem uber
k( t) mit Kern Er fUr r E N eine eigentliche ParameterlOsung.

(6.3) Damit stellt sich die Frage nach der Existenz von GAR-Realisierungen
nichtabelscher einfacher Gruppen. Dazu stellt man fest, daB von den in Satz
3.3 aufgezahlten G-Realisierungen die alternierenden Gruppen, die sporadischen
einfachen Gruppen und die Gruppen vom Lie-Typ mit nur trivialen Korperau-
tomorphismen (bis auf 3D4(p» konstruktionsgemaB zusatzlich die Automorphis-
menbedingung (A) erfUllen (siehe Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm. 11.10.2). Dasselbe
gilt auch ftir die linearen und unitaren Gruppen in Satz 4.6. Damit erhalt man
tiber Qfb das folgende Ergebnis:

Satz 6.3. Die /olgenden ein/achen Gruppen besitzen GAR-Realisierungen

uber Qfb:
(a) die alternierenden Gruppen An fUr n ~ 5,
(b) die Gruppen vom Lie-Typ Gn(P) fUr p > 2 mit hochstens der Ausnahme
3D 4 (P),
(c) die Gruppen Ln(q) und Un(q) unter der Voraussetzung von Satz 4.6,
(d) die sporadischen ein/achen Gruppen.

Daneben sind noch einige weitere GAR-Realisierungen einfacher Gruppen

vom Lie-Typ in Charakteristik 2 nachgewiesen worden, z. B. fUr S2n(2),Otn(2)
und 02"n(2) von Reiter (1997) sowie fUr Gruppen vom Typ L2n(q) und U2n (q) von
Volklein (1994) (vergleiche Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm. IV.4.6 und Cor. IV.4.9).
 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 93

(604) Da tiber 10 nieht jede Quadrik einen rationalen Punkt besitzt, stellt
hier die Rationalitatsbedingung (R) fUr die GAR-Realisierungen in den Listen
von Satz 3.5 noch eine echte Zusatzbedingung dar. Diese ist im eindimensionalen
Fall zum Beispiel erfUllt, wenn die auBeren Automorphismen von E eine zyklische
Gruppe oder eine Diedergruppe mit ungeradem zyklischen Normalteiler bilden,
im mehrdimensionalen Fall ist haufig das semilineare Rationalitatskriterium von
Speiser (1919) hilfreieh (siehe in diesem Zusammenhang auch Matzat (1992),
Satz 2 bzw. Malle, Matzat (1998), Prop. IVA.7). Dies fUhrt mit den Satzen 3.5
und 4.6 auf den folgenden Satz (vergl. Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm. IVA.3, fUr
eine prazise Formulierung):

Satz 6.4. Die folgenden einfachen Gruppen besitzen GAR-Realisierungen

uber 10:
(a) die einfachen altemierenden Gruppen An fur n "I- 6,
(b) die Gruppen vom Lie-Typ L2(p) , L2n+1(P), U2n+1 (P), S2n(P),02n+1(P),
G 2(p), F 4 (P), E 6 (P), 2E6(P) , Es(P) fur je eine Primzahlmenge positiver Dirich-
letdichte,
(c) die Gruppen Ln(q) und Un(q) unter der Voraussetzung von Satz 4.6,
(d) die sporadischen einfachen Gruppen mit hochstens der Ausnahme M 23 .

(6.5) Nach wie vor bleibt aber die Frage offen, ob jedes zerfallende Einbet-
tungsproblem tiber 10 beziehungsweise tiber qtb eine eigentliche Losung besitzt.
Dieses andert sieh, wenn man den Grundkorper hinreiehend groB wahlt. Hierzu
heiBe ein Korper k ein weiter Korper, falls jede irreduzible algebraische Kurve
tiber k, die einen einfachen k-rationalen Punkt besitzt, sogar unendlich viele
k-rationale Punkte besitzt. Zu diesen zahlen neben den PAC-Korpern unter an-
derem auch die reell abgeschlossenen Korper und die Henselschen Korper. Ftir
diese konnte Pop (1996) mit Methoden der starren analytischen Geometrie all-
gemein beweisen (siehe auch Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm. VA.8, bzw. Haran,
Jarden (1998) ftir einen alternativen Beweis):

Satz 6.5. Uber einem weiten Korper k besitzt jedes endliche zerfallende
Einbettungsproblem eine eigentliche ParameterlOsung. Insbesondere besitzt jede
endliche Gruppe eine G-Realisierung uber k.

(6.6) 1m Falle eines Hilbertschen PAC-Korpers folgt hieraus mit der Fol-
gerung 504. die Losbarkeit aller endlichen Einbettungsprobleme im eigentlichen
Sinne. Dies fUhrt mit dem Freiheitssatz von Iwasawa (1953) zu

Folgerung 6.6. Die Fundamentalgruppe eines abziihlbaren Hilbertschen

PAC-Korpers ist eine freie proendliche Gruppe von abziihlbar unendlichem Rang.

Insbesondere ist auch die Fundamentalgruppe GiFp(t) eine freie proendliehe

Gruppe. In Charakteristik 0 wurde dieses Resultat bereits von Fried und V61klein
(1992) gewonnen. Hier kann man es unter Verwendung von Satz 6.2. ziemlieh
94 B.H. Matzat

direkt aus der Folgerung 4.4. ableiten (siehe auch Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm.
IV.3.1O).

§7 Frattini-Einbettungsprobleme

(7.1) Wie im Fall zerfallender Einbettungsprobleme konnen wir uns auch bei
Frattini-Einbettungsproblemen auf Einbettungsprobleme mit charakteristisch ein-
fachem Kern zurfickziehen. Da die Frattinigruppe einer endlichen Gruppe auflosbar
ist, genfigen dann sogar Frattini-Einbettungsprobleme mit abelschem Kern. Da-
bei ist nach Bemerkung 5.3(b) jede Losung bereits eine eigentliche Losung. Es sei
also £(a, {3) ein endliches Frattini-Einbettungsproblem, dessen Kern eine endli-
che abelsche Gruppe A vom Exponenten mist. Dabei konnen wir annehmen,
daB m teilerfremd zur Charakteristik des Grundkorpers ist, da fiber einem Hil-
bertkorper K der Charakteristik p jedes endliche Einbettungsproblem mit einer
p-Gruppe als Kern eigentlich lOsbar ist. (Denn nach dem Satz von Witt (1936)
ist die maxim ale pro-p-Faktorgruppe von G K eine freie pro-p-Gruppe von un-
endlichem Rang.)
Durch Adjunktion einer primitiven m-ten Einheitswurzel (m zu M erhalten
wir zu M:= M((m) aus £(a,{3) ein verschobenes Einbettungsproblem £(&,/3),
in dem die Gruppe G = A· iI mit iI:= Gal(M/k) das Faserprodukt G XH iI
von G mit iI fiber H ist. Nach dem ersten Reduktionssatz von Kochendorffer
(1953) ist dieses genau dann losbar, wenn das ursprfingliche Einbettungspro-
blem lOsbar ist (vergl. Matzat (1995), Thm. 3 bzw. Malle, Matzat (1998), Thm.
IV.1.6). Insbesondere konnen wir weiter ohne Beschrankung der Allgemeinheit
annehmen, daB (m in M enthalten ist.

(7.2) Die Kohomologieklasse der Gruppenerweiterung G = A . H bezeich-

nen wir mit h E H2(H,A). Diese wird gemaB dem nachstehenden Diagramm
mit dem Faserprodukt G XH GK durch die Inflation a* auf h(a, {3) := a*(h) E
H2(GK,A) abgebildet. Hieraus ergibt sich unmittelbar:

l - - A - - GXHGK ~ GK - - 1

l i! ;//la
l--A G H --1

Bemerkung 7.1. Ein endliches Frattini-Einbettungsproblem mit abelschem

Kern A besitzt genau dann eine eigentliche Losung, wenn h(a, {3) = 0 ist.

(7.3) Damit gibt es hier fUr die Losbarkeit ein im allgemeinen nichttriviales
kohomologisches Hindernis h(a,{3) E H2(GK ,A). In dem Spezialfall, daB A G-
isomorph zu einer Untergruppe von M X ist, liegt h(a,{3) in der m-Torsion der
Brauergruppe Br(K) = H2(GK, [(X). Dementsprechend heiBt das zugehorige
 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 95

Einbettungsproblem &(0:,(3) ein Brauer-Einbettungsproblem. Ein solches hat un-

ter anderem den Vorzug, daB sich die Losungen parameterisieren lassen, insbe-
sondere gilt:

BeIllerkung 7.2. Jedes lOs bare Brauer-Einbettungsproblem besitzt eine

ParameterlOsung.

(7.4) 1m FaIle von Produktformelkorpern (d.h. von Zahlkorpern K und

Funktionenkorpern einer Variablen Kjk) wird die Brauergruppe Br(K) iiber die
Restriktionsabbildungen kanonisch eingebettet in die direkte Summe der Brauer-
gruppen Br(K\j3) der Lokalisierungen K\j3 von K fUr I1J E r(K) bzw I1J E r(Kjk).
Dies folgt fUr glob ale Korper aus dem Satz von Hasse, Brauer und Noether
(1932) und fUr Funktionenkorper aus den Satzen von Faddeev (1951) fUr Cha-
rakteristik 0 beziehungsweise von Auslander, Brumer (1968) fiir Charakteristik
p > O. Demzufolge gilt iiber Produktformelkorpern ein Lokal-Global-Prinzip
fUr Brauer-Einbettungsprobleme (Sonn (1994a». Besitzt zum Beispiel der Kon-
stantenkorper k eines Funktionenkorpers Kjk eine projektive Fundamentalgrup-
pe, so reduziert sich die Losbarkeit eines globalen Brauer-Einbettungsproblems
auf die Losbarkeit der endlich vielen lokalen Brauer-Einbettungsprobleme bei
den verzweigten Primstellen. Dabei sind letztere jedenfalls dann lOsbar, wenn
die Zerlegungsgruppen mit den Tragheitsgruppen in Gal(M j K) iibereinstimmen
(Scholz-Bedingung, siehe Sonn (1994b». Damit konnten Sonn (1994b) und Mal-
le, Sonn (1996) eine groBere Anzahl von Uberlagerungsgruppen fast einfacher
Gruppen als Galoisgruppen iiber Q'b (t) realisieren, unter anderem auch die
Uberlagerungsgruppen aller sporadischen Gruppen mit Ausnahme der M22 (we-
gen des exzeptionell groBen Multiplikators Z12, vergl. Malle, Matzat (1998),
Thm. IV.7.13 und Thm. IV.7.14).

(7.5) Nun sei &(0:, (3) wieder ein beliebiges endliches Einbettungsproblem
mit abelschem Kern A. Wird dann durch ein Untergruppenpaar (U, B) mit B :S
A und A :S U :S G mit U :S Na(B) und UjA :S Gal(MjK) vermoge der
kanonischen Abbildungen durch

1 -+ AjB -+ UjB -+ UjA -+ 1

ein Brauer-Einbettungsproblem induziert, so heiBt dies ein &(0:, (3) begleiten-

des Brauer-Einbettungsproblem. Weiter heiBt &(0:, (3) ein konkordantes Einbet-
tungsproblem, wenn aIle begleitenden Brauer-Einbettungsprobleme lOsbar sind.
Diese notwendige Bedingung fiir die Losbarkeit von Einbettungsproblemen wur-
de bereits von Delone, Faddeev (1944) formuliert. Das zugehorige erste Einbet-
tungshindernis IaBt sich auch kohomologisch als Element von H2 (H, M[A] X) ~
Ext~(Z[A],MX) mit der Charaktergruppe A von A deuten: h1 (0:,(3) E
H2(H, M[Ar) (siehe Yakovlev (1964) bzw. Hoechsmann (1968».
Aus obigem folgt sofort, daB bei Produktformelkorpern die Konkordanzbedin-
gung dem Lokal-Global-Prinzip geniigt. Da weiter nach einem Satz von Demush-
kin und Shafarevich (1959) fiir lokale Korper die Konkordanz eine hinreichende
96 B.H. Matzat

Losbarkeitsbedingung ist (siehe auch Hoechsmann (1968) ffir einen alternativen

Beweis unter Verwendung des Tateschen Dualitatssatzes), gilt:

Satz 7.3. Ein endliches Einbettungsproblem mit abelschem Kern iiber ei-
nem globalen Korper ist genau dann konkordant, wenn aile zugehorigen lokalen
Einbettungsprobleme los bar sind.

(7.6) 1m allgemeinen ist aber ein konkordantes Einbettungsproblem nicht

lOsbar. Das zugehorige zweite Einbettungshindernis wurde von Hasse (1948) ent-
deckt. Kohomologisch ist es am einfachsten als Element von Ext~(Y(A), MX) ~
Hl(G, Hom(Y(A), MX)) zu beschreiben, wobei YeA) der Kern der kanonischen
Abbildung Z[A] --+ A, EXExmXX t-+ TIxEXXm )( ist, d.h. es ist h2(a.,(3) E
Exth(Y(A), MX) (Yakovlev (1964)).
1m Falle globaler Korper kann dieses durch einen Vergleichssatz von Tate
(1966) fibersetzt werden in ein Element von H- 2 (H,A*) ~ H 1 (H,A)*, wobei
A* die zu A duale Gruppe bedeutet (siehe Yakovlev (1967)). Diese Darstellung
ist auch dem SchrumpfungsprozeB zuganglich, den Shafarevich (1958) fUr die
induktive Losung zerfallender Einbettungsprobleme mit nilpotentem Kern fiber
Zahlkorpern benutzte. (Hierbei werden Einbettungshindernisse durch Ubergang
zu epimorphen Bildern des Kerns bis zum Verschwinden geschrumpft.) Dieser
Beweis wurde von Porsch (1998) auf glob ale Korper verallgemeinert.

Satz 7.4. Uber einem globalen Korper besitzt jedes endliche zerJaliende
(geometrische) Einbettungsproblem mit nilpotentem Kern eine (geometrische)
Losung.

(7.7) Da in einer auflosbaren Gruppe die nilpotente Frattinigruppe eine

echte Untergruppe der Fittinggruppe ist, folgt hieraus durch Induktion der Satz
von Shafarevich (1954a,1954b,1954c,1954d,1989) allgemein fUr globale Korper:

Satz 7.5. Uber einem globalen Korper kommt jede endliche auflosbare
Gruppe als Galoisgruppe vor.

Dabei kann man im Fall globaler Funktionenkorper noch erreichen, daB es

sich hierbei urn eine geometrische Galoiserweiterung handelt:

Folgerung 7.6. Uber einem endlichen Korper besitzt jede endliche auflos-
bare Gruppe eine G-Realisierung.

Hierbei konnen G-Realisierungen nilpotenter Gruppen durch elementare Uber-

legungen durch Ausbau der Methode von Scholz (1937) und Reichardt (1937)
mittels Variation des Grundkorpers und ohne SchrumpfungsprozeB gewonnen
werden (Madan et al. (1996)).
 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 97

§8 Konstruktion von Polynomen

(8.1) Zum AbschluB dieser Ubersicht mochte ich noch zusammensteIlen, wie-
weit flir Permutationsgruppen kleinen Grades G-Realisierungen fiber Ql bekannt
und erzeugende Polynome berechnet sind (vgl. Matzat (1991b), Satz 8.3, flir eine
iiltere Ubersicht). Ein erster technischer Fortschritt ergab sich bei der Losung al-
gebraischer Gleichungssysteme. Hier hat Nauheim (1995,1998) einen modularen
Algorithmus (ffir algebraische Gleichungssysteme mit endlich vielen Losungen)
entwickelt, der ohne die Voraussetzung guter Reduktion auskommt. Dieser AIgo-
rithmus ist gerade bei der Konstruktion von Polynomen mit vorgegebener (fast
einfacher) Galoisgruppe besonders wertvoIl, da bei den zugehorigen Gleichungs-
systemen haufig flir aIle hinreichend kleinen Primzahlen schlechte Reduktion
vorliegt (als Teiler der Gruppenordnung). Damit konnte Nauheim (1995) unter
anderem das folgende Polynom vom Grad 28 mit der Gruppe U3 (3) berechnen:

hs(X, t) = (X 6 - 6X 5 - 435X 4 - 308X 3 + 15X 2 + 66X + 19)4

·(X4 + 20X 3 + 114X 2 + 68X + 13) - 223 9 (X2 + 4X + 1)12(2X + 1)(t2 + 1)-.1

Als zweites hierher gehoriges Resultat verdient die Konstruktion eines Po-
lynoms vom Grad 24 mit der Mathieu-Gruppe M24 durch Granboulan (1996)
hervorgehoben zu werden. Das M24-Polynom ist aber wegen seines Umfangs ffir
eine exemplarische Wiedergabe weniger geeignet.

(8.2) Ein weiterer nennenswerter Fortschritt wurde durch die Konstruktion

von Polynomen mit zyklischer Galoisgruppe erzielt. Hier konnte Dentzer (1995a)
aufbauend auf Smith (1991) Polynome flir G-Realisierungen der Zn fiber Ql mit
<pen) konjugierten Verzweigungspunkten konstruieren und bis einschlieBlich zum
Grad 16 explizit berechnen (vergl. auch Malle, Matzat (1998), III. §4). Als Kost-
probe wird hier das Polynom mit der Gruppe Zs und den Zahlerdivisoren von
(t - (~) ffir i E (Z/8Z)X als Verzweigungspunkten wiedergegeben:

fs,l(X, t) =X S - 4(t 4 + I)X6 + 2(4t 2 + 1)(t4 + I)X4

- 4(t + 1)(t4 + l)t 2X 2 + (t4 + l)t 4.
2

(8.3) SchlieBlich wurden mittels bekannter und neuer G-Realisierungen

kleiner und fasteinfacher Gruppen G-Realisierungen flir transitive Permutati-
onsgruppen kleinen Grades durch systematisches Losen von Einbettungsproble-
men gewonnen. Hierflir wird exemplarisch die Konstruktion eines Polynoms vom
Grad 8 mit der Gruppe SL2(3) von G. Malle skizziert: Dabei geht er aus von der
Gruppe G = GL2(3) und 0' E E4(G) mit 0"1,0"2 E 3A und 0"3,0"4 E 2A. Diese
Erzeugendensystemklassen [O']liegen aIle in einer einzigen rational starren Zopf-
bahn B der Lange 12, so daB der Definitionskorper Ku von Nu / M4(t5) nach
Satz 4.3(a) eine geometrische Korpererweiterung fiber Ql(t) vom Grad 12 ist.
Durch Berechnung eines erzeugenden Polynoms von Ku/QlCt) aus der durch die
Zopfoperation gegebenen Verzweigungsstruktur (und nach Spezialisierung von
3 Parametern) stellt man fest, daB Ku /QlCt) ein rationaler Fuktionenkorper ist
98 B.H. Matzat

und zum Beispiel fUr (tl' t 2 , t3, t4) 1-+ (675,114/27,00,0) eine uber Q(t) unver-
zweigte rationale Stelle besitzt. Bei diesen Verzweigungspunkten existiert also
nach Satz 4.3(b) eine Galoiserweiterung NulQ(t) mit t = t5 und der Gruppe
G = GL2(3).
Da die Permutationsdarstellung vom Grad 8 von G imprimitiv ist, ist es
zweckmii13ig, die Berechnung des Polynoms fur einen Stammkorper Lu von Nul
Q(t) in zwei Schritte zu zerlegen. Man berechnet zuerst ein Polynom fUr einen
Stammkorper Lit vom Grad 4 fur die Faktorgruppe G = G1Z (G) 3:! 8 4 zu 0-
mit cfi, cf2 E 3.4 (3-Zyklen) und cf3, cf4 E 2.4 (Transpositionen):

a(Y, t) = Y(Y + 396)2(y + 11) - t(Y + 4)2(y + 256).

Lu hat den Grad 2 tiber Lit = Q(y, t) und ist in zwei der tiber dem Trager von
(t) liegenden Primdivisoren verzweigt. Durch Inspektion der Galoisgruppe der
so erzeugbaren Erweiterungen erhalt man Lu = LiT(v'Y). Demnach erzeugen die
Nullstellen von g(X, t) := g(X2, t) die GL 2(3)-Erweiterung Nu IQ(t).
SchlieBlich ist der Fixkorper von SL2(3) genau in den Primdivisoren von (t)
verzweigt und damit ein rationaler Funktionenkorper Q(u), der tiber Q(t) durch
eine Gleichung der Form cU 2 = t mit c E QX I(QX)2 erzeugt wird. Wegen
SL2(3) :::; As wird die Quadratklasse von c dadurch bestimmt, daB die Diskrimi-
nante des Polynoms g(X, cu 2 ) ein Quadrat ist. HierfUr gentigt c = -1, und es
ist

ein regulares SL2(3)-Polynom tiber Q(u).

Mit derselben Ausgangskorpererweiterung Nul K u konnen auch mit etwas
mehr rechnerischem Aufwand, unter anderem mit Verwendung des Nauheim-
Algorithmus, G-Realisierungen ftir die primitiven affinen Gruppen Z~ . GL2(3)
und Z~ . SL2(3) vom Grad 9 konstruiert werden.

(8.4) Mit diesen neuen Resultaten von Dentzer (1995a), Malle (in Malle,
Matzat (1998), Appendices 1 und 2), Nauheim (1995) und unter Einbeziehung
von Ergebnissen von Smith (1998) fUr T7,3 und TS,25 sowie Eichenlaub (1998)
ftir T9 ,15 in der Numerierung von Butler, McKay (1983) ergibt sich nunmehr das
folgende Bild (vergl. Satz 8.3 in Matzat (1991b) fUr altere Resultate):

Satz 8.1. Fur die folgenden Permutationsgruppen G vom Grad n sind er-
zeugende Polynome fUr G-Realisierungen uber Q bekannt:
(a) die symmetrischen und alternierenden Gruppen 8 n und An fur n E N,
(b) aile transitiven Gruppen vom Grad n :::; 11 mit Ausnahme von T 9 ,14 ,
TlO ,17, T lO ,27, T ll ,2, T ll ,3, T ll ,4,
(c) aile primitiven, nicht auflosbaren Gruppen vom Grad 12 :::; n :::; 30 mit
Ausnahme der Gruppen mit 80ckel Z~, L2(16), L3(4), M 23 , Z~, L2(25),L 2(27).1

1 Zumindest fiir die Permutationsdarstellung jeweils niedrigsten Grades

 Fortschritte in der inversen Galoistheorie 99

Es sollte vielleicht an dieser Stelle angemerkt werden, daB fUr zwei der in
(c) aufgefUhrten Ausnahmen bisher noch keine G-Realisierung uber Q gefunden
wurde, namlich die L2 (16) als kleinster einfacher Gruppe und die M23 als einzi-
ger sporadischer Gruppe.

(8.5) Fur Galoiserweiterungen uber Q konnten Kliiners und Malle (1998)

die Lucken in Satz 8.1(b) schlieBen, z.B. durch
fg,14(X) =X 9 - 12X 5 + 132X - 128
fur T9 ,14, und die Liste sogar noch bis zum Grad 15 ausdehnen:

Satz 8.2. Fur aile transitiven Permutationsgruppen G vom Grad n ~ 15

sind Polynome mit der Galoisgruppe G uber Q bekannt.

Bis zum Grad 12 einschlieBlich ist auch diese Liste in Malle, Matzat (1998)
als Appendix 3 aufgenommen.

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USSR Izv. 17 (1981), 477-503)
 From Class Groups to Class Fields

Michael E. Pohst

Technische Universitat Berlin, Fachbereich 3 Mathematik, Ma 8-1,

Strafie des 17. Juni 136,10623 Berlin, Germany, pohst~ath.tu-berlin.de

Abstract We give a short survey on the achievements of the KANT-group

during six years of the DFG Schwerpunkt "Algorithmische Zahlentheorie und
Algebra" . The results of the last year are presented for the first time and therefore
in greater detail. A description of the corresponding software is also contained.

1 Introduction
Since the first printing of the book [35] by H. Zassenhaus and the author in 1989
algorithmic algebraic number theory has attracted rapidly increasing interest.
This is documented, for example, by a regular meeting ANTS (algebraic num-
ber theory symposium) every two years whose proceedings [1], [6] give a good
survey about ongoing research. Also there are several computer algebra packages
concentrating on number theoretical computations. At present the most promi-
nent ones, which are available for free, are Kant [12], Pari [2] and Simath [27].
Kant comes with a data base for algebraic number fields, already containing
more than a million fields of small degree. Kant is developed by the research
group of the author at Berlin and will be presented in some detail in section 5.
We note that almost all of Kant and Pari is also contained in the Magma system
[4].
In the sequel we shortly discuss the improvements which were obtained in
Berlin for the computation of the important invariants of algebraic number fields
during the last six years. During that time the interest gradually turned from
absolute extensions to relative extensions of number fields. If subfields exist the
information about the invariants of those subfields can be lifted and used in the
field under consideration. This relative point of view allows to do computations
in fields of much larger degrees and has important applications, for example to
class field computations. We were able to compute integral bases of fields of
degree beyond 1000 and to calculate Hilbert class fields of degree over 100 for
base fields of degree 3 and 4. Recently the latter algorithm was generalized to
the computation of ray class fields. This and other results from the past year are
presented in greater detail in sections 3 and 4.

2 Early Years and Progress

In the beginning of the Forschungsschwerpunkt the emphasis was clearly on
the computation of invariants of algebraic number fields considered as absolute

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
104 M.E. Pohst

extensions over the rationals. The algorithms of [35] for unit group and class
group computations were considerably improved. Major contributions were made
by J. von Schmettow in his thesis [36], by F. HeB in his diploma thesis [26] and
by the author [34]. J. von Schmettow developed two new algorithms, one for
principal ideal testing and the other one for enforcing relations between prime
ideals. Later F. HeB compared all existing methods for class group computations
and developed efficient heuristical strategies. In parallel, improved versions of
continued fraction expansions basing on lattice basis reduction speeded up the
computations of independent and fundamental units [5], [34]. It was observed
that the relations calculated for determining the class group also helped for unit
computations and both approaches were combined. Thus it became possible to
do such computations in number fields of degree beyond twenty. It also became
obvious that the treatment of number fields of larger degree was pushed to a
limit.
This and the fact that higher degree number fields of interest are rarely
primitive motivated us to begin the study of relative extensions. A first step into
this direction had already been done by W. Bosma and the author when they
developed methods for computing pseudo bases for ideals in relative extensions
in [3]. The next step consisted in generalizing ideas of Sommer [40] for the
calculation of generating elements of the integers of relative quadratic extensions
[10]. Then we concentrated our efforts to radical extensions of arbitrary degree.
By adjoining appropriate roots of unity Kummer theory could be applied to
solve the problem for relative extensions of prime degree, and hence of arbitrary
degree. The resulting algorithms in the thesis of M. Daberkow [9] then allowed
the calculation of relative integral bases (of generators of the ring of integers) for
number fields of total degree beyond 1000. The fast methods for unit and class
group computations combined with the newly gained experience in the use of
Kummer theory put us into a situation in which computing Hilbert class fields
became a natural goal. We developed an algorithm who could compute Hilbert
class fields of arbitrary fields of small degree (say, 3, 4 or 5) and class numbers
divisible by small primes [13]. The latter restriction is needed since for every
prime number p dividing the class number we must adjoin a primitive p-th root
of unity to our ground field and then compute the unit and class group of that
new field. This is the crucial step in the application of Kummer theory, even
though we can assume GRH in this case. Namely, the proved correctness of the
unit and class group is not required since once we know a generating equation for
the (likely) Hilbert class field, an isomorphism between the original class group
and that field can be quite easily determined by other methods.
A generalization of the methods for computing Hilbert class fields to the
calculation of arbitrary ray class fields was to follow. The crucial step in the
calculation of ray class groups, the calculation of suitable generators for the
multiplicative group of a residue class ring, was overcome by the use of Hasse's
one units in the diploma thesis of S. Pauli [33]. The remaining steps are the
result of ongoing research [17] and will be explained in greater detail in the next
section.
 From Class Groups to Class Fields 105

We note that there are other methods for computing class fields over spe-
cial ground fields. For ray class fields over imaginary quadratic fields there is
the classical approach via complex multiplication. Using normalized functions
[38] this approach is indeed very fast and also allows the handling of large cyclic
factors. But this method has a severe disadvantage, it does not allow the compu-
tation of arbitrary class fields. In practice, this restricts the applicability to ray
class groups whose order is not much larger than 100. Otherwise the generated
polynomials become extremely large.
The use of analytical methods for other base fields via Stark units is under
investigation. Though this is based on an unproven conjecture, once results have
been obtained they can be verified unconditionally. At present, these methods
are studied in Berlin and in Bordeaux. Results were so far obtained only for
totally real fields of degree ~ 4 and discriminant < 1000.
Besides these results we obtained several other important ones on related
topics. The round 2 algorithm of Zassenhaus was generalized to relative exten-
sions in the diploma thesis by C. Friedrichs [18]. A paper of Dixon [14] gave us
the basic ideas for the computation of all subfields of a given number field. A
thorough study led to important improvements and in the sequel to the best
known algorithm for this task [31]. Then J. Kliiners had the idea to accumulate
knowledge on the subfield lattice of the field under consideration which speeded
up the method in cases, where many subfields exist. Thus, for example, Galois
fields could be handled much easier and faster than before. The relation between
subfields and subgroups of the Galois group guided him to develop powerful
methods for the calculation"of Galois groups of normal (absolute) extensions
and of abelian (relative) extensions in his thesis [30].
Two other theses were written on the solution of relative norm equations by
A. Jurk [29] and C. Fieker [16]. The second result is a natural generalization of
the absolute case and as efficient as one could hope for the general case in which
no exact analogue of LLL reduction is yet available. The results on integral bases
and fundamental unit computations were transfered to function fields over finite
fields by M. Schornig [39] who also developed the necessary reduction methods
from the geometry of numbers in that case. K. GeiBler extended earlier results
of Y. Eichenlaub and M. Olivier [15] for computing Galois groups to degree 12
in her diploma thesis [23] and is about to finish degrees up to 15 in the near
future.
Also, we developed new algorithms and improved known ones for solving
diophantine equations. Together with I. Galil and A. Petho methods for solving
index form equations in quartic fields were obtained in a series of papers. The
most complicated case of primitive quartic fields was eventually solved in [19],
where we reduced the task to the solution of Thue equations. Special fields of
degree larger than 4 were also studied recently [20], [21]. In his thesis [42] K.
Wildanger improved known methods for solving unit equations. His methods
can handle unit ranks up to ten (formerly only five). Consequently, he can solve
index form equations in cyclic number fields up to degree 23. Thus he proves a
conjecture of Bremner for all prime numbers p ~ 23, former results were only
106 M.E. Pohst

known up to p = 7. He also develops an efficient method for determining all

integral points on Mordell curves y2 = x 3 + k. This enabled him to complete the
results of [22] for I k I::; 105 , in which the authors could not handle 1182 cases.

3 Ray Class Fields and the Artin Map

The tools discussed in the preceding section allow the purely arithmetic con-
struction of class fields in case of moderate degree of the base field and small
exponent of its ray class group. We note that since the paper of Hasse [24] in
1964, in which he computes Hilbert class fields of imaginary quadratic fields of
class numbers 3 and 5, the first progress about arithmetic class field computa-
tions was reported in [11] two years ago.
In the sequel k denotes an algebraic number field with ring of integers Ok.
A (congruence) module m := 1TI{)moo consists of two factors, an integral ideal1Tl{)
and a formal product of real places moo of k. The set of all ideals of k which are
coprime to mo is denoted by 1 m, and Pm is the set of principal ideals which can
be generated by elements a == 1 mod* m (i.e. a == 1 mod 1TI{) and a(i) > 0 for all
real embed dings of k for which the corresponding places divide moo). In analogy
to the class group of k the ray class group modulo m is elm := 1 m/ Pm. Once the
class group and the unit group of k are known the computation of the ray class
group for a given module m causes no difficulties (see [33], [8]).
Any subgroup of 1 m containing Pm is called an ideal group. For an ideal group
H the factor group 1 m/ H is written as fl.
For Galois extensions K/k with abelian Galots group G = Gal(K/k) and
unramified prime ideals p the corresponding Frobenius automorphism is [¥].
In our notation introduced above the group of unramified prime ideals of k is just
111K/k, where i)K/k denotes the relative discriminant of the extension K/k. The

map p f-t [¥] can be multiplicatively extended to 111K/k yielding the Artin
map:
cPK/k : IllK/k --t Gal(K/k) : a = II pap II [-K/k]a .
f-t
p

p p p
Then K is the class field of k belonging to the ideal group H if and only if
Gal(K/ k) is isomorphic to 1m/ H, the isomorphism being induced by the Artin
map. By the famous existence theorem of class field theory there exists a class
field for every ideal group and every abelian extension is the class field belonging
to a suitable ideal group. The theoretical results of class field theory which will
be used in the sequel are adopted from [32] and [28].
Our goal is to develop an algorithm for the computation of the class field
belonging to a given ideal group H following the lines of the proof of the existence
theorem given in [32]. In a first step the task is transfered to an overfield E of k
which contains "sufficiently many" roots of unity. In E we can apply Kummer
theory and calculate class fields via the Artin map. Afterwards the class field
over k which we are actually interested in is obtained as a suitable subfield of a
classfield of E. For its calculation we again make use of the Artin map.
 From Class Groups to Class Fields 107

In order to make the algorithm efficient the task for general ideal groups H
is reduced to smaller problems in which the corresponding groups fI are cyclic
of prime power order. Before we do this we show how images of ideals under the
Artin map can be explicitly calculated.
In the remainder of this section we assume that K / k is an abelian extension
of degree n. We list several useful properties of the Artin map:
- If K is an intermediate field of the abelian extension L/k, then the Artin
map satisfies: lPL/k IK = lPK/k.
- If L/k is finite, then lPLK/L = lPK/kNL/k for those ideals of L which are
coprime to 7JK/k.
- If m is divisible by all ramified primes of K/k, then the Artin map restricted
to fm is surjective.
- Any module m for which Pm is contained in the kernel of the Artin map
restricted to fm is called admissible. Admissible modules always exist.
It is important that we do have an efficient method for the actual computation
of the images of ideals under the Artin map. For this we assume that we know
all elements, say Ul, ... ,Un , of Gal(K/k). They can be computed with mehods
from [30], for example.
Since the Artin map is the multiplicative extension of the Frobenius map,
we start with the calculation of Frobenius automorphisms. Let p be a non zero
unramified prime ideal of Ok. The corresponding Frobenius automorphism up = U
satisfies
U(x) == xN(p) mod POK

for all x E OK. Of course, it suffices to choose the elements x from a full set
of representatives of OK/POK. Assuming the knowledge of Gal(K/k) we simply
compute xN(p) mod POK and compare this with u(x) mod POK for all U E
Gal(K/k). If we do this for sufficiently many elements, which generate generate
Kover k, for example, we can easily identify U E Gal(K/k).
In the case of Kummer extensions this procedure can be speeded up sub-
stantially. Let us assume that K := k(y) with y = \f1i and that k contains a
primitive n-th root of unity (. Without loss of generality we may also assume
that Ui(y) = (iy for 1 ~ i ~ n. If we set N(p) = qn+r with 0 ~ r < n we obtain
xN(p) = J.Lqyr, hence (i == J.Lqyr-l mod POK. Since pis unramified this implies
r = 1 and we find that for Kummer extensions the Frobenius automorphism can
be easily computed in k.
For the computation of lPK/k(a) of an arbitrary ideal a we have two options.
We can either make use of the definition of the Artin map, Le. we factor the
ideal into a product of prime ideals, calculate their Frobenius automorphisms
in Gal(K/k) and obtain lPK/k(a) as their product. The other approach is to
explicitly establish a surjection from the ray class group onto the Galois group.
The first method is certainly cumbersome for large ideals which seem to occur
frequently. For the second approach we need to compute the images of suitable
ideals which generate the ray class group. In our numerical experiments the
ray class groups usually had very few generators (in comparison with the group
108 M.E. Pohst

order). Hence, we suggest to try to generate the ray class group with small prime
ideals.

4 Computation of Ray Class Fields

We factor H into a product of cyclic groups of prime power order: H = I1 i =l Hi'

- - t-

Considering the Artin map it follows immediately that the class field K of k
belonging to H is the composite of the class fields Ki belonging to Hi for i =
1, ... , t. The task of computing K can therefore be split into s smaller tasks,
namely to calculate all K i . In the sequel we therefore assume that IHI = pr
for a prime number p. We put E := k«(p.). Then F := KE is the class field
over E belonging to the ideal group HE := Pm,ENE/k(H) of I~. Because of
NE/k(Pm,E) ~ Pm the group HE can be defined with the module m, and we easily
compute HE = I~/HE = Pm,ENE/k(H) as a preimage of a homomorphism
between finite abelian groups. Also the approximation theorem tells us, that we
can use any multiple of min E for defining HE.
In the sequel we assume that IHEI = pr and that E contains the pr-th roots
of unity. We build a finite set 8 of valuations of E such that 8 contains all
valuations corresponding to divisors of m, of p, and to sufficiently many prime
ideals for generating the class group of E. We let s := 181 and denote by Us
the 8-units of E. Then (see [28], for example) the class field F which we are
interested in is a subfield of the abelian extension r := E( P::./US). Dirichlet's
unit theorem (for 8-units) shows that r = E( P\I€l, ... , P\I€.") for generators
€l, ..• ,€8-1 of the free part of Us and €8 a generator for the torsion units of 0E.
Hence, r is of degree (pr)s over E with Galois group isomorphic to C; •.
We illustrate the relation of these fields with the following diagram. For a
better readability we put n := pr and assume that the intersection of k and
Q«(n) is Q.
Since r is an abelian extension of E there is an admissible module msuch
that the mapping Cl m """"* Gal(r/ E) = C;. is surjective and that Pm is contained
in its kernel. Then m must be divisible by all ramified primes (and also by all
primes dividing m) and we need upper bounds for their exponents. We can get
them from the following lemma of [25].

Lemma 1 (Hasse). Let G/E be a Kummer extension of exponent n. Then

m:= IT p IT pc(p)
p J-h pin
pl~G/E

with
c(p) := (vp(n) +p~ 1) eE/Q(p) + 1
is an admissible module for G / E.
 From Class Groups to Class Fields 109

E( y'€l) E( ytt;)

Fig. Class field construction via Kummer extensions

We note that it is possible to compute the discriminant and the exact con-
ductor of Kummer extensions G/E. Although not difficult this is more time
consuming than to work with a (potentially) larger ray class group coming from
Hasse's estimate.
The properties of the Artin map show that the class field F in which we
are interested is that subfield of r which is fixed by all automorphisms of r j E
corresponding to ideal classes of elm which become trivial in HE. Therefore, we
begin by computing those classes and subsequently calculate the field fixed by
the corresponding automorphisms.
elm is given as a direct product of cyclic groups. The surjection t : elm -+ H
is represented by a matrix. Since we are only interested in subgroups of order
pT, the entries of the matrix are reduced modulo pr. Then the classes we are
looking for are in the null space of that matrix.
In the next step we compute the invariant field. Obviously, this can be done
by evaluating certain polynomials which are invariant under the automorphisms.
However, the degree of r/E being so large, this would be impractical. Instead,
we search directly for a Kummer sub-extension of degree dividing pT. A generator
of it can be chosen as apr -th root of an element of the form j.L := rr:=l
t~i with
o S ni < pT. The automorphisms in Gal(rjE) map each element P0; onto
an element (;' P0; for a suitable exponent mi. Therefore we can identify each
0" E Gal(r j E) with a vector m = (mj )15j58 E (ZjpTZ )8. Accordingly, we write
0" = O"lll. Then we obtain

O"lll( PV/i) = II (;jm; PV/i

j=l
110 M.E. Pohst

and a necessary and sufficient condition for P\Iii being fixed by 17m is
•
Lnjmj == 0 mod pro
j=l

Once we know generators for the kernel of ~ : Clm -+ fI we calculate the

corresponding vectors m. Thus we get a modular linear system of equations,
whose solutions yield /-to
Putting these things together we obtain a complete algorithm for computing
a generator of the class field of E:
Algorithm 1 (Generating Element)
Input: E 3 Cpr, m, fiE ~ Cpr.
Output: /-t with E( p\lii) being the class field belonging to HE.
Step 1: Compute the set S of s appropriate valuations of E as described
above.
Step 2: Compute a basis for the S -units of E.
Step 3: Compute til and Clm.
Step 4: Compute ideals ai generating the kernel of ~.
Step 5: For each ai compute the corresponding automorphism as a vector
mi = (mi,j) E (Zlprz)·.
Step 6: Compute the null space of the matrix with rows mi.
Step 7: Compute /-to
Remark We note that the huge field r does not need to be generated at all.
Because of the first property of the Artin map listed in the previous section the
mi,j can be calculated independently for each ideal ai and each €j.

It remains to show how we can obtain the class field K of k as a subfield of F.

In a first step we compute a primitive element TJ for the extension Flk and then
its minimal polynomial mf/ over K. Since Klk is cyclic of prime power degree
(coprime to [E:kJ) one of the coefficients of mf/ necessarily generates Kover k.
In practice we proceed as follows. We calculate the Galois group of F I k. Since the
Galois groups of Elk and of FIE are easy to compute it is not difficult to extend
all automorphisms of Elk to automorphisms of Flk [17]. We either already
obtain a generator TJ for F I k from the representation of the group elements, or
we get TJ by checking a few candidates of the form P\Iii + lCpr for small values of
l E Z. Then mf/ is found by another application of the Artin map. It is known
that Flk is abelian and that NE/k(m)is an admissable module for this extension
[32]. Hence, we apply the same idea as in the last section. We calculate a set of
ideals generating the kernel il of ~ : CINE1k(m) -+ fI and afterwards the set T of
all conjugates of TJ:
T:= {¢>F/k(a)( P:jji) I a E il} .
 From Class Groups to Class Fields 111

The minimal polynomial is just m'l := I1,ET(X - ')').

The complete algorithm can be stated as follows.

Algorithm 2 (Ray class fields)
Input: k, m and H.
Output: Polynomials Ii E k[x] generating the class field.
Step 1: Compute H = I1 Hi with Hi ~ Cp;i =: C ni . Steps 2 to 5 must be
carried out for each i.
Step 2: Compute Ili by Algorithm 1.
Step 3: Compute Gal(k«(nn VJii)/k).
Step 4: Compute 'fJi and m'li .
Step 5: For each coefficient of m'li compute its minimal polynomial until the
one of correct degree is found.
Remarks (i) Since the computation of the class groups of E can be very time
consuming, we treat all Hi of the same order in parallel.
(ii) An open problem is a reduction of the polynomials m'l' The polynomials
which usually arise from our calculations have large coefficients. Known algo-
rithms for reducing arbitrary irreducible polynomials (for example, in KASH or
in PARI) have practically no effect when being applied to the m'l"

We conclude this section with three examples.

(i) We choose k:= ((l(Vl0), m:= 1080k and H:= Pm. Then the ray class group
is Clm ~ C 2 x C4 X C 9 . This example is explained in detail in [17]. For each of
the three cyclic factors of the ray class group we obtain the corresponding class
field by a generating polynomial over k.
x2 - (21 - 6v'iO) ,

x4 + (-16 - 4v'iO)x 2 + 52 + 16v'iO ,

x 9 - 9x7 + 27x 5 - 30x 3 + 9x + 1 .

(ii) Next let k be the maximal real subfield of Q«(27). It is generated over ((l by
~ := (27 + (27. As a congruence module we choose m := 81ok. The class group of
k is trivial and for the ray class group we obtain Clm ~ C27 . K/k is generated
by a root of the polynomial

X 27 _ 27x 25 + 324x23 - 2277x21 + 10395x 19 -32319x 17

+69768x 15 - 104652x 13 + 107406xl l 72930x 9 + 30888x7 - 7371x 5
e + 14e - 7e5 + e .
-

+819x3 - 27x - 2 - 7e +
112 M.E. Pohst

(iii) We compute the Hilbert class field of k = Q(p) for a root p of x 3 + 28x + 175.
Clearly, k has one real and two complex conjugates. The discriminant of k is -
914683 (k has a power integral basis), the regulator of k is 4.328, and the class
group of k has the structure C6 x C12 • Hence, the class field r(k) of k is of total
degree 216 over Q. We compute r(k) = Q(Tl,T2,T3,T4), where the Ti are zeros
of the following polynomials Ji(x) (1 ~ i ~ 4):

h(x):= x 3 +x2 -2x-1 (Tl=2cos(27r/7)),

h(x) := x 3 + px 2 - 6x + 27 ,
Ja(x) := x 2 - px - (p + 2) ,
!4(x) := X4 - px 3 - 22x2 - (p2 - 19p + 38)x - (3p2 - 16p + 53)

We note that h(x) , Ja(x) , !4(x) cannot be substituted by polynomials in Q[x].

Also we remark that it took more computation time to find these polynomials
with rather small coefficients than was used for the calculation of four generating
polynomials in the beginning.

5 Kant and the Kant Shell Kash

KANT [12] is a software system for computations with algebraic numbers and
global fields. It is developed by the author's research group at the Technical
University Berlin. It is freely available at the internet address given at the end
of this section.
For a proper use of KANT, the user needs to have some experience with pro-
gramming in C and an understanding of the memory management in Magma
[4]. Because of this disadvantage, we built a shell around the C-library KANT,
which combines the functionality of KANT with a comfortable user interface
based on GAP, a software package for group theory [37].
Within the shell, the user can do arithmetical operations with integers, rationals,
real and complex numbers (with arbitrary precision), matrices or - after the
definition of an order - with algebraic numbers, ideals, etc., and, similarly, with
objects in function fields of one variable over finite fields. Of course, all results
can be assigned to variables for later use.
Furthermore the user can make use of two different kinds of functions, the "in-
ternal functions" and the "user functions" . The first are built-in functions of the
internal function library, i.e. they are written in C, linked to KASH and cannot
be changed.
In contrast, the user can create his own (user) functions: With the PASCAL-like
programming language, he can create loops, conditional branches, functions etc.
and use all internal and user functions. In this environment, he can even write
sophisticated programs. For example, the routine for class field computations
consists of more than 1000 lines of KASH code. All user functions and programs
can be stored as (external) text files which build a user function library.
Additionally, KASH possesses an interface to the public domain PVM-software
which allows distributed computing and is very easy to handle.
 From Cla.'ls Groups to Cla.'ls Fields 113

Presently, there are about 600 internal functions installed, 550 additional prede-
fined user functions and comprehensive references are available. Because KASH
grows weekly, updates will be made more often than for the KANT-library.
Accessible from KASH is an SQL-database for number fields [41]. The database
is designed to give easy and fast access to more than one million number fields.
Currently the following invariants are stored (if known) and can be used as keys
in a selection:

- a generating polynomial together with its signature

- an integral basis, the field discriminant
- the unit group and the regulator
- the class group with structural information
- the Galois group

Isomorphy can be tested with KASH. In a first step one can check some invariants
and if all tests are successful there is the possibility to choose between several
algorithms for proving the isomorphy.
The underlying SQL-database (PostgreSQL) is public domain and available for
every system supported by KASH.
As an example we will find all totally real cubic fields with discriminant less
than 10,000 and common inessential discriminant divisors. It is well known that
a sufficient and neccessary criterion for this is that exactly three different prime
ideals divide 2, so the following program is straightforward:
kash> DbOpen(); # open the database
info: last update: Tue Dec 17 12:45:01 MET 1996
true
kash> query := # we are interested only
> "degree=3 and disc < 10000 and [number of real zeroes]=3";;
kash> # in small totally real cubic
kash> # fields
kash> DbCountQuery(query);
382
kash> DbQuery(query);
true
kash> L:= [];;
kash> repeat
> 0:= DbNextOrder();
> if o<>false and
> Orderlndex(o)mod 2 = 0 and # 2 has to divide the index,
> # this is a fast criterion
> Length(Factor(2*0)=3 then # exactly 3 different primes
> Add(L, 0);
> fi;
> until o=false;
kash> Length(L); # we found 14 fields
14
114 M.E. Pohst

In the sequel we give some examples of KASH.

Computing subfields
The following example demonstrates the computation of subfields: We start by
creating the equation order Z[p] for p6 + 108 = o.
kash> o:=Drder(Z,6,-108);
Generating polynomial: x-6 + 108

The computation of proper subfields of the quotient field Q(p) of 0 yields the
following list of equation orders.
kash> L:=DrderSubfield(o);
[ Generating polynomial: x-2 + 108
Generating polynomial: x-3 - 108
, Generating polynomial: x-3 - 108
, Generating polynomial: x-3 - 108
]
There are 3 subfields of degree 3 which are isomorphic but not identical and one
subfield of degree 2. Let Pi, P2, P3 denote the roots of x 3 - 108. L[i] denotes the
i-th equation order in L.
kash> rl:=Elt(L[2],[0,1,0]);
[0, 1, 0]
kash> r2:=Elt(L[3],[0,1,0]);;
kash> r3:=Elt(L[4],[0,1,0]);;

The elements look identical, but they are indeed different which is detected upon
moving them into the order o.
kash> EltMove(rl,o) # This produces the element
# (6*rho-2-rho-5)/12
[0, 0, 6, 0, 0, -1] / 12
kash> EltMove(r2,o); # This produces the element -rho-2
[0, 0, -1, 0, 0, 0]
kash> EltMove(r3,o); # This produces the element
# (6*rho-2+rho-5)/12
[0, 0, 6, 0, 0, 1] / 12
Any element of L[i] can be lifted in an analogous way.

Solution of Thue-equations
Given an irreducible form f E Z[X, Y] of degree:::: 3 and an integer a, we
compute all (x,y) E Z2 subject to f(x,y) = a.
Let f(X, Y) := X3+X2Y -6Xy 2+2y3 and solve f(x, y) = 2. The corresponding
number field F is created by a root of the irreducible polynomial f(X, 1) E Z[X].
kash> t := Thue([1,1,-6,2]); # [1,1,-6,2] are the coeffs of f.
X-3 + X-2 Y - 6 X Y-2 + 2 Y-3
kash> Solve(t,2); # Compute all solutions [x,y].
[ [ -724, -411], [-4, -11 ], [ -3, 1 ], [ -1, -1 ],
 From Class Groups to Class Fields 115

[ 0, 1 ], [ 2, 1 ] ]
Additionally, we can solve Thue-equations up to sign on the right hand side, for
example X 7 + X 6 y - 6X 5y2 - 5X 4 y3 + 8X 3y4 + 5X 2 y5 _ 2Xy6 _ y7 = ±l.
kash> t := Thue([l,l,-6,-5,8,5,-2,-1])j
X-7 + X-6 Y - 6 X-5 Y-2 - 5 X-4 Y-3 + 8 X-3 Y-4 + 5 X-2 Y-5\
- 2 X Y-6 - r7
kash> Solve(t,l," abs")j # Compute all solutions [x,y].
[ [ -2, -1 ], [ -1, -1 ], [ -1, 0 ], [ -1, 1 ], [0, -1 ],
[ 0, 1 ], [ 1, -1 ], [ 1, 0 ], [ 1, 1 ], [2, 1 ] ]

Solution of norm equations

We consider the relative extension E / F for

F = Q(a}, a 2 - 2 = 0, and E = F((3}, (32 + 1 = o.

For all B = ia + j (-4 :::; i,j $ 4) we want to know if there exists f.L E OE with
NE/F (f.L) /B E TUF.
kash> F := Order(Z. 2, 2)jj
kash> E := Order(F. 2, -l)jj
kash> l1:=[]j # Create an empty list.
kash> zero := Elt(F, O)jj # Create the zero element in F
kash> for i in [0 .. 4] do
> for j in [-4 .. 4] do
> z := Elt(F, [i,j])j
> if z<>zero then
> Add(ll, [z, OrderNormEquation(E, z)])j
> fij
> odj
> odj
The output consists of a list containing pairs [B, f.L] if there is a solution f.L and
[B, false] otherwise (optional).
[ [ [0, -4], false], [ [0, -3], false],
[ [0, -2], false], [ [0, -1], false],
[ [0, 1], false], [ [0, 2], false], [ [0,3], false],

[ [1, -1], false], [ 1. [ [[0, -1], [0, 1]] / 2 ] ],

[[4,3], false], [[4,4], false]]

It took 17 seconds to solve these 44 norm equations.

Computation of Hilbert and ray class fields

We note that for imaginary quadratic base fields methods of complex multipli-
cation are applied, for all other fields the methods explained in this paper.
The first example is the Hilbert class field of Q( J -Ill}.
116 M.E. Pohst

kash> 0 := OrderMaximal(Z, 2, -111);

F[l]
I
F[2]
/
/
Q
F [1] Given by transformation matrix
F [2] x-2 + 111
Discriminant: -111

Time: 10 ms

kash> OrderClassGroup(o);
[8, [ 8 ] ]

Time: 230 ms

kash> ImQuadHilbert(o);
used real precision is 52 places
F[l]
/
/
El [1]
I
El[2]
/
/
Q
F [1] x-8 + 14*x-7 + 83*x-6 + 23*x-5 - 353*x-4 - 463*x-3 \
- 126*x-2 - 69*x - 1
E 1[ 1] Given by transformation matrix
E 1[ 2] x-2 + 111

Time: 680 ms

Next the Hilbert class field of a totally real field with class number 3 is computed.
kash> 0 := OrderMaximal(x-3 - 21*x + 28);;
kash> OrderClassGroup(o);;
kash> OrderUnitsFund(o);;
 From Class Groups to Class Fields 117

kash> 0;
F[1]
I
F[2]
/
/
Q
F Given by transformation matrix
[1]
F x-3 - 21*x + 28
[2]
Discriminant: 3969
Regulator: 12.594188956918676531369477850688989344447689770084
Units:
[5, -6, 2] [17, 0, -2]
class number 3
class group structure C3
cyclic factors of the class group:
<2, [1, 0, 1]>
kash> ClassField(o);
[ x-3 - 3*x + 1 ]

Time: 4970 ms

Finally, we compute class fields for 2 non-trivial modules, the 2nd module con-
taining all infinite places.
kash> ClassField(25*o);
[ x-2 - 5, x-3 - 3*x + 1, x-5 - 10*x-3 + 5*x-2 + 10*x + 1 ]

Time: 1146 s
Here, we are interested only in the 2-part of the class field.
kash> RayClassField(4*0, [1,2,3],2);
[ x-2 + [231543, -261208, 85050], x-2 + [4051, -4570, 1488], \
x-2 + [5, -6, 2] ]
Time: 4320 ms

Availability
KASH is freely available via
ftp://ftp.math.tu-berlin.de!pub!algebra!Kant!Kash.
It has been ported to the following architectures:
- HP 7000 (HP-UX 9.01 and 10.20),
- IBM RS 6000 (AIX 3.2.5),
- Intel 486 (Linux Kernel 1.3.0),
- Intel 486 (MS DOS 5.0, OS/2, Windows 95),
- Silicon Graphics (IRIX 5.3 and 6.2),
- Sun SPARC (SunOS 4.1.3),
- Sun SPARC (SunOS 5.5).
118 M.E. Pohst

References

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 A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields

Hans-Georg RuckI and Ulrich Tipp2

1 Inst. f. Exp. Mathematik, Universitiit GH Essen, Ellernstr. 29,

D-45326 Essen, Germany, email rueckCllexp-math.uni-essen.de
2 Fachbereich Mathematik, Universitiit des Saarlandes, Postfach 15 11 50,
D-66041 Saarbriicken, Germany, email ulrichCllmath.uni-sb.de

1 Introduction

In their famous article [7], Gross and Zagier proved a formula relating heights
of Heegner points on modular curves and derivatives of L-series of cusp forms.

We prove the function field analog of this formula. The classical modular curves
parametrizing isogenies of elliptic curves are now replaced by Drinfeld modular
curves and isogenies of Drinfeld modules. Cusp forms on the classical upper half
plane are replaced by certain functions on a Bruhat-Tits tree.

Our results and proofs are deeply influenced by [7]. We will not present every
detail of the calculations in this paper, for this we refer to [13].

We consider the rational function field K = lFq (T) over a finite field lFq of odd
characteristic and an imaginary quadratic extension L = K(VD). Let N be an
element in the polynomial ring lFq [T] with the property that each of its prime
divisors is decomposed in L. In particular we have [~] = 1.

In addition we have to suppose (cf. section 3) that N is square free. And we

assume that D is irreducible of odd degree to make calculations technically
easier.

Now we associate to a newform f of Drinfeld type of level N over K and to an

element A in the class group of OL = lFq [T][VD] an L-series L(f, A, s). From
a functional equation we see that it has a zero at s = O. In Theorem 2.5 we
evaluate its derivative tsL(f, A, s) at s = 0 as a Petersson product of f and
another cusp form q;A of Drinfeld type.

In the next section we consider Heegner points x on the Drinfeld modular curve
Xo(N) with complex multiplication by OL. We associate to the global height
pairings < (x) - (oo),T,x((X)<TA - (0)) > for varying Hecke operators T,x a cusp

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
122 H.-G. Riick, U. Tipp

form gAo In Theorem 3.2 and Theorem 3.4 we evaluate the local heights which
yield the Fourier coefficients of gAo

The evaluations of q;A and gA are carried out independently from each other. In
section 4 we connect these results and show that q;A and gA are very closely
related. Hence we can prove our main result Theorem 4.2, which says that
t.L(f,A,s) 1.=0 can be evaluated using the cusp form gA coming from the
height of Heegner points.

We apply this to elliptic curves E over K of conductor N . 00 which are Tate

curves at 00. As a consequence we get a formula which relates the derivative of
the L-series of E over L at s = 1 and the height of a Heegner point on E(L)
(Theorem 4.4). This proves the conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer if this
L-series has a simple zero at s = 1.

Large parts of this work were supported by the DFG-Schwerpunkt "Algorith-

mische Algebra und Zahlentheorie". We are very thankful for this.

2 L-Series

Let lFq be the finite field with q = pO< elements (p i= 2), and let K = lFq (T)
be the rational function field over lFq. We distinguish the finite places given
by the irreducible elements in the polynomial ring IF'q [T] and the place 00 of
K. For 00 of K we consider the completion Koo with normalized valuation Voo
and valuation ring 0 00 . We fix the prime 7r00 = T- 1 , then Koo = lFq ((7r oo )). In
addition we define the following additive character 'lj;oo of Koo: Take (T : lFq -+ C*
with (T(a) = expe;i TrlFq/lFp(a)) and set 'lj;oo(L:ai7r~) = 17(-al).

The oriented edges of the Bruhat-Tits tree of GL 2 over Koo are parametrized
by the set GL2(Koo)/rooK~, where

roo := {( ~~) E GL2(000) 1 vooCr) > O}.

Right multiplication by (7r: ~) reverses the orientation of an edge.

We want to study functions on GL 2(Koo )/ r ooK~. Special functions can be

defined in the following way: The groups GL2(lFq [T]) and SL2(lFq [T]) operate
 A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields 123

on GL 2(Koo )/ rooK;'" by left multiplication. For N E Fq [TJlet

ro(N) := {( ~ ~) E GL2(Fq [TJ) Ie == 0 (N)}

and rJl}(N) := ro(N) n SL 2(Fq [TJ).

A function f : GL 2(Koo )/ r ooK'(", -+ C is called an automorphic cusp form of

Drinfeld type of level N if it satisfies the following conditions:
i) f is harmonic, i.e.,
f(X (7r~ ~ )) = - f(X)
and
2: f(X(3) =0
{3EGL2(O~}/ ~ r
for all X E GL2(Koo)/rooK;"',
ii) f is invariant under ro(N), i.e.,

f(AX) = f(X)
for all X E GL 2(Koo )/roo K;'" and A E ro(N),
iii) f has compact support modulo ro(N), i.e., there are only finitely many ele-
ments X in r o(N)\GL 2(Koo )/roo K'(", with f(X) :f. o.

Any function on GL 2(Koo )/roo K'(", which is invariant under (~FqrJ) has a
Fourier expansion

!
with
f*(7r:,>.)= f((7rf~))7j;oo(->'U)dU,
K~/F.[TJ

where du is a Haar measure with J du = l.

K~/F.[T]

Since (~Fq rJ) c ro(N), this applies to automorphic cusp forms. In this
particular case the harmonicity conditions imply

f*(7r:,>.) = 0, if>. = 0 or if deg>. + 2> m

f*(7r:,>.) = q-m+degA+2f*(7r~gA+2,>.), if>.:f. 0 and deg>'+2 $ m.
124 H.-G. Riick, U. Tipp

Hence all the Fourier coefficients of an automorphic cusp form f of Drinfeld type
are uniquely determined by the coefficients f*(7r~g>'+2,..\) for..\ E lFq[T].

To an automorphic cusp form f one can attach an L-series LU, s) in the following
way (cf. [19], [20]): Let m be an effective divisor of K of degree n, then m =
(..\)0 + (n - deg ..\)00 with ..\ E lFq [T], deg..\ :::; n. We define

rem) = r(7r~+2,..\) and LU,s) =L r(m)N(m)-·,

m;:::O

where N(m) denotes the absolute norm of the divisor m.

The C-vector space of automorphic cusp forms of Drinfeld type of level N is finite
dimensional and it is equipped with a non-degenerate pairing, the Petersson
product, given by

U, g) f-t f .g.

There is the notion of oldforms, Le. linear combinations of forms g( ( ~ ~) X),

where 9 is an automorphic cusp form oflevel M, MIN and M =1= N, and d is a di-
visor of N / M. Automorphic cusp forms of Drinfeld type which are perpendicular
under the Petersson product to all the oldforms are called newforms.

Important examples for newforms are given in the following way: Let E be an
elliptic curve over K with conductor N . 00, which has split multiplicative re-
duction at 00, then E belongs to a newform f of level N such that the L-series
of E satisfies ([1])
L(E, s + 1) = LU, s).
This newform is in addition an eigenform for all Hecke operators, but we do not
assume this property at the beginning.

From now on let f be an automorphic cusp form of level N which is a newform.

Let L/ K be an imaginary quadratic extension (Le. a quadratic extension of K

where 00 is not decomposed), in which each (finite) divisor of N is not ramified.
Then there is a square free polynomial D E lFq [T], prime to N with L = K (Vi5).

We assume in this paper that D is irreducible and its degree is odd. In prin-
ciple all the arguments work in general, but the details are technically more
complicated.

The integral closure oflFq[TJ in L is OL = lFq[T][Vi5].

 A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields 125

Let A be an element of the class group Cl(OL) of OL. For an effective divisor
m = (A)O + (n - deg A)OO (as above) we define

rA(m) = #{a E A I a integral with NL/K(a) = AIF'q [T]}

and hence we get the partial zeta function to A as

(A(S) =L r A(m)N(m)-s.
m2>:O

For the calculations it is sometimes easier to define a function depending on

elements of lFq [T) instead of divisors. We choose no E A -1 and AO E K with
NL/K(no) = AO lFq [T) and define

rao,Ao(A) = #{/-L E no I NL/K(/-L) = AoA}.

Then

The theta series is defined as

It satisfies the transformation rule [10)

eao,AO (( ab)(7r~U))_e
cd 0 1 - ao,Ao
((7r~u))[d]o
0 1 D cu+d q
-v~(cu+d) ,

if Voo(C7r~) > voo(cu + d). Here [15] is the Legendre symbol at D and 8 denotes
the local norm symbol at 00. This is the important starting point for all our
calculations.

Now we combine the L-series of a newform f and the partial zeta function of A
to the function
L(f,A,s) = L
J*(m)rA(m)N(m)-s.
m2':O

For technical reasons we introduce

L(N)(2S+1)=q~1 L [~]q-(28H)degk.
kEIF.[T]
gcd(k,N)=1

The function L(N) (2s + I)L(I, A, s) is in the center of our interest.

126 H.-G. Ruck, U. Tipp

This is motivated by the following fact: Let E be an elliptic curve with conductor
N· 00 and corresponding newform ! as above and let ED be its twist by D. Then
we get for the L-series the identity

L(E, s + l)L(ED' s + 1) = L L(N)(2s + l)L(f, A, s).

AECI(OL)

Now we apply Rankin's method; we want to express L(N) (2s + l)L(f, A, s) as a

Petersson product of! with a certain other function on GL 2(Koo )/ r ooK~.

Starting with the transformation rule of the theta series we get ([12], d. also
[13]):

Proposition 2.1.

L(N)(2s+1)L(f,A,s) = 2(q~1) / !·<p s,

rJ') (N)\GL 2 (Koo )/ r ooK~

where the function <Ps is defined through its Fourier coefficients

deg l-':5m+deg D-deg N-2

with
e s (7r:,O) = qs(de g D-m+2)+de g D-m L [~] q-(2o+1)deg d
#0
and (J.L i- 0)

The fact that we replaced ro(N) by rJl)(N) is not important. We can change
this with the trace given by the inclusion rJl)(N) c ro(N).

A more serious point is the fact that <Po is not an automorphic cusp form, that in
particular the harmonicity condition fails. We introduce the following function
on GL2(Koo)/rooK~:

-
<ps(X) = <po(X (7r0001)
0 ),
 A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields 127

which is different from -ps(X).

The Fourier coefficients of is can be computed as shown in [12] (there is a factor

missing in [12] (7.2) and (7.3), cf. [13]).

Proposition 2.2.

degJL~m+deg D-deg N-2

with

es (1r:,O) = qs(-deg D-2deg N+m+1)+deg D/2-m+l/2 [~] L [~] q-2sde g d

#0

and (p, i= 0)
es (1r:,p,) = qs(-deg D-2deg N+m+1)+de g D/2-m+l/2

. (OAONJL L [ ~rJ q-2sde g c+ [~] L [~] q-2sde g c) .

el.. p, CIJL
Die

Using the properties of f we can reformulate Proposition 2.1:

L(N)(2S+1)L(f,A,s)=4(q~1) ! f·(p.-p.)·
rci')(N)\GL2(K~)/r~K~

We do this in view of the following proposition.

Proposition 2.3.

qs(de g D+de g N-5/2) is = [~] q-s(de g D+deg N-5/2) P- s.

We prove this proposition by comparing the Fourier coefficients of is and P- s.

°°
For the coefficients at J.l = we use the functional equation of the zeta function
of the function field L, for J.l i= we calculate in a straightforward way. For the
details cf. [13].

This proposition and the preceding formula yields the following functional equa-
tion:
128 H.-G. Riick, U. Tipp

Corollary 2.1. Let

Z(s) := qs(de g D+de g N-5/2) L(N)(2s + I)L(J,A,s)

then
Z(s) = - [~] Z(-s).

Corollary 2.4 shows that L(N)(2s + I)L(f, A,s) Is=o= 0 if [~] = 1.

From now on we assume that [~] = 1, and we want to evaluate the derivative
of our L-series.

The first step is not difficult. We have to evaluate the derivative of iPs resp. of
its Fourier coefficients to get with Proposition 2.1

:s (L(N) (2s + I)L(f, A, s)) Is=o= 2(q ~ 1) J f . ?>,

rJl) (N)\GL2(K oo )/ rooK:",
where

with Fourier coefficients

iP·(1l"~,..\) = :siP;(1l"~'..\) Is=O'

But we still have in mind to express this value as a Petersson product of f with
an automorphic cusp form.

Formal application of the projection formula (cf. [11], [12)) yields

:S(L(N)(2S+1)L(f,A,s)) Is=o= J f'W,

ro(N)\GL2(Koo)/ rooK:",

where tf! is an automorphic cusp form of Drinfeld type of level N, whose Fourier
coefficients tf!* (1l"~g.H2, oX) (only these are important!) are given by the formula

tf!.(1l"~g"+2, oX) = ~ L!~

<ElF;
f
m=deg "+2
q-ms(iP·(1l"~,foX) - ¥·(1l"~,foX)).

The first sum is just the trace mentioned above.

Unfortunately the limit in this formula does not converge. We would be happy if
we could find an Eisenstein series E, which is perpendicular to f, hence does not
 A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields 129

affect the integral, and whose holomorphic projection formula has the same "be-
haviour of divergence" as the one of <P. The difference <P - E and the converging
holomorphic projection formula for <P - E would then solve our problem.

Fortunately this can be achieved. We will not give the details in this paper, we
refer to [13]. If one carries out this program one gets the following result:

Theorem 2.1. Let f be a newform of level N, let D be irreducible of odd degree

and suppose that [~] = 1, then

:s (L(N)(2s + I)L(1, A, s)) 1.=0= J

ro(N)\GL 2 (Koo )/rooK7x,
f .IJ!A,

where IJ!A is an automorphic cusp form of Drinfeld type of level N with Fourier
coefficients

IJ!.AJIr~g>'+2,>.) = l~q q-(de gD+1)/2 q-de g.\

q+ 1 2 Lv(O))
. { (q - 1) r A((>')) hL ( degN - deg(>.D) - 2(q _ 1) - lnq LD(O)

+ E r A ((J-tN - >.D)) ((E [~]) (t(J-t, D) + 1) 1 + b{Il~-'\D)IlN

WFO elll
deg{IlN) ::;deg('\D)
J-tN q+l ",[D]
.(deg (>.D)-2(q_l))-(I-b(IlN-.\D)IlN)(L...- ~) degJ-t
elll

+ (1- b(IlN-.\D)IlN) (t(J-t,D) + 1) (2: [~] degC))

elll

- 2r~ 11) l~ ( 2: r A ((J-tN - >.D)) (E [~]) (t(J-t, D) + 1)

q deg(IlN»deg(.\D) ell'

. (-B-1)deg(~) _ C1 hL (I:al.\ qdega))

q 1- q-S

_ q+l C1hdEqdega(deg>'-2dega))+(Eqdega)C2}
2(q - 1) al.\ al.\

for all >. E IF'q [T] with gcd(>', N) = 1, with

hL = #Cl(O£),

LD(S) = ~ 1 E [~] q-Bdegd,

q #0
130 H.-G. Riick, U. Tipp

t(/t, D) = 1 if DI/t and 0 otherwise,

2(q- 1)3
C1 := [GL 2 (IF'q[T]) : ro(N)]'
C2 = some constant independent of A that may be arbitrarily chosen .

3 Heights of Heegner Points

Let L = K(-II5) , where D is irreducible of odd degree as above. We choose

N E IF'q [T] such that each of its prime divisors is decomposed in L. Then in
particular we have [~] = 1. Suppose that </>, ¢/ are two Drinfeld modules of
rank 2 for the ring IF'q [T] with complex multiplication by OL = IF'q [T][-II5] and
that u : </> --+ </>' is a cyclic isogeny of degree N. Then </> and </>' can be viewed as
rank 1 Drinfeld modules over OLand the explicit class field theory [8] shows that
</>, </>' and the isogeny u can be defined (modulo isomorphisms) over the Hilbert
class field HL of L. Therefore the triple (</>, </>', u) defines an HL -rational point x
on Xo(N), the Drinfeld modular curve parametrizing pairs of Drinfeld modules
of rank 2 with a cyclic isogeny of degree N between them. These rational points
x are called Heegner points.

They can also be described by the following data. The Drinfeld module </> is
isomorphic to an ideal a in OL. If nlN is an ideal of OL which contains exactly
one prime divisor of every conjugated pair over the primes dividing N, then n-1a
defines another Drinfeld module and a cyclic isogeny of degree N between them.
The Heegner point x is therefore given by the ideal class of a and the ideal n.

We get the following analytic realization of the Heegner point x, simply denoted
by the same letter. Let Coo be the completion of an algebraic closure of Koo and
f} = Coo - Koo the Drinfeld upper half plane. Then Xo(N) is analytically given
by the quotient ro(N) \ f} compactified by adjoining finitely many cusps. Let
xEf}
B+-1I5 2_
x = 2A ,NIA, B = D mod A.

Then the lattice < x, 1> is isomorphic to the ideal a = AIF'q[T] + (B+v'D)IF'q [T],
which defines together with the ideal n = NIF'q [T] + ((3 + -II5)IF'q [T] with (3 ==
B mod N a Heegner point.

Let x be a Heegner point on Xo(N). We denote by erA the element in the Galois
group of HL/ L which corresponds via class field theory to A E Cl(OL). Then XlTA
is again a Heegner point. We form the divisors (x) - (00) and (XVA - (0), where
00,0 are different cusps on Xo(N). In addition let T>. be the Hecke operator of
A E IF'q[T]. The global height pairing < (x) - (oo),T>.((X)lTA - (0)) > is in the
center of our interest.
 A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields 131

How this is related to cusp forms will be shown in the next proposition.

Let T),. be a Hecke operator and let 9 be an automorphic cusp form of Drinfeld
type of level N. If we associate to (T),.,g) the Fourier coefficient (T),.g) * (7r;', 1),
we get a bilinear map between the Heeke algebra and the space of cusp forms of
level N. If gcd(A, N) = 1, then

(T),.g) * (7r~, 1) = qde g )"g* (7r:g >.+2, A).

The Drinfeld reciprocity law ([2]) shows that this bilinear map is a non-degenerate
pairing.

We apply this to the linear form on the Hecke algebra, which maps T),. to
< (x) - (00), T),.«x)<T A - (0)) >, and we get the following

Proposition 3.1. There is an automorphic cusp form gA of Drinfeld type of

level N such that

< (x) - (oo),T),.«xtA - (0)) > = qde g ),.g.:4(7r: g >.+2, A)

for all A E IF'q [T] with gcd(A, N) = 1.

We want to compare 9A with the cusp form .pA of the previous section. Therefore
we have to evaluate this global height pairing.

We evaluate each local pairing < , >v individually. For that purpose we distin-
guish the cases that v is a divisor of the place 00 or not.

In each case the evaluation of < , >v is reduced to the evaluation of the local
intersection product ( . )v on a regular model of Xo(N). For different points x
and y the product (x· y)v is well known. By abuse of language we write x, y for
the points on the generic fibre as well as for their horizontal divisors. Only the
self intersection product (x· x)v has to be defined. We do this by a "global link" ;
we choose a uniformizing parameter t at x globally. Then we define (cf. [6])

(x· x)v := lim «x· y)v

y-+x
+ logq It(y)lv).
The parameter t is chosen in the following way: The curve Xo(l) is the projective
j-line, where j is the invariant of a rank two Drinfeld module over IF'q [T] ([3]).
We consider the curve Y over Xo(l) given by the equation u q+1 = j. The genus
of Y is 0, and at the extension Y/ Xo(l) only the point 00 and the elliptic points
are ramified. Now we take as a local parameter for x the function t = u - u x .
For the calculations (which are not carried out in detail here, cf. [13]) we must
keep track of the ramification of the compositum of Y and Xo(N) over Xo(l).
132 H.-G. Ruck, U. Tipp

In the first case that viP with P "# 00 we get ([16])

< (x) - (oo),T>.((X)"A - (0)) >v= -degv lnq (x· T>.X"A)v.

From now on we assume that N is square free, because in contrast to the case
of the modular curves for elliptic curves (cf. [9], chapter 13) it is not clear how
the special fibres of Xo(N) over the primes of N, which occur with higher mul-
tiplicity, look like.

We use the modular interpretation of the point x on Xo(N) as a pair of Drinfeld

modules with complex multiplication. Then the intersection product (X·T>.X"A)v
can be computed by counting homomorphisms between the corresponding Drin-
feld modules. The procedure is similar to [7]. For details we refer to [16], [13].

We get the following:

Theorem 3.1. If gcd(A, N) = 1, then

~ ~q
L..J «x)-(oo),T>.((X)"A_(O))>p= q-l
P#oo

.{ (q - 1) r A((A)) hL (degN - deg A)

+
IJ.#O
deg(IJ.N):::;deg(>'D)

. ((t(tL,D) + I)(L
cllJ.
[~] degc) - (L [~]) degtL) }.
cllJ.

If vloo we calculate the local pairing of divisors Dl = Lk ak(xk) and D2

Lk bk(Xk) with a Green function G as

< Dl,D2 >v= -lnq Lak b G(Xk,XI).

l
k,l

The crucial point is to find the correct Green function. This is done in [18], we
state the result in the next proposition.

Let x E Xo(N) be a non-cuspidal point, given by its analytic realization x E D.

We denote by Ix Ii := min{lx - ul : u E Koo} the "imaginary part" of x.
 A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields 133

Proposition 3.2. Let x and y be different non-cuspidal points on Xo(N), then

G(x,y) = --1
1
( q+1
- I og Ix - ')'YI2)
q- ~Ero(N)
2(q - 1) q Ixlil,yli
1~-,yI2:$lzlihlll.

with
2(q- 1)3
C1 := [GL 2 (lFq[TJ) : ro(N)]"

Sketch of proof. For the proof of this proposition we use the fact that a
regular algebraic model over Leo can be described by rigid analytic reduction
with respect to a suitable pure admissible covering (cf. [5], chapter V). This
covering comes from a canonical covering of fl described in [4] which has the
property that the intersection graph of the reduction is the Bruhat-Tits tree.
The special fibre of the model of Xo(N) is then described through the quotient
graph of the Bruhat-Tits tree modulo the group ro(N). From this description
one sees that the horizontal extensions of two points x, y intersect in the special
fibre if and only if Ix - ')'y12 < !Xlil!yli for some, and the multiplicity of the
intersection is
log Ix - ,yl2 .
~Ero(N)
q Ixlil,yli
l Z -1'yI 2 :S:lzli 1")"!lli

The intersection pairing gives the local Neron-pairing only if one of the divisors
has trivial intersection with every fibre component. Whereas for the finite places
this is more or less automatically fulfilled, it is an essential part of the local
height pairing at 00. To achieve this condition one has to add a rational linear
combination of the fibre components to one of the divisors depending on the
other divisor. This is done by solving a system of linear equations given by the
intersection matrix. This matrix is totally described by the intersection graph
and it can be viewed as a special value of some kind of generalized Laplacian
operator for functions on graphs similar to those studied by H. Bass and others.
The solutions are described by generating functions associated to path lengths
in the graph. The limit s -+ 1 comes in because the generalized Laplacian is
invertible whereas the intersection matrix is not. The solutions therefore have
a pole at s = 1 and the residue can be calculated explicitly by reducing to the
case of the group GL2(lFq [TJ). These solutions, which are now functions on the
tree given by certain sums over,), E ro(N), can then again be expressed through
functions on fl, where the sum splits into the finite sum over, : Ix _ ,yl2 :::;
Ixlil!Yli summing up a constant and the infinite sum over, : Ix-,yl2 > !x!iI!Yli'
as stated in the proposition. 0
134 H.-G. Ruck, U. Tipp

If x = y we have to replace in Proposition 3.3 the summand

by
q+l
2(q _ 1) + 2logq Ixli + 2logq 8x 18ul
with u according to the global definition of the self intersection (x,x)v. The value
I I
logq ~~ can be expressed by logq 1L1(x)l, where L1 is the discriminant function
of a rank two Drinfeld module (cf. [3]), and it can be computed by the zeta
function of the function field L.

If the points x or y are cusps of Xo(N), the Green function G(x,y) can be
computed by Eisenstein series which come from a limit process out of Proposition
3.3 [18, Prop. 8,9J.

With this Green function calculations as in [7J yield the following theorem (cf.
[13]):

Theorem 3.2. If gcd(A, N) = 1, then

< (x) - (oo),T,,((x)".A - (0)) >00 = ql~ql

q+1 2 L~(O))
. { (q - 1) r A((A)) hL ( - degD - 2(q -1) - lnq LD(O)

+ L r A ((J1oN - AD))(L [~]) (t(J1o, D) + 1) 1 + 6(1-'~->.D)I-'N

1-"100 ell-'
deg(I-'N)::=;deg('>"D)
J10N q+l
. (deg(AD) - 2(q -1))

- ~+\lim(
2 q - 1 .~o
"
L...J
rA((I1,N-AD)) (L[D])(t(J1o,D)+I)
c
deg(I'N»deg('>"D) ell'

. q(-.-l)deg(~) _ C1 hL (L:al'>" qdega))

1- q-.

_ q+l ClhL(Lqdega(degA-2dega))+(Lqdega)C2}
2(q - 1) a I'>" a I'>"

with
 A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields 135

and

q+1 ( "" deg P _ deg D

C 2 := ---=-1 C1 hL degN - L.J degP 2
q (P)I(N) q +1
__2_ _ _
1 Ln(l))
q-1 lnqLD(l) .

4 Main Results

In this section we combine the results of the previous two parts. We recall the
assumptions: D E lFq [T] is irreducible of odd degree and N E lFq [T] is square
free, whose prime divisors are decomposed in L = K(VD).

We compare Theorem 3.2 and Theorem 3.4 with Theorem 2.5, where we have
to choose the constant C2 in an obvious way, and we get:

Proposition 4.1. The cusp forms q;A and gA satisfy

q;_ (1l"de g >'+2

A 00'
).) = q -2 1 q-(deg D+1)/2 g*A (1l"de g >'+2
00 ,
).)

for all), E lFq[T] with gcd().,N) = 1. Hence q;A and (q -1)/2· q-(deg D+1)/2 gA
differ only by an old form.

Since f is a new form, this yields the following main result:

Theorem 4.1. Let x be a Heegner point on Xo(N) with complex multiplication

by OL = lFq[T][VD], let A E Cl(OL), and let gA be the automorphic cusp form
of Drinfeld type of level N which satisfies

(T>.gA)-(1l"~,l) = < (x) - (oo),T>.((x)O"A - (0)) >

for all ). E lFq [T]. Let f be a new form of level N, then

:s (L(N)(2s + l)L(I, A, s)) 18=0= q; 1 q-(de g D+1)/2 !

r o(N)\GL2(Koo )/ rooK;'"
f· gAo

We want to apply this theorem to the case of elliptic curves. Let X be a character
of the class group Cl(OL), we define

L(I, X, s) := L X(A)L(N)(2s + l)L(I, A, s).

AEC!(OL)
136 H.-G. Riick, U. Tipp

Then Theorem 2.5 yields immediately

! L(j, X, s) 1.=0= q; 1 q-(deg D+1)/2 / f·LX(A)gA.

A
ro(N)\GL2(Koc )/rocK~

Now we decompose LA X(A)9A as a linear combination of isotypical components

exactly as in (7), and analogous calculations (cf. (13)) yield:

Proposition 4.2.

~L(f
as "X s) 1 _
._0
= q -1
2
q-(degD +I)/2 h- 1
Lx'
< c(f) c(f)
X
> f.J

where c(jl is the projection of cx := LAx- 1(A)«x)UA - (00)) onto the f-

isotypical component of the Jacobian of Xo(N).

Let E be an elliptic curve with conductor N . 00 as in section 2 with correspond-

ing new form f. Let XO be the trivial character of Cl(OL)' We have already
mentioned above that L(f, XO, s) = L(E, s + 1)L(ED' S + 1).

Let 1f : Xo(N) --t E be a uniformization (4). To the Heegner point x on Xo(N)

we consider the corresponding Heegner point PL := LAECI(OL) 1f(X UA ) on the
elliptic curve. Its canonical height is given by
h(PL) = < c(!) c(1)
Xo' xo
> . deg1f .
With these notations Proposition 4.3 can be reformulated for X = XO as:
Theorem 4.2. Let E be an elliptic curoe with conductor N· 00 with correspond-
ing new form f as in section 2, let PL E E(L) be the Heegner point given by the
parametrization 1f : Xo(N) --t E. Then the derivative of the L-series of E over
L and the canonical height h(P£) are related by the formula

:s (L(E,s)L(ED' s)) 1.=1 = h(PL ) q; 1 q-(de g D+I)/2 (h L deg1f)-l

/ f·j.
ro(N)\GL2(Koc )/rocK~

At the end we want to mention just one consequence of Theorem 4.4. We consider
the elliptic curve E over L. Its L-series is L(E, s)L(ED' s), which in our case has
a zero at s = 1 according to the functional equation of Corollary 2.4.

In the function field case it is known ([15), (14)) that the analytic rank of E/ Lis
not smaller than the Mordell-Wei! rank of E(L). Therefore Theorem 4.4 implies
 A Gross-Zagier Formula for Function Fields 137

Corollary 4.1. If
8
8s (L(E,s)L(ED'S» 1.=1# 0,
then the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true for E, z.e. the analytic
rank and the M ordell- Weil rank of E / L are both equal to 1.

References
1. P. Deligne, Les constantes des equations fonctionelles des fonctions L, in: Modular
functions of one variable II, LNM 349, Springer (1973), 501-597.
2. P. Deligne, D. Husemoller, Survey of Drinfeld modules, Contemp. Math. 67 (1987),
25-91.
3. E.-U. Gekeler, Drinfeld modular curves, LNM 1231, Springer, 1986.
4. E.-U. Gekeler, M. Reversat, Jacobians of Drinfeld modular curves, Journal reine
angew. Math. 476 (1996), 27-93.
5. L. Gerritzen, M. van der Put, Schottky groups and Mumford curves, LNM 817,
Springer.
6. B. Gross, Local heights on curves in "Arithmetic geometry", (ed. Cor-
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7. B. Gross, D. Zagier, Heegner points and derivatives of L-series, Invent. Math. 84
(1986), 225-320.
8. D. R. Hayes, Explicit class field theory in global function fields, Studies in Alge-
bra and Number Theory, Advances in Mathematics supplementary studies vol.6,
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11. H.-G. Riick, Poincare Series of Drinfeld Type, Arch. Math. 68, 190-201, 1997.
12. H.-G. Riick, L-series of automorphic cusp forms of Drinfeld type, Proceedings
of the Workshop on Drinfeld modules, modular schemes and applications, Alden-
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Drinfeld type, (manuscript).
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(1992), 99-114.
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16. U. Tipp, Hohenberechnungen von Heegnerpunkten auf Drinfeldschen Modulkur-
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 Part B

Algorithmic
Commutative Algebra and
Algebraic Geometry
 Extremal Lattices

Rudolf Scharlau! and Rainer Schulze-Pillot2

1 Fachbereich Mathematik, Universitat Dortmund, D-44221 Dortmund, Germany
2 Fachbereich 9 Mathematik, Universitat des Saarlandes, Postfach 15 11 50,
D-66041 Saarbriicken, Germany

Abstract. Extremal lattices (in the sense of integral quadratic forms)

have been introduced in the unimodular case by C.L. Mallows, A.M.
Odlyzko and N.J.A. Sloane in 1975; a finiteness result dealing with
the hypothetical theta series of such lattices was given. Recently, H.-G.
Quebbemann has extended the notion to so called modular even lattices
of levels 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 and 23, and part of the genera of levels 6, 14 and
15 containing strongly modular lattices. In the present paper, the above
mentioned finiteness result is generalized to all genera of lattices consid-
ered by Quebbemann. For minimal norms at most 8, a detailed overview
on the existence and uniqueness of extremal lattices is given, including
some information about hermitian stuctures on such lattices. Using an
obvious generalization of the notion of extremality, similar results are
obtained for other genera of levels 6, 14 and 15, and for the levels 10 and
21 not considered before. For the construction of lattices, a computer
implementation of Kneser's neighbor method is an important tool.

o Introduction

This paper deals with discrete subgroups of euclidean vector spaces, equivalently
finitely generated free abelian groups (isomorphic to zn for some n E N) together
with a positive definite quadratic form. Such a structure will be called a lattice for
short, typically denoted by L,M, ... ,with values (v,w) E IR of the bilinear form
(where v,w E V J L, the enveloping IR-vector space). The general background
of this report is provided by the sphere packing problem (construction of lattices
with large minimum), by the theory of modular forms, and by the theory of finite
matrix groups. Almost all lattices of interest for one of the mentioned areas are
"algebraic" or even "rational", by which we mean that the form takes rational
values on them: (v, w) E Q for v, w E L. After rescaling, that is, multiplying the
form with some positive integral constant Q, a rational lattice becomes integral:
(v,w) E Z for all v,w E L. The rescaled lattice will be denoted by "L. By
definition, a lattice is integral if and only if it is contained in its dual lattice

L# := {y E V I (x, y) E Z for all x E L} .

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
140 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

H.-G. Quebbemann has observed that quite a few individual lattices which are
well known, or even famous, in one or several of the above mentioned areas (like
the Leech lattice A24 , the Barnes-Wall lattice BW16 , or the Coxeter-Todd lattice
K 12 , the Quebbemann lattice(s) Q32), share a common structure: after integral
normalization, they are similar to their respective dual lattice. That is, there
exists a bijective linear map u : V -t V, a similarity, and a positive integer f.,
the similarity factor, such that

u(L#) = L and (ux, uy) = f.(x, y) for all x, y E V.

Furthermore, these lattices are even, that is (x, x) E 2Z for all x E L. An even
lattice similar to its dual, with similarity factor f., is called a modular lattice of
level f.. Under the above circumstances, the integer f. is indeed equal to what is
usually called the level of a lattice L: it is the smallest natural number f. such
that lL#, the rescaled dual lattice, is again even. (It is readily checked that the
level of an even integral lattice f. is equal to the exponent, or twice the exponent
of the discriminant group T(L) := L# / L.)
In his basic papers [47] and [48], Quebbemann investigates the relationship
between his notion of modularity for lattices, and the theory of modular forms.
This leads him, for certain levels f., to the notion of an extremal (modular) lattice.
Roughly speaking, a lattice is extremal if its minimum or minimal norm

minL:= min{(x,x) I x E L \ {O}}

is as large as it is possible from the point of view of modular forms. (For self-
dual lattices, f. = 1, this notion is classical [12].) Since the determinant of an
n-dimensional f.-modular lattice necessarily equals f. n/2, independently of the
particular lattice, the assumption of extremality also maximizes the (center)
density 8(L):= (minL)n/2/vdetL of the associated sphere packing. It is there-
fore of direct geometrical significance. To avoid an ambiguous notion, the prop-
erty of being extremal is more precisely called analytic extremality, whereas the
property of being extreme in the classical sense of geometry of numbers is called
geometric extremality. Recall that L is extreme if the density function attains a
local maximum at the "point" L in an appropriate space of matrices. Quebbe-
mann's definition of analytic extremality is restricted to special values of the
level f., namely the numbers f. whose sum Ul (f.) of the positive divisors divides
24. We shall comment on this in more detail in Sect. 1 below, but observe that
these numbers include almost all levels which have so far been of interest for ap-
plications. As was mentioned above, the starting point of Quebbemann's work
were common properties of some important known lattices. Once the definition
of modularity and analytic extremality was given, it immediately stimulated fur-
ther investigations on these and related lattices, and also led to the discovery of
some "new" extremal lattices. What makes the subject particularly intriguing is
the fact that the concept of extremal lattices gives rise to a finite classification
problem. For each of the finitely many levels f., there is an upper bound on the
dimension n up to which extremal lattices of level f. could possibly exist. This
comes from the fact that for large values of n, the (hypothetical) theta series
 Extremal Lattices 141

of an extremal lattice of dimension n = 2k and levell, which is a uniquely de-

termined modular form Fk,i, has a negative coefficient. For the remaining pairs
(n, l), one is faced with the questions of existence, uniqueness, and possibly full
classification of extremal lattices.

It is the purpose of this paper to report on what is presently known about

these problems. The results are to a large extent due to Plesken & Nebe and
Nebe who found many extremal (and also many other interesting) lattices in
the course of investigating finite rational matrix groups, to Quebbemann, to
Bachoc and Bachoc & Nebe, and to the present authors, A. Schiemann and
B. Hemkemeier. The original results of this paper are following. We extend the
classical finiteness result for extremal modular forms (see [26]) to other levels; we
extend the results of [52] on the complete classification of "modular genera" of
lattices in "small" dimensions (up to between 8 and 16, depending on l), to the
composite levels l = 6, 14, 15; we discuss rather exhaustively the question of a
unimodular structure over (real or imaginary) quadratic fields for those "small"
dimensions; we discuss examples of extremality for some levels other than those
considered by Quebbemann. Our classification results, and also parts of the
results on the existence of certain lattices, are essentially based on computer
programs developed in a joint DFG-project and written by B. Hemkemeier, A.
Schiemann, M. Stausberg and F. Wichelhaus. These programs generate lattices
with Kneser's method of neighboring lattices [19] and can be viewed as extensions
of the program used in the work [52]. For further developments in the hermitian
case, see [56].

Our treatment will be complete and self-contained by giving a construction

(or at least a precise reference) for each occurring extremal lattice, including the
well known ones. We shall use without further explanation a few basic notions
and facts about lattices (some ofthem were already mentioned). The reader may
consult [47] or [53] for these, and the books [34], [18], [20] [27] or [60] for general
background about integral quadratic forms. In [60], the reader also finds an
exposition of the basic theory of modular forms, including its application to the
simplest case of lattices, namely those of level one. As a condensed introduction
to modular forms including a basic stock of widely used explicit formulas we
recommend [61].

Acknowledgements. We are grateful to Alexander Schiemann and Boris Hemke-

meier for their close cooperation in the computations with lattices. Some of the com-
putations on modular forms were performed using a program developed by the number
theory group at the Institut fiir experimentelle Mathematik at Essen and kindly com-
municated to us by Michael Miiller. We are also grateful to Nils-Peter Skoruppa for
excerpts of tables of modular forms. Finally, our thanks go to Christine Bachoc and
Gabriele Nebe who read a first draft of this paper and suggested corrections and im-
provements.
142 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

1 Basic Definitions and Some Constructions

1.1 Strongly Modular Lattices

We briefly recall a few standard definitions. A lattice (in the sense of number
theory) is a pair (L, b), where L is a free Z-module of finite rank, say rankL = n,
and b : L x L ~ Q is a positive definite symmetric bilinear form. An isometry
between two lattices (L 1,b1) and (L 2,b2) is a group isomorphism r.p: L1 -t L2
which is compatible with the forms: ~(r.px,r.py) = b1 (x,y) for all x,y ELI'
Sometimes L is considered to be embedded into a rational vector space, and
by defining V = L ®z Q we obtain an equivalent category if we regard lattices
as triples (V, bj L), where (V, b) is a "rational quadratic form", that is, a vector
space with a positive definite symmetric bilinear form, and L a "lattice on V",
that is a finitely generated subgroup which spans the vector space V. In this
form, the definition immediately extends to the case of a totally real number
field F instead of Q, replacing Z by the ring of integers 0 F, and requiring that
the form is totally positive definite: b(x, xy > 0 for all embeddings 0' : F ~ lR
and all x E V, x 1= o. At some places, we also deal with the case that F is a
totally complex number field endowed with an involution a H a whose fixed
field Fo is totally real, and with hermitian forms h : V x V -t F with respect
to the specified involution: h(ax,{3y) = aph(x,y). If necessary, we will speak
of quadratic lattices, respectively hermitian lattices. Notice that in the number
field case, lattices need not be free as modulesj the relevant structure theory of
such modules (finitely generated and torsion free) can be found for instance in
[34]. Lattices over OF are always free if the class number of F is one. In the
rational case, the form b will usually not occur in the notation, we just write
(x,y) := b(x,y). Observe that often the letter L refers to the whole structure
(V, bj L) or at least (L, b), and not just to the module L.
Isometry of lattices will be denoted by L ~ M.
If (L, b) is a lattice, and a E F is totally positive, then OIL denotes the
"scaled" lattice (L, ab)j similarly in the hermitian case with a E Fo. From the
introduction, we recall the definition of the dual lattice L#. A lattice is called
integral if L ~ L# and even if b(x, x) E 20F for all x E L.
Two lattices are in the same genus if they become isometric over all comple-
tions op of OF

gen L = gen M {:::=} L ® Op ~ M ® op for all places p (including 00) of F .

The class number of a lattice, or rather of its genus g = gen L is the number of
isometry classes contained in g, often denoted by h(Y).
The local theory of lattices, that is, the theory of lattices over op, and the
theory of genera are well understood. Details will not playa role in this paper. We
only mention the fact that every lattice over op posseses a Jordan-decomposition
 Extremal Lattices 143

where p E op is a (local) prime element and all L. are self-dual op-lattices:

Li = Lf. If P f 2, a Jordan decomposition is unique up to isometry. If p12, this
only holds if all Li are even. The lattice is called totally even in this case.
The Gram matrix of a free lattice with respect to an of-basis (Vb'" ,vn )
is the matrix (b(vi,vj)).,j E Fnxn. The determinant of a free lattice is the
determinant of any of its Gram matrices. It is well defined for F = Q, and for
arbitrary fields well defined modulo squares of units in OF. In the non-free case,
the determinant may be defined as an adele modulo squares of local units; often
the determinant ideal, generated by the determinants of all Gram matrices of n
linearly independent vectors in L, is a sufficiently fine invariant.
For a self-dual lattice L over a non-dyadic discrete valuation ring op, p f 2,
the only invariant in addition to the dimension is the (square class of the) de-
terminant detL E 0;/0;2 ~ {±1}. In view of the above mentioned essentially
unique Jordan decomposition this gives a full classification of non-dyadic local
lattices. In the dyadic case, the situation is in several respects essentially more
complicated.
In this paper, we shall have to describe genera of lattices only in the rational
case F = Q. We use the genus symbol as introduced in [12], Chapter 15. This
symbol is a string of local symbols, one for each prime p = 2,3,5,... divid-
ing 2 . det L. The local symbol at the prime p =f:. 2 of a lattice L with Jordan
decomposition (1.1) as above is the formal product

.n
3=-8
(pi)"j.pnj,p with Cj,p = (detL j )
p
and nj,p = dimLj.

We do not describe a dyadic symbol in full generality here. Among other things,
the parity "even/odd" of the Jordan component belonging to q = 2t is recorded
by a subscribed ql respectively q].
As an example, consider the binary lattice B given by the Gram matrix
( ~ ~ ), of determinant 15. Over all completions Zp, p =f:. 2, it can be diagonalized
as B ® Zp ~ (2,30) ® Zp = (2,2·3· 5) ® Zp. So the 3-adic symbol is 1-13+1,
and the 5-adic symbol is 1-15+1. The 2-adic symbol is 112, where the +-sign
expresses the fact that detL = detLo,2 == ±1 mod 8. We shall usually suppress
the unimodular parts of the local symbols, since the dimensions no,p and the
signs cO,p are determined by the total dimension and determinant and the other
nj,p, Cj,p, j ~ 1. Furthermore, we shall indicate the parity of the unimodular
component at p = 2, which equals the parity of the total lattice, and the total
dimension n by writing the symbol as In(. .. ) respectively ][n( ... ) and omitting
also the component 2~/,;no.2. So our final symbol for the above example B will
be ][2(3+15+1). Similarly, the lattice (t l) can be diagonalized as (1,3·5) ®Zp
for p =f:. 2, and thus has the symbol ][2(3- 15- 1).
In the following, we use the notation mill if m and l are integers, m divides
l, and m and lim relatively prime. In this case we say that m is an exact divisor
oU.
144 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

Definition 1.1. Let L be an integral lattice, l the exponent of its discriminant

group L# / L, and q an exact divisor of l. The partial dual DqL of L is defined as

DqL:= q(~L n L#).

The lattice DqL is integral again, and Dq(DqL) ~ L (canonically). If q and

r are as above and coprime, the operators Dq and Dr (on isometry classes of
lattices of fixed exponent l) commute: DqDrL = DrDqL. Clearly, Dq is also
defined for lattices over Zp (of appropriate exponent), and the operator Dq
commutes with localization and thus maps genera onto genera. For a Zp-Iattice
L with Jordan decomposition as above, and q = p., we have

so Dq acts by reversing the sequence of p-Jordan-components. The operator Dq

does not affect the other localizations L 18) Zpl, pi f; P as modules, but because
of rescaling by q, it in general does change the isometry class of the quadratic
form.
In this paper, only genera with square free exponent l = l(L) will playa role.
Furthermore, n = 2k is even, and det L = lk, so that for each p, the unimodular
and the p-modular Jordan component have the same dimension no,p = nl,p = k.
Even in this special situation, Dp need not preserve every genus. Obviously, Dp,
p f; 2 does so if (and only if) k is even, or p is a square modq for all odd
primes q f; p dividing l. As an example D 3 (][2(3 H 5+ 1 )) = D 5 (][2(3+ 1 5+ 1 )) =
][2(3- 1 5- 1 ), and indeed D3B ~ D5B ~ B ' , where B, B' are the above binary
lattices of determinant 15.

Notice that a lattice of square-free exponent l is totally even if and only if

both L and D2L are even. In this case, l equals what is usually called the level
of L: the smallest natural number m such that the rescaled dual lattice mL# is
again even.

We now come to the most important definition of this section, the significance
of which has first been pointed out by H.-G. Quebbemann.

Definition 1.2. An integral lattice L is called strongly modular if DmL ~ L for

all exact divisors m of the exponent l of L# / L. It is called modular if D(L ~ L.

In the definition of strong modularity, one could restrict m to prime powers

since DmL ~ n DqL, where q runs over the prime powers exactly dividing m.
qlm
Except for the self-dual case, l = 1, a modular lattice must have even dimension,
n = 2k, say. If L has even determinant and is totally even and modular, then its
dimension is divisible by 4.
We refer to [48] for examples.
If F is a totally real number field and (L, b) a quadra.tic of-lattice of rank
n, we can consider the Q-valued scalar product (x,y) = tr b(x, y) on FL, where
 Extremal Lattices 145

tr : F -t Q denotes the trace. The Z-lattice of rank n . [F : Q] thus obtained is

denoted by Lz. It is said to be obtained by transJerform L. The of-dual

L d := {y E V I b(x,y) E OF for all x E L}

and the Z-dual are related by the formula

where V F / Q denotes the different of F over Q. (This follows immediately from

the definition of the different, or rather its inverse, which is a fractional ideal in
F.) An immediate consequence is the formula

det Lz = d'F . N(det L)

where dF denotes the field discriminant of F and N denotes the norm. We leave
it to the reader to formulate a more precise statement for relation between the
discriminant groups Ld / Land L# / L (in the integral case). When L is self-dual,
Ld = L, it amounts to dF·L# ~ L, and indeed L# /L ~ (OF/vF/Q)n. Everything
remains true for hermitian lattices subject to the above conditions.
The most important special case for particular constructions is that of a
quadratic field F = Q(v'D), for a square free integer D. One has dF = D if
D == 1 mod 4, and dF = 4D if D == 2,3 mod 4. We redefine (x,y) = ~trb(x,y) if
D == 2,3 mod 4; then the above formula holds in both cases, with (..fi5) instead
of V:F/Q, and D instead of dF . The lattices Lz obtained from self-dual lattices L
over Q( v' D) are not only D-elementary, L~ / Lz ~ (Z/ Dz)n, but even modular.
The desired similarity from L~ to Lz is simply given by multiplication with ..fi5.
In the real quadratic case, we obtain a non-trivial extension of the transfer
construction, which we call twisted transfer, as follows. The scalar product on
the Z-module L is defined as (x, y) = tr(a·b(x, y» for some fixed totally positive
element a E F. It is convenient to write a = >..f8, where 8 is a generator of the
different of F over Q (which may be totally positive or not!). Then the above
equalities read (Lz)# = >.Ld, det Lz = (N).)n·N(det L), and Lz is N>.-elementary
for self-dual L. Modularity of Lz need not hold, but we have the following easy
lemma.

Lemma 1.3. Consider a Z -lattice Lz of level ( obtained by twisted transfer

(x, y) := tr (jb(x, y») from a self-dual lattice (L, b) over a real quadratic field F,
where N>' = ( and (8) = V F / Q . IfN>. > 0 and (L, b) is isometric to its conjugate
lattice, then Lz is (-modular.

Of course, by "conjugate" lattice we understand the lattice L with the form

b(x,y)', where 13 f-t 13' is the non-trivial field automorphism of F, and f3.v = f3'v
for 13 E F, v E FL is the twisted module-structure.
146 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

1.2 Theta Series

We recall a few well known facts from the analytic theory of quadratic forms, or
lattices. If L is an even lattice of even dimension n = 2k and level £, we denote
by
8LCq) = L rLCm)qm, rLCm):= I{x ELI (x,x) = 2m}1
m~O

its theta series, where as usual q = e 2"iz and z is a variable in the upper half
plane. This is a modular form of weight k for the group ro(£) and a certain
quadratic character C : ro (£) -+ {±1}. Using standard notation for the action of
PSL 2(Ji) on modular forms of weight k, this means that

The character c only depends on the determinant of L, and is trivial if this

is a square. So in that case we have modular forms of weight k and level £ in
the strict sense, i.e. invariant under ro(£). We denote by Mk(£,c) the finite-
dimensional complex vector space of these modular forms, and by Sk(£,c) the
subspace of cusp forms. If Land M are lattices in the same genus, then the
difference 8 L - 8 M is a cusp form.
In the following we shall assume that £ is square free. This includes the as-
sumption that L is totally even, and £ is equal to the exponent of L# j L. Denote
by ro(£) the normalizer of ro(£) in PSL2(Ji). The factor group ro(£)jro(£) is
2-elementary abelian, generated by certain cosets WmrO(£), ml£, which are inde-
pendent mod roC£); for £ = m one obtains the Fricke involution Wi represented
by (~r}). Since c is quadratic, Wi acts on Mk(£'c), and if c is trivial, all the
Wm act as commuting involutions on Mk(£,c) (the Atkin-Lehner involutions).
Hence, if £ is prime or c is trivial, Mk(£,c) splits into eigenspaces MkC£,X) with
respect to the characters X: ro(£) -+ /-14 = {±1, ±i} extending c.
A basic result now is the so-called Atkin-Lehner-identity which says that for
any lattice L oflevel £, and any divisor m of £, the theta series ofthe partial dual,
8D~L is proportional to the Atkin-Lehner-transform 8LlkWm of the original
theta series, with a certain numerical factor depending only on the genus. See
[48] for a precise statement and formula. In particular, if L is strongly modular,
then 8L is an Atkin-Lehner-eigenform:

for a certain character X depending only on the genus of L.

The following dimension formula for prime levels is taken from [47].

Proposition 1.4. For a prime number £ ::; 23, even weight k and X(Wi)
(_1)k/2, X trivial on ro(£), the dimension of Mk(£,X) is equal to
 Extremal Lattices 147

with
0 lor R = 1,2,3,5,7,13
90(R) = { 1 lorR = 11,17,19
2/0rf = 23
The following dimension formulae were derived from [62]; see [48] for the levels
6,14,15.
Proposition 1.5. For even weight k and X trivial on Fo(R) one has:

dimSk(lO, X) = 41 . [3(k_l)+(_1)k/2
2 - 2 -llX(W2) + (_1)k/2 (X(Ws) + X(WlO))
]

{+1
with
1]= ~/k~2,4mod8
-1 ilk=0,6mod8.

dimSk(21,X) = ~(tr(Wl) + X(W3) tr(W3) + X(W7) tr(W7) + X(W21 ) tr(W21 ))

with

o k := 4 mod 6
8k -1 4 2
tr(W1 ) = - 3 - + 3' { -1 k:= 2 mod 6 ,
+1 k:= omod 6
2 k:=4mod6
tr(W3)=(_1)k/2~+(_1)k/2~ { ~1 k:=2mod6,
+1 k:= 0 mod 6
tr(W7 ) = 0,
tr(W21 ) = 2(_1)k/2.

1.3 Extremality
In this subsection, we specify the general setup in which extremality of a lattice
can be defined in terms of its theta series.
Definition 1.6. a) Let M be a subspace of Mk(L). We say that extremality is
definable with respect to M if the projection M --* «Y to the first d = dim M
coefficients of the q-expansion

1= E amqm t-t (ao, al,' .. , ad-J)

m?:O

is injective. If this holds, the unique element F =: FM EM with q-expansion

F= 1+ E amqm
m?:d
148 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

is called the extremal modular form in M.

b) Let L be an even lattice of dimension 2k and level l and M be a
subspace of Mk(l,c:) with BL E M (where as above c: denotes the character
defined by the determinant of L). We say that L is extremal with respect to M
if extremality is definable with respect to M and BL = PM.
Thus if L is extremal, then min L ;::: 2 dim M is as large as the specified
space M of modular forms allows. Notice that according to the definition we
have chosen, "extremality" is defined under rather general circumstances, but a
strong necessary condition for existence of extremal lattices is that the extremal
modular form PM should have non-negative coefficients. In Sect. 2 we shall prove
that, for certain levels l, this holds for only finitely many k.
The general definition of extremality is not of much use as long as no restric-
tions on the space M are imposed. We shall not treat this problem in general. In
the modular and strongly modular case, the Atkin-Lehner identity suggests the
following choice of M. Here k must be even for prime levels l == 1(4); we shall
also assume that k is even if l is composite. Then the character on ro(l) de-
scribing the action on theta series is trivial, and {± 1}-valued on the involutions
Wm ·
Definition 1.7. Consider a genus 9 of levell, determinant lk, and containing
(strongly) modular lattices (e.g. l prime). Let 8 be the character on ro(l) and
let X be the character on the group of involutions Wm describing g:
x(Wp) = gp(L) for LEg

with gp(L) the Gaussian sum from [48].

A (strongly) modular lattice in 9 is called (strongly) modular extremal if it
is extremal with respect to the subspace

respectively

The investigation of genera of small level l and "small" (relative to l) di-

mension n shows that often the lattices with largest known minimum among all
lattices of levell and determinant In/2 are strongly modular extremal lattices.
However, not all strongly modular extremal lattices do have the largest occur-
ring minimum, not even within their genus, as the following "negative" example
shows.

Example. Consider the genus 9 = .0"8(3- 45- 4) of dimension 8 and level 15,
represented for instance by B .1 B' .1 B' .1 B', with B and B' as above. This
genus does not contain "obvious", i.e. decomposable strongly modular lattices.
(The reason is that .0"4(3252) has only two classes B .1 B and B' .1 B' and thus
no strongly modular lattice). However, complete enumeration of g, with class
number h((i) = 68 shows the following:
 Extremal Lattices 149

(a) 9 contains exactly 2 (classes of) strongly modular lattices; they have mini-
mum 4.
(b) 9 contains a unique lattice with minimum 6; this lattice is not strongly
modular.
(c) The strongly modular lattices with minimum 4 are strongly modular ex-
tremal.
Part (c) is verified as follows: for the appropriate character X given by
X(W3 ) = X(W5 ) = -1, the space M4(15,X) is two-dimensional, the space of
cusp forms 8 4 (15, X) is one-dimensional, and a non-zero cusp form En>lanqn
has a1 f O. Thus extremality is definable, and strongly modular lattices with
minimum 4 are extremal.
Notice that parts (a) and (b) of this example show that even without using
the notion of extremality, we can state the fact that the largest minimum in a
genus is not always attained by a strongly modular lattice

2 Extremal Modular Forms

The rather general notion of extremality introduced in 1.6 has its origin in the
investigation of the special cases of the full modular group (£ = 1) in [26] and
certain special ones of the rO'(£) in [47,48]. In the case £ = 1 it was proved
in [26] (extending results of Siegel [59]) that extremality is definable for all
even weights, that the unique extremal modular form has (except for the zeroth
coefficient 1) even integral Fourier coefficients a(n), that a(d) is positive and
that a( d + 1) is negative for large weights. These results do not carryover to the
general situation in which extremality is definable. In particular it is not known
in general whether the d-th Fourier coefficient of the extremal modular form is
non zero (hence what the minimum of an extremal lattice is) or whether the
extremal modular form has (even) integral Fourier coefficients and hence is at
all eligible for being the theta series of a lattice. For the situations considered in
[47,48] however, we have the following result (of which part i) is from [47,48]).
As usual, ao(£) denotes the number of divisors and a1 (£) the sum of the divisors
oU.
Theorem 2.0.1. i) Let £ be one of the integers 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 14, 15, 23
and let X be the character on rO'(£) defined by (-,/)k on ro(£) , by X(W2) = 1,
X(W3 ) = (_1)k/2 (case 6a) or X(W2) = (_1)k/2, X(W3 ) = 1 (case 6b)
for £ = 6, by X(W2) = 1, X(W7 ) = (_1)k/2 for £ = 14, by X(W3 ) = 1,
X(W5 ) = (_1)k/2 for £ = 15, and X(Wt) = i k for the remaining values of £.
Then extremality is definable for Mk(£' X).
With

one has
dt:= dim Mk(£'X) = 1 + [k1~£)] .
150 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

ii) In the cases above the extremal modular form has integral Fourier coefficients
ak(n) (that are even for n > 0). Moreover, one has ak(dt) > 0 for all k and
ak (dl + 1) < 0 for k large enough (depending on £, X).
Proof. i) has been proven in [47,48], where it is also shown that Mk(£,X) has a
basis consisting of the functions e1vLl~, where N = N(£, X) denotes a strongly
modular lattice of minimal dimension ko = ko(£) with respect to £ and X,
2.
Llt(z) = II l1(mZ)a.<tY.
mil

This implies immediately that the extremal modular form has (even) integral
Fourier coefficients and allows to deduce the assertion about a(dl) and a(dl + 1)
in the same way as in [26]; some of the details have been carried out in [64]. We
sketch the main steps briefly: With

one has an expansion

= L a(s)cp(q)8
00

eN(k/ko(l» (q)
8=0

in a sufficiently small disk Iql ~ r < 1, where eN(q) and cp(q) denote the
expansions with respect to q = exp (21riz) of these functions. For the coefficients
a(s) one has

and
a(dl + 1)
a(dl)
is asymptotic to
e~' (l)/ko(l» (e-21TYO)
LlI(e-21TYo)
where Yo is the (unique) positive zero of the derivative of (y f---t Ll I (e- 21TY »and
eN and Ll, are again viewed as functions of q. Moreover one has

a(dl) = -a(dl )
a(dl + 1) = -a(d, + 1) + a(dt)·
2k1(£)
( 0"0(£)
([_k
kl (£)
] +1) +(k1(£)
ko(£)
_ k-kl(£) [rdmJ))
ko(£) ,

where Cl = Cl (£) is the first Fourier coefficient of eN. The boundedness of the
quotient

then implies the assertion.

 Extremal Lattices 151

Remark 1. a) It is not difficult to calculate Yo in the above argument ex-

plicitly to high accuracy. If one then replaces the quotient a: a:~~~1 by its asymp-
totic value given above, one obtains a heuristic bound for the maximal weight
kmax(£,X) of an extremal modular form with positive coefficient a(de + 1). For
£ = 1 a value of kmax (£) :::; 20500 is given in [26]. For the other values of £, X
considered here we have the following table:

Table 2.1
We calculated the extremal modular form in the weights below this bound
and found that the coefficient a(de + 1) becomes negative a little earlier than
this bound. The following tables give the values obtained for the jump weights
(Le., k with k1 (£)lk) and general weights.

Table 2.2

Table 2.3
Using the formulas above one can calculate from the extremal theta series
the coefficients a(de), a(d£+l) and finds that the quotient a:~(~~l) seems to tend
to its asymptotic value quite slowly, but from below, so that beyond the values
of k given above one should not expect any further extremal modular forms with
positive coefficient a( de + 1). In particular, there should be no extremal lattices of
the types considered and dimension bigger than the values of 2kmax (£, X) given
above (we will see that our list of known extremal lattices terminates much
earlier in all cases except £ = 23).
b) As in [26] one can also prove the existence of a bound kmax (£, x, v) for v E
N such that any modular form in Mk(£,X) with constant term 1 and vanishing
Fourier coefficients a(l), ... , a(de - v) of weight k > kmax (£, X, v) has at least
one negative Fourier coefficient (and hence cannot be a theta series).
c) If k = 2 and the character X on r;(£) is trivial the condition under which
extremality is definable just means that the modular curve H / r; (£) has no
WeierstraB point at the cusp 00. A more general notion of WeierstraB points
has been introduced by Petersson in [37] and investigated by Smart in [63]. A
detailed investigation of the WeierstraB points for the situations of interest here
and of the consequences for theta series of lattices will be the subject of future
work.
Remark 2. As in [48] our discussion of the extremal modular form in this
section is limited to those cases in which a direct generalization of the methods
from the case of level 1 is possible. In particular we do not discuss all strongly
152 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

modular genera oflevels 6, 14, 15 but only those in dimension 4r obtained by tak-
ing r-fold orthogonal sums of the 4-dimensional genera G 4(2-3+) == ff4(2i23-2)
(case6b), G 4(2+3-) == ff4(2j.3 2) (case 6a), G4(2+7-) == ff 4(2j.7 2),G4(3+5-) ==
ff 4 (3- 2 5- 2 ) with the G40-notation as in [48].
Remark 3. E. Rains informed us that he can prove the nonexistence of
strongly modular lattices in the genera r . G 4(2-7+) == ff4r(2i2r7-2r) (r odd)
and G 4(2+7-) .l r . G 4(2-7+) == ff 4r +4(2;-(2r+2)7-(2r+2)) (r odd) of dimension
4r resp. 4r + 4 and in certain other genera of levels 2N,4N with N == -1 mod 8.
We have received a preprint version ([49]) during the final revision of this article.
We conclude this subsection with a table of minima of extremal lattices for
the levels treated in Theorem 2.0.1, part i) up to minimum 12. An entry in
brackets means that the extremal modular form has a negative coefficient.

f1 2 3 5 6 7 111415 23
n
4- 2 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 6
6- - 2 4 4 (8)
82 2 2 4 4 4 6 6 6 (10)
10 - - 2 4 6 - - (12)
12 - 2 4 4 4 6 8 8 8
14 - - 4 6 8
162 4 4 6 6 6 (10) 10 10
18 - - 4 8 10 - -
20- 4 4 6 6 8 (12) 12 12
22 - - 4 8
244 4 6 8 810
26 - - 6 --10
28- 4 6 8 810
30 - - 6 - -12
324 6 610 10 12
34 - - 6 - -12
36- 6 810 10
404 6 81212
44- 6 81212
486 810
52- 810
566 810
60 - 812
64 61012
68 -10 12
72 810
76 -10
80 812
Table 2.4: Minima of (hypothetical) strongly modular extremal lattices
 Extremal Lattices 153

3 On the Existence and Uniqueness of Extremal Lattices

In this section we follow the program of Quebbemann [47), [48]. That is, we
consider strongly modular lattices of level l with adl) (sum of divisors of l)
dividing 24. We recall from the previous section the table of minima of such
lattices (if they exist). We give a survey of what is presently known about these
lattices. Some of the results are "classical" in the sense that they were known
before [47]. Many "new" extremal lattices occurring were found by Nebe and
Plesken & Nebe in the course of their investigation of maximal finite rational
matrix groups. Other new lattices were constructed by Bachoc using number
fields, quaternions, and codes. A complete investigation of all cases of small
dimension n (up to n = 8, ... ,16, depending on the levell) was obtained in [52]
for prime levels and is completed in this paper. We survey the results according
to the minimum 2,4,6,8, and distinguish between "minimal dimensions" (the
smallest dimension for which the minimum in question could occur), and other
(usually less interesting) dimensions. For the levels considered in this section, we
are aware of only one extremal strongly modular lattice with minimum 10. This is
no. 19 of [32] of levell = 15; for strong modularity, see [30]. Gram matrices for the
lattices stabilized by an integral maximal finite matrix group are contained in the
program package GAP [55]. A big collection of Gram matrices of modular lattices
is also part of the 'Catalogue of lattices' of G. Nebe and N.J.A. Sloane which
can be obtained from http://www . research. att. comrnj as/lattices/ .

3.1 Extremal Lattices with Minimum 2

This case occurs for the levels l :s; 11 and is a bit exceptional and trivial. Indeed,
there is no real condition on the minimum, any strongly modular lattice of the
appropriate dimension is extremal.
Minimal dimensions. This is the respective smallest dimension no for which
a totally even lattice L of level l with l :s; 11 and determinant l n/2 exists. For
l = 1, one has no = 8, for l = 2,5,6, one has no = 4, for l = 3,7,11, one has
no = 2. In all these cases, the class number of the respective genus (for l = 6,
there are two of them) is one. Thus in each case, an extremal lattice exists and
is unique. For l = 1,2,3, it is the root lattice E 8 , D4, A 2 , for l = 7,11 the
binary lattice with Gram matrix (i 1), (i ~), respectively. For l = 6, the genus
1l4 (2.i?3- 2 ) consists of the root lattice A2 *2, and the genus 1l4 (2}3 2 ) consists
of a reflective lattice (see [51]) with root system (2 3(2. A Gram matrix of this
lattice is !
(~ ~ ~1); the orthogonal group is
1 -1 0 4
(necessarily) equal to the Weyl
group, of order 64.
Other dimensions. For the following pairs (n, l) with higher n modular lattices
L of minimum 2 in the respective genus are still extremal.
(n, £) = (16,1), (8,2), (12,2);
(4,3),(6,3),(8,3),(10,3);
(4,7).
154 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

The known (and rather trivial) classification of all these lattices shows that they
are all modular, and thus extremal. (The classification for £ = 2 and 3 can be
readily obtained from the classification in the higher-dimensional cases (16,2),
(12,3) in [53] by restricting to decomposable lattices.) The class numbers are
shown in the following small table.

n\£1237
4 - 1 11
6 --1
8 112
10 - - 3
12 - 3
16 2
Table 3.1: Some class numbers

3.2 Extremal Lattices with Minimum 4

Minimal dimensions. These dimensions n(£,4), for the various levels £, are
shown in the following table. It is known that in each case there exists an ex-
tremal lattice, and is unique up to isomorphism. The complete classification of
all genera of lattices in question is also known, the class number is given in
the third row of the table. We recall from Sect. 2 that for the composite lev-
els £ = 6,14,15, the genus in question is one out of two totally even genera of
determinant r/ 2 , namely ][s(2}3 4), ][4(2}72 ), ][4(3- 2 5- 2 ), respectively. In the
fourth row the number of classes of strongly modular lattices is indicated.

£ 1 2 3 5 6 7 1114 15 23
n(£, 4) 24 16 12 886 4 4 4 2
h 24 24 10 5 8 3 3 3 3 2
ham 24 16 10 5 6 3 3 3 3 2
Table 3.2: Minimal dimensions for extremal lattices with minimum 4,
and class numbers
Other dimensions. The following table contains, for each level £, the dimen-
sions above the minimal dimension for which extremal lattices have minimum
4. The third row contains the class number of the respective genus, if this is
known. In the missing cases (for £ = 1,2,3), the class number is very large, and
a full classification at present is out of reach. The last row contains the number
of known isomorphism classes of extremal lattices. We see that extremal lattices
always exist. They are unique in the two cases (n, £) = (11,6), (7,8) of small
class number, and, more surprisingly, also for (3,14). In all other cases they are
most probably not unique.
 Extremal Lattices 155

£ 1 2 3 5 6+ 6- 7 11
n 32 40 20 24 28 14 16 18 20 22 12 12 12 8 10 6
h 29163 48308284830 5
h ext ~ 22 ~ 3 ~ 3 ~ 1 ~ 1 1 6 ~ 1 ~ 1 ~ 1 4 6 4 1 4 1
Table 3.3: Extremal lattices of minimum 4 in non-minimal dimensions

Description of the lattices in minimal dimensions.

1£ = 11 This is the famous lattice A24 of Leech [25].Its uniqueness has been
proved by Conway [10), using modular forms. Perhaps the most basic among the
various constructions for A24 is the following one: Take the binary Golay code 9;
this is the unique linear binary self-dual code of length 24 and minimum weight
d(9) = 8. The lattice L(9) has the root system 24Al = {±al, ... ,±a24} (no
new roots occur since d(9) = 8). A24 is the neighbor of L(9) with respect to
24
the vector u = - ~al + ~ 2: ai (it is obvious that this lattice is even and has
i=2
minimum 4).
1£= 21 This is the lattice A 16 = BW16 of Barnes and Wall [5]. Quebbemann in
[47] has given a proof of its uniqueness similar in spirit to Conway's proof for the
Leech lattice, using modular forms. The uniqueness is also a consequence of the
classification in [53] of all lattices of minimum 2 in the genus .1116(2~), combined
with the mass formula. A basic construction using codes, again analogous to the
case of the Leech lattice, is the following. Take the first-order Reed Muller code
R = R(l, 4), i.e the binary linear code of length 16, dimension 5, and minimal
weight 8 generated by the codewords 116 18 08 14 04 14 04 1202120212021202
1010 ... 10. The lattice L1<. of determinant 2'10 has' a unique ~otallY even overlat~
16
tice of index 2, obtained by adjoining ~ 2: ei. This is the desired lattice BWI6 .
i=1

1£ = 31 The extremal lattice in this genus is the Coxeter-Todd lattice [14]. It

is obtained by ordinary transfer from a certain self-dual hermitian lattice K6
over the Eisenstein integers Z[w], w3 = 1. The latter lattice is the unique 6-
dimensional self-dual Z[w]-lattice containing no vectors of norm 1 [15]. (This
clearly implies that min K 6,z ~ 4.) A convenient construction for K6 is by lifting
the so called hexacode C6 over IF' 4. This code is by definition generated by the
rows of
1001ww
010w1w,
001ww1
(where now w is understood as an element of IF' 4 \ IF'2)' It is clearly self-dual
with respect to the standard hermitian form an IF'~. Consequently, the set of all
~ 2: Xiai, Xi E Z[w], (Xl, ... ,X6) E C6 has the desired properties. Alternatively,
K6 can be obtained by twisted transfer (x, y) 1-+ tr(h(x, y)/(5 + .../5)/2) from the
156 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

self-dual Z[w, cs]-lattice J 3(5) used below in the case of minimum 8 and '- = 15.
A full classification of the genus without the use of a computer has been given
in [54].
1'- = 51 There exists a unique even unimodular lattice in dimension 4 over Z [¥].
Its orthogonal group is the reflection group of type H4; a Gram matrix is directly
read off from the Coxeter diagram

as follows: the diagonal entries are equal to 2, the ij-entry, for i # j, is -2 cos ;:.. ,
'J

where mij E {2, 3, 5} is the order of the corresponding product of reflections, as

indicated in the diagram. Ordinary transfer of H4 gives a 5-modular Z-lattice,
which is clearly of minimum 4. This is our desired lattice Q.
1'- = 61 An 8-dimensional strongly modular lattice of level 6 and with minimum
4 can be obtained very easily as D4 0 A 2 . It follows from the general Theorem
7.1.1 in [18], or by an elementary computation, that the minimum is indeed
not smaller than 4. Alternatively, this is immediately clear from the following
number field construction of the same lattice: consider the field F = Q( (24) =
Q(i, v'2, H) = Q((8, (3) of 24th roots of unity, its ring of integers OF ~ Z[(8] 0
Z[(3] with the twisted transfer (x,y) = tr~ 2(2~~) of the unit form over OF. It is
indeed readily checked that 0Q«s) = Z[(8] = Z [v'2+2A, i] with the hermitian
form tr~«8) C(2~~») gives the Ddattice. Namely, this lattice L satisfies L# =
2(2 - 0)V- 1L = 20v- 1L = (1 - (8)L, where V = (1 - (8)1 is the different
of Q((8). This lattice is even since tr 2(2~xv'2) = 2trg(v'2) 2(2~A) and 2(2 -
0)Z[v'2] is the different of Q( v'2) over Q. and thus tr~(v'2) 2(2~xv'2) E Z.

1'- = 71 There is as well-known self-dual hermitian Z[a]-lattice, a = HF,

of
dimension 3 and minimum 2, which we denote be J3 (following [9]). Its unitary
group is U(h) = 2XG 168 , whereG168 ~ L3(2) ~ L2(7) is a famous simple group
of order 168. The group U (h) is a primitive irreducible complex reflection group,
occurring as no. 24 in the basic list of such groups given by Shephard and Todd
[58]. A Gram matrix for J 3 showing up in this context is

20'1)
h~ ( a21 .
1 12

It also occurs in the work of Mimura [28], where hermitian lattices over imaginary
quadratic fields, generated by norm 2 vectors, are classified. (The significance of
the field Q( V-7) in this "direct" approach by the way is that a is the unique
imaginary quadratic number with trace 1 and norm 2.) The desired extremal
7-modular lattice is obtained from J 3 by ordinary transfer. It is isometric to the
Barnes lattice P6 and to the Craig lattice A~3).
 Extremal Lattices 157

Ip. = 111 Due to the fact that N7r = 3, where 7r = 1+O, there is an obvious
binary unimodular Z[7r]-lattice with minimum 2, given by the Gram matrix
(! ;). From this a 4-dimensional extremal 11-modular lattice is obtained by
ordinary transfer.
Ip. = 141 An extremal 4-dimensional strongly modular lattice of level 14 is ob-
tained by ordinary transfer from the binary Z[a]-lattice (of determinant 2) given
by (! ~), where a = 1+0 as usual. The modularity with respect to the prime
2 is not directly given by a, but comes from the fact that (!~) is isometric
to its complex conjugate (cf. Proposition 1.3).

IP. = 151 The trace form tr~ (xy) on OF, where F = Q( -/5, A), clearly gives a
strongly modular lattice of level 15 and minimum 4.

Description of the lattices in other dimensions.

Ip. = 11 One might suspect that many among, perhaps most of the 32-dimensional
unimodular lattices have minimum 4. However, despite the efforts of several
authors (notably Koch and Venkov, Koch and Nebe, and Blaschke-Requate),
only relatively few such lattice have been obtained by a structural algebraic
construction, and it is difficult to show that the lattices constructed are indeed
non-isomorphic. A few lattices have been constructed and distinguished using
particular automorphisms [46], [6]. A attempt to the systematic construction of
all extremal lattices regardless of their automorphisms is the notion of neighbor
defect J(L) of [22,23]. This number is defined as 32 minus the largest rank r of
the root system of a neighboring lattice M (the root system R(M) is necessarily
of the form rAt}. So the lattices of neighbor defect 0 are by definition the 2-
neighbors ofthe ordinary 'lifts' L(G), where G is a self-dual binary code oflength
n = 32 and minimal weight 8. The smallest values for 15 are 0,8, 12, 14, 15, and in
these cases the "defect lattice" is unique. The lattices with neighbor defect 0 and
8 are classified [22,23], [21], there are 5 + 10 of them. 7 pairwise non-isomorphic
lattices of neighbor defect 12 are known, by [7].
It is an easy consequence of the Minkowski-Siegel mass formula that there
are at least 8.45.10 51 classes of extremal even unimodular lattices in dimension
40; see Peters [38]. The first explicit example of such a lattice has been given
by McKay; see [12], Chapter 8.5. Later extremal unimodular lattices emerged
in a standard way from the investigation of self-dual binary codes G of length
40 and minimal weight 8; see above. Ozeki investigated in [35] these lattices for
three particular codes and showed that they have distinct Siegel theta series of
degree two. Using the above class number estimate, Peters showed in [39] that
the Siegel theta series of degree 2 are not a classifying invariant for the set of all
extremal even unimodular lattices in dimension 40. See also [8] and [12], Chapter
7.7, page 194, for further references.
158 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

If = 21 In dimension 20, two extremal lattices are known from [40), p. 49; see
also [6). A third one, with automorphism group of order 214 325 has been found
in the course of a projected complete enumeration of this genus, using a suitable
refinement of the computer program of [52). C. Bachoc and B. Venkov have
announced a proof of the fact that there are no further extremal lattices in this
genus.
In [1, 2], Theorem 6.7, it is shown, by a uniform construction using codes,
that, for all three dimensions in question, 20, 24 and 28, an extremal lattice
can be obtained from a suitable self-dual lattice over a maximal order of the
quaternion algebra ~,oo .
If = 31 For dimension 14, see [52). For dimensions 16 to 22, such lattices come
from self-dual hermitian lattices over the Eisenstein integers, by [15); see also
[2), Theorem 6.7.
If = 51 Complete enumeration of the 12-dimensional genus in [52) has shown
that there are 4 extremal lattices. A. Schiemann in [56) has shown that there are
no less than 29 classes of self-dual hermitian lattices over Z (A) giving rise to
such Z-lattices.
If = 61 For both genera in question, of dimension 12, we have obtained by com-
puter the full classification of all lattices, and the determination of the strongly-
modular ones among those with minimum 4. The 'plus-genus' ][12(2 6 36 ) is the
one coming from even self-dual hermitian lattices over Z (A). This genus has
been classified completely in [56). There are 161 classes, 41 of them have mini-
mum 4. It turns out that all 6 extremal lattices in ][12(2 6 36 ) have one or several
self-dual hermitian structures. Conversely, each hermitian lattice with minimum
4 and the correct number 84 of minimal vectors (there are 14 such lattices)
actually gives rise to a strongly modular Z-lattice.
If = 71 The classification of all lattices in dimensions 8 and 10 is again taken
from [52). The existence of a self-dual hermitian structure on such lattices is
mentioned in [2) and completely worked out in [56].
If = 111 See [52). No appropriate hermitian lattice exists, by [56).

3.3 Extremal Lattices with Minimum 6

Minimal dimensions. The minimal dimension n(f, 6) is given in the following
table. Extremal lattices do not exist for f = 7, they exist in all other cases. The
class number is very large and not known if f ~ 6; for f ~ 7 it is shown in the
third row of the table. The fourth row collects the known information about the
number of extremal lattices. For f = 3,5 uniqueness of extremal lattices is an
open question.
 Extremal Lattices 159

e 1 2 3 5 6 711141523
n(e,6) 48 32 24 16 16 12 8 8 8 4
h 395318091 6
h ext ~ 3 ~ 3 ~ 1~ 1~ 5 0 1 1 2 1
Table 3.4: Extremal lattices with minimum 6 in minimal dimensions

Other dimensions. The following table collects the known information about
the existence of extremal lattices of minimum 6 above the minimal dimension.
The class numbers are very large and not known except for (n, e) = (10,11).

e 1 2 3 5 6 7 11
n 56 64 36 40 44 26 28 30 32 3420 2014 1610
hext ~ 1~ 1~ 3 ~ 1~ 1~ 1~ 1~ 1~ 1~ 1 ~ 1 ~ 1 2

Table 3.5: Extremal lattices of minimum 6 in non-minimal dimensions

Description of the lattices in minimal dimensions.

Ie= 11 If an extremal self-dual ternary code C of length 48 is extremal, that is,
has minimal distance 15, then the ordinary lift £( C) is an odd unimodular lattice,
whose (pairs of) minimal vectors are precisely the canonical basis vectors of
3148 C £(C). The 2-neighbor A(C) := £(C)(u) for the vector u = ~(-5, 1, ... ,1)
is even and has minimum 6. There are two such codes known, a Pless doubly
circulant code and a quadratic residue code, giving rise to lattices called P48p,
respectively P48q in [12], pp. 148 f. and 195. In view of well known automorphism
groups of the respective code, their automorphism group contains 2£2(23) x
8 3 and 2£2(47), respectively. The absence of a common integral overgroup in
G£48(CQ) (see [12], refering to J. Thompson) implies that P48p and P48q are non-
isometric (and their groups in fact indentical to the above groups). Recently,
G. Nebe has reconstructed these two lattices and their groups, correcting an
error about the second group, and has constructed a third extremal unimodular
lattice; see [31].
Ie = 21 Extremal 2-modular lattice in dimension 32 have been considered by H.-
G. Quebbemann already in 1984. They are famous because of the fact that they
give rise to the densest known sphere-packing in this dimension, surpassing the
laminated lattices A 32 . In [44], such a lattice is constructed using the quaternion
group of order 8 acting on 8 copies ofthe D 4 -root lattice. A different construction
is given in [45], namely as a self-dual lattice over Z[(8]. In [1], Theoreme 5.2, C.
Bachoc has constructed an 8-dimensional non-integral quaternionic lattice over
the Hurwitz integers such that the underlying Z-lattice is 2-modular extremal.
It is shown in [4] that no integral (and thus self-dual) such quaternionic lattice
exists. Another 2-modular extremal lattice has been constructed in [31], Theorem
5.1. It is known from (highly non-trivial!) computer calculations [41] that the
four constructions mentioned actually give rise to non-isometric Z-lattices. In
fact, the orthogonal groups are known, and are pairwise distinct.
160 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

1f = 31 An extremal 3-modular lattice in dimension 24 has been constructed

by Nebe, using a certain 24-dimensional rational representation of the group
SL2(3) x SL2(13); see [29], p. 39, Satz (VI. 8). This matrix group by the way
is not maximal finite and thus does not directly belong to the subject of [29].
It however occurs systematically in the course of the investigation of invariant
lattices for the cyclic groups C 52 and C78 (see the Introduction of [Neb95]).
If = 51 According to Nebe and Plesken [32], the group 2. Alt10 occurs as an
irreducible maximal finite matrix group in dimension 16, leaving invariant a 5-
elementary lattice of determinant 58 and minimum 6. A numerical verification
using the Gram matrix of loco cit. shows that this lattice is modular. In [30]
a more conceptual proof is given, based on the observation that a similarily
between L# and L must normalize the orthogonal group of L.
If = 61 Everything is completely analogous to the case f = 5. This time, the
group is a quotient of Sp4(3) x C3 x SL2(3),of order 2103 6 5. Four other ex-
tremallattices, with groups of orders 2436 , 2834, 26 345,210 33 have been found
by computer.
If = 71 An extremal 7-modular lattice with minimum 6 does not exist in the
minimal dimension n = 12 by [52].
1f = 111 The unique 4-dimensional even unimodular lattice H4 over Q( VS) gives
rise to an 8-dimensional11-elementary lattice of minimum 6 by twisted transfer
with 1!~ of norm Jt.
It follows from Lemma 1.3 that this lattice is 11-modular.
It is the unique lattice with minimum 6 in its genus, and does not posses a self-
dual hermitian structure over Z [1+0].
1f = 141 There is a unique 4-dimensional even unimodular lattice over Q(V2),
called .:1~ in the literature. Let 7r = 3 - .j2 of norm 7, and consider L = .:1~ z
with twisted transfer tr (~ . -). Since tr (~(u + v.j2)) = 3u-2v and Ivl ~ u/./2
for totally positive u + v.j2, it readily follows that min L = 6. Furthermore, L
is strongly modular: the similarily with multiplier 2 is given by multiplication
with .j2, the desired similarily of norm 7 is x I-t 7r'a(x), where {3 I-t (3' is the
non-trivial automorphism of Q(V2), and a an isomorphism from .:1~ onto its
conjugate lattice (Le. a is antilinear and (ax,ay) = (x,y)' E Z[.j2] for any two
x, y E .:1~; see Lemma 1.3 above). The orthogonal group of L is identical to
O(.:1~), which is the semi-direct product of C2 with the Weyl group W(F4)' of
order 2832 • A complete enumeration of the genus )[8(2;47+4) (with class number
80) shows that L is the unique lattice with minimum 6 in this genus.
1f = 151 Even unimodular lattices .:1 over Z[v'6] give 15-elementary Z-lattices
by twisted transfer with {3 = -3lJt.
Since tr ({3(u + vV6)) = 2u - 3v and
u :2: for totally positive u + vV6, it is readily checked that min.:1 z :2: 6 if
V6lvl
.:1 does no represent 2. By [50], there exists one such Z[v'6]-lattice in dimension
4. Arguing as in the case f = 14, one shows strong modularity of .:1z . A com-
plete enumeration of the genus )[8(3+45+4) (with class number 91) shows that
 Extremal Lattices 161

it contains 4 lattices with minimum 6. Two of these are strongly modular, with
orthogonal groups of order 2432, respectively 25 32 ; the other two are modular,
but not strongly modular. (The latter lattices have larger groups, of orders 2433
and 213 32 ).
Description of the lattices in other dimensions.

I£ = 11 An extremal unimodular lattice in dimension 56 has been obtained by

combining a construction of Ozeki with the existence of a ternary [56,28, 15]-
code; see [36], Example 5. The "Quebbemann-Craig-Iattice" B~!~l' self-dual over
Z( "'-29), is another (not necessarily non-isometric) example; see [6].
In dimension 64, one has the well known lattice Q64 of Quebbemann; see [44]
or [12], Chapter 8.3.

I£ = 21 Already for n = 36, one may suspect that a large portion of this huge
genus of lattices consists of extremal ones. However, no attempt to prove a result
like this is known. A systematic construction of three such lattices B~:;:~, m =
3,4,5 is contained in [6] ("Quebbemann-Craig-Iattices"). They are self-dual over
Z[Al and admit an automorphism of order 19. Since the number 82080 of
minimal vectors in these lattices is sufficiently small and since one automorphism
of large order 19 is already known, the computer program of [41] allows to
calculate the orthogonal groups. The three groups are of different orders 24 .
32 . 5 . 19, 22 .32 • 19, 26 .3 3 ·5· 19 in particular, the lattices are pairwise non-
isometric. Another construction [2] which is partly systematic (a quaternionic
code construction) and partly ad-hoc (a 2-step neighboring) also gives a lattice
with the desired properties; it is very unlikely, but not completely impossible
that this lattice should be isometric to one of the B~:;'~.
In dimensions 40 and 44, an example again based on quaternions and codes
is given in [2]; nothing else is known.

1£ = 31 In dimensions 26, 28 and 32, such lattices have been obtained first in [2],
using codes. This method failed in dimensions 30 and 34. In these dimensions,
A. Schiemann has constructed extremal 3-modular lattices as a self-dual her-
mitian lattices, using a sophisticated computer search. (The same method was
succesfully applied also for the dimensions 26, 28 and 32.)

1£= 61 Using the same tools as in the case £ = 3, A. Schiemann has found a
lO-dimensional self-dual hermitian lattice over Zh,.C6). Its transfer to Z turned
out to be strongly modular.

1£ = 71 For n = 14, the existence is open. In [56], A. Schiemann shows that such
a lattice cannot have a self-dual hermitian structure over Z [Hp]. For n = 16,
it is readily checked that the well-known unique 8-dimensional self-dual Z[v'2]-
lattice with mm1mum 4 (see [16]) gives rise to a 7-elementary
lattice of minimum 6 by twisted transfer tr (1!Vif .-).(Notice that
162 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

tr (l!~(u + vV2)) = 2u+v and use some easy estimates.) A numerical verifi-
cation using Gram matrices proves strong modularity. Schiemann's work reveals
the surprising fact that also in this dimension, no appropriate Z [1+0]
-lattice
exists.
1£ = 111 These 10-dimensionallattices have been obtained by computer classifi-
cation of the whole genus in [52].

3.4 Extremal Lattices with Minimum 8

The genera (possibly) containing extremal lattices of minimum 8 all have so large
class numbers that a full classification is out of reach (and would probably be not
very interesting). The only exception to this statement is the case (n, £) = (6,23),
where however extremal lattices do not exist. Also, a full classification or even
just a good estimation of the number of extremal lattices (if they exist) seems
to be intractable. Therefore, we limit ourselves in the following table to indicate
what is known about the existence of extremal lattices. "yes" means that there
exists at least one extremal lattice; in all these cases, one might suspect that there
exist in fact many, but so far nobody seems to have worked on the problem of
producing as many as possible non-isomorphic ones. "no" means that it is proved
that extremal lattices do not exist; at present, there are only two such cases. The
cases £ = 1,3,7 in dimensions 72,36,18, respectively, are the most fascinating
ones, since here extremal lattices would be more dense than all known lattices in
these dimensions. We suspect that they do not exist. C. Bachoc and B. Venkov
have announced a proof of this fact for £ = 7. Based on numerical experience,
we also conjecture that an extremal 11-modular extremal lattice in dimension
14 does not exist.

£ 1 2 3
n 72 80 88 48 52 56 60 36 38 40 42 44 46
? yes yes ? yes

£ 5 6 7 11 14 15 23
n 2428 2428 18 2022 12 14 12 12 6
yes yes ? yes no yes yes no

Table 3.6: Existence of extremal lattices with minimum 8

The non-existence for £ = 23 is trivial, since the corresponding extremal

modular form (of weight 3 and non-trivial character) reads

1 + 66q4 + 24q5 - 22q6 + ...

and thus cannot be a theta series.
The non-existence result for (n, £) = (12,11) has been proved by Nebe and
Venkov and is of a more sophisticated nature. In this case, the extremal modular
 Extremal Lattices 163

form has non-negative coefficients "as far as one can see" . It is however possible
to derive from the assumed knowledge of this theta series sufficiently many
restrictions on the second degree theta series of the lattice in question to succeed
in showing that the corresponding space of Siegel modular forms does not contain
such a series with non-negative coefficients.
Ie = 11 In dimension 80, it is not possible any more to verify by computer the
minimum of an arbitrary lattice (given by a gram matrix, say). Therefore, we
have to distinguish between the construction of an appropriate lattice and the
verification of its minimum. A plausible candidate of an extremal unimodular
lattice in dimension 80 has been given in [57], essentially going back to [42], using
an automorphism of order 79. Two candidates with automorphisms of order 41,
and a unimodular hermitian structure over Z(V-41) have been constructed in
(6). The first construction, using codes, where the minimum could actually be
verified was given by C. Bachoc; see [3]. The method is explained in (2). In this
case, it gives rise to two non-isometric lattices. A different construction relates
one of these to the well-known 20-dimensional extremal 7-modular lattice; see
below.
Ie = 21 A 48-dimensional 2-modular lattice with minimum 8 has been con-
structed by Bachoc in [2], Theorem 6.7. Quebbemann has observed that such
a lattice can be easily obtained by the so-called 'I}-construction from the Leech
lattice with its structure over the Hurwitz order. See the end of [2] for details.
Ie = 31 In [3] an extremal40-dimensional 3-modular lattice is constructed as the
tensor product over Z[a], a = (1 + ..;=7)/2 of the lO-dimensional Z[a]-lattice
mentioned below in the case e = 7, with a maximal order in the quaternion
algebra IQb,oo ramified at the places 3 and 00. A code construction for the same
lattice is also given.
Ie = 51 There is a well known, in fact unique, 12-dimensional even unimodular
lattice with minimum 4 over Z [¥]; see (13). By ordinary transfer, this gives
a 24-dimensional 5-modular lattice with minimum 8.
Ie= 61 Two lattices with minimum 8 in the appropriate 24-dimensional genus
are exhibited in (29) (numbers 16 and 17). In [30] it is shown that they are
strongly modular. Schiemann found a strongly modular lattice with minimum 8
in dimension 28 using hermitian lattices.
Ie = 71 A 10-dimensional self-dual hermitian Z[a)-lattice, a = (1 + ..;=7)/2,
giving rise to a 20-dimensional 7-modular Z-lattice with minimum 8 and auto-
morphism group 2.M22.2 has already been described in the Atlas [11].
Ie =141 A 12-dimensionallattice of determinant 26 76 and minimum 8, invariant
under the group L2(7) x Ds is exhibited in Sect. VII, p. 36 of [40]. Strong
modularity can be verified using the Gram matrix given on p. 64 of [40).
Ie = 151 From the theory of complex reflection groups (9), p. 408, the follow-
ing unimodular hermitian lattice over Z[w, c5], w = -1+/'=3, c5 = ¥with
164 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

minimum 2 is known:

J 3 (5) ~ (
2
-WC5
-WC5
2 -1
-1)
-1 -1 2

Ordinary transfer gives a 12-dimensionalI5-elementary Z-lattice which is clearly

strongly modular (use A and vis) and has minimum 8. This lattice is isometric
to the one presented in Sect. VII, p. 36 of [40]. One further lattice of minimum
8, which also turned out to be strongly modular, was found by computer search.

4 Further Genera Containing Extremal Lattices

In this section we give numerical results on those strongly modular genera of

lattices of square free level £ ~ 21 which are not covered by Sect. 3. These
are the levels 10, 13, 17 and 21 and part of the genera of levels 6, 14 and 15.
For small enough dimensions it is shown by explicit consideration of the Atkin-
Lehner action on modular forms that extremality is definable. Various extremal
modular forms are calculated, and results on the existence of extremal lattices
similar in spirit to those of Sect. 3 are given. It turns out that a certain lattice
of dimension 16, level 21 and minimum 12 occurring in the work of Nebe and
Plesken [32] is extremal.

1£ = 61 After Sect. 3, only the genera ][2k (28k3-k) with k == 0(4) remain to be
considered. So the character values are X = (--), and the dimension formula
1.4 gives
dimSk(6,--) = ~-l.
4

Dimension 8. Since dimS4(6,--) = 0, extremality is definable and strongly

modular lattices of minimum 2 in ][8(2 843- 4 ) are already extremal. There is
exactly one such lattice (the class number of the whole genus is 5).
Dimension 16. The essentially unique non-zero cusp form in the one-dimensional
space S8(6, --) has non-zero first coefficient. Therefore extremality is definable,
the extremal modular form is

F8 ,6,-- = [1,0,42,832,5754, ... ] ,

(writing the coefficients of 1, q, q2, . .. as a row vector). No lattice with this theta
series could be found.
1£ = 10 In each dimension 2k with even k, there exist two genera ][2k (2ik 5±k)
I
of totally even 10-elementary lattices of determinant 10 k • The signs of the genus
symbol coincide with the character values. Recall the dimension formula Propo-
sition 1.5 for Sk (10, X).
 Extremal Lattices 165

Dimension 4. Both genera have class number 1, there are no non-zero cusp
forms. The respective unique lattice is necessarily strongly-modular and ex-
tremal.
Dimension 8. The genus ][s(2j5 4) has class number 24, the genus ][S(2;45- 4)
has class number 19, and 8, respectively 3 of the lattices are strongly modular.
In both cases, the space of cusp forms is one-dimensional, so strongly modular
lattices of minimum 4 are extremal. There are 3, respectively 1 such lattices.
Their theta series are [1,0,24,48,216,288,672, ... ], respectively
[1,0,10,120,110,320,520, ... J.
Dimension 12. Both genera are too large to be classified completely.
In the case of ][12(2~5-6), the space of cusp forms is two dimensional, ex-
tremality is definable, and therefore strongly modular lattices of minimum 6
would be extremal. No such lattice is known. Extensive computer search has
produced only two lattices with minimum 6. They are 10-modular and trans-
formed into each other by D2 (or D5). For ][12(28656), the space of cusp forms
is one-dimensional, extremality is definable, and extremal lattices (of minimum
4) exist. In fact, there is an abundance of minimum 4 lattices in this genus, with
various different theta series, therefore it was helpful for the search to calculate
first the extremal modular form
F 6 ,10,-+ = [1,0, 12, 136,444,1872, ... ].
Dimension 16. For the genus ][16 (2~5S), the space of cusp forms is 3-dimensional.
This means that the minimum 8 lattice in this genus given in [32] (see [30] for
strong modularity) is actually extremal. Two further such lattices (with smaller
groups of orders 210 • 3 and 29 • 32 ) have been found by computer search.
In the case of ][16(2;85- S), the space of cusp forms is two dimensional. The
extremal modular form is
F S,1O,-- = [1,0,0,100,770,3968, ... J ,
no lattice with this theta series has been found.
1f = 131 Even 13-elementary lattices of dimension n = 2k and determinant 13 k
exist only in dimensions divisible by 4, and the relevant modular forms belong
to the trivial character. The dimension formula Proposition 1.4 applies.
Dimension 4. We consider the genus ][4(13- 2 ), with character value 0 = -.
The dimension formula Proposition 1.4 gives dim M 2 (13, -) = 0, i.e. there are
no non-zero cusp forms. Thus extremality is definable, and extremal lattices have
minimum 2. The class number of the genus is 1, the unique lattice is of course
modular and has minimum 2.
Dimension 8. We have to consider modular forms of weight 4 and trivial
character X = Xo· The dimension of this space is known from Proposition 1.4:
dim M4 (13, +) = 3. The genus theta series (see [24]) reads

8 4 ,13,+ = 170 q + 169E4 (q13)) = 1 + 24

1 (E4 () 17 (q + 9q 2 + 28q 3 + 73q 4 + ... ).
166 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

A basis of the space of cusp forms is given by the following two newforms:

C1 = [0,1,0,4, -4, ... ]

C2 = [0,0,1,-3,1, ... ]
Clearly, extremality is definable, and extremal lattices are the modular lattices
with minimum 6. The extremal modular form is
24 24·9
F4 ,13,+ = e4 ,13,+ - 17C1 - 17""C2 = [1,0,0,72,96, ... ].
Complete enumeration of the genus ][8(13+4), with class number 37, shows that
there is exactly one lattice with minimum 6. This lattice is modular, and thus
modular extremal.
Ie = 141 The genera ][2k (2~ 7k ) with even k have already been treated in Sect.
3 (existence of strongly modular extremal lattices is known for dimensions 4, 8
and 12). In the cases ][2k(2ik7-k), nothing is to be done since strongly modular
lattices do not exist, according to the result of Rains and Sloane mentioned in
Remark 3 of Sect. 2.
Ie = 151 The genera ][2k(3 ek 5ek ) with even k and c: = (_1)k/2 have already been
treated in Sect. 3. For the genera with E: = - (-1 )k/2, we have the following
partial, less interesting results.
Dimension 4. For ][4(32 52 ), with character values X = (-+), the space of cusp
forms is trivial, the class number is 2, no strongly modular lattice exists.
Dimension 8. This case has been treated in the example after Definition 1.7.
Dimension 12. For ][12(36 56 ), with character values X = (-+), the space of
cusp forms is 2-dimensional, extremality is definable. The extremal modular form
is
F6 ,15,++ = [1,0,132,156,552,1056, ... ].
Eight lattices with this theta series have been found, six of them are modular,
none is strongly modular.
Ie = 171 Like in the case e = 13, lattices of the type considered exist only in
dimensions divisible by 4, and the relevant modular forms belong to the trivial
character. The dimension formula Proposition 1.4 applies.
Dimension 4. The corresponding space of modular forms has dimension
dim M2(17, +) = 2. A cusp form has a non-zero first coefficient. Thus extremal-
ity is definable, and extremal lattices have minimum 4. The class number of
][4(17+ 2 ) is 3, there is a unique lattice with minimum 4 which is modular and
thus modular extremal.
Dimension 8. The dimension formula gives dimM4(17,+) = 4. The genus
theta series reads
24
e4 ,17,+ = 1 + 29[0,1,9,8,73,126,252, ... ]
 Extremal Lattices 167

As a basis of the cusp forms, one can take

C1 = [0,1,-10,12,38,-2,84, ... ]
C2 = [0,0, -2, 1, 10, -2, -20, ... ]
C3 = [0,0,0,-1,-3,0,6, ... ].

Because of the triangular form of this "matrix", extremality is definable. The

coefficient of q6 of the extremal modular form F4 ,17,+ is calculated as -48, thus
extremal lattices cannot exist.
Ie = 191 The genus ff 2k (19(-1)kk) exists and is modular for all even dimen-
sions 2k (this of course holds for any prime e == 3 mod 4). We have checked
that extremality is definable for k = 1, ... ,5, and calculated the dimension
dim Sk(19, (_I)k) = 0,1,2,3,3 respectively (for even k, see Proposition 1.4).
Complete enumeration of the genus is possible for k ::; 4, with class numbers
1,3, 11, 181. It turns out that in each case, there is a unique lattice with minimum
2,4,6,8 respectively. This lattice is modular and thus extremal. In dimension 10,
we were unable to find a lattice of minimum 8.
Ie = 211 For each dimension 2k with even k there are two appropriate genera of
lattices ff2k(3ek7t5k). For k == 2 mod 4, the character values are opposite to the
signs of the genus symbol: X(W3 ) = -c, X(W7 ) = -8. The dimension formula
Proposition 1.5 applies; for the values k = 2,4,6, 8, we have checked that ex-
tremality is definable. In the following, we write d)( instead of dimSk(21,X) for
short.
Dimension 4. For the genus ff 4(3- 272), we have d x = 0, so extremality is
trivially definable. However, no strongly modular lattice exists. (By the way,
the class number is 2, and one of the two lattices has minimum 4.) In the case
of .114(32 7- 2 ), we have d x = 1, the class number is 3, all lattices are strongly
modular, one of them has minimum 4 and is thus extremal.
Dimension 8. The class number of ffs(3 4 74 ) is 305, and 45 lattices are strongly
modular. The dimension dx = 2, so the strongly modular lattices of minimum 6
are extremal; there are 6 such lattices. This genus by the way contains one lattice
of minimum 8, which is necessarily not strongly modular. The class number of
ff s (3- 4 7- 4 ) is 245, exactly one of these lattices is strongly modular. This lattice
has minimum 4. On the other hand, the dimension formula gives dx = 2 again,
so extremal lattices would have minimum 6, and no extremal lattice exists. (The
genus contains 14 lattices of minimum 6 and no lattice with larger minimum.)
Dimension 12. Evaluation of the dimension formula shows that extremal-
ity would require minimum 8 for the genus ff 12 (3- 6 76 ) and minimum 10 for
ff 12 (3 6 7- 6 ). The extremal modular forms are

F6 ,21,-+ = [1,0,0,0,64,194,474,864, ... J.

F 6 ,21,+- = [1,0,0,0,0,378,504,756, ... ].
168 R. Scharlau, R. Schulze-Pillot

In the first case many lattices with minimum 8 are known, but no one with the
desired theta series. In the second case, the largest known minimum in the genus
is 8, and not 10.
Dimension 16. For the plus-genus, one has dx =
5, and there exists indeed a
strongly modular lattice of minimum 12 in this genus, by [32]. No other lattice of
minimum 12 has been found in this genus. For the minus-genus, the dimension
=
is d x 4, but no lattice of minimum 10 could be found.

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1995.
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matik, RWTH Aachen 1997. Version 3, Release 4.4.
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 On the Real Nullstellensatz

Eberhard Becker and Joachim Schmid

Universitat Dortmund, Fachbereich Mathematik, 44221 Dortmund, GERMANY

Abstract. This article is a survey on the Real Nullstellensatz and re-

lated topics. Special emphasis is put on computational aspects.

1 Introduction

This paper contains a survey on topics around the Real Nullstellensatz, the real
algebraic geometry counterpart of the classical Nullstellensatz of Hilbert. Section
2 presents the Real Nullstellensatz in the broader setting of more general Real
Stellensiitze. In the sequel we concentrate on the Real Nullstellensatz where
the issues addressed here are much better understood. In section 3 we deal
with complexity issues; section 4 is meant as a survey of algorithms for the real
radical of an ideal with special emphasis on the class of binomial ideals. In the
last section we give an introduction to the problem of fields of definition for the
real radical.

2 Real Stellensatze

In real algebraic geometry and semialgebraic geometry one is concerned with

the real solutions of systems of polynomial equalities and inequalities over JR, or
more generally, over a real closed field R. If Ie R[X1, ... , Xn] is an ideal, the
set of real zeroes of I is

VR(I) = { x E R n I f(x) = 0 for all f E I}.

One of the first problems arising in real algebraic geometry is to characterize
those polynomials f E R[X1"'" Xn] which vanish on VR(I). An answer gives
the so-called "Real Nullstellensatz" which was proven independently by Krivine
[14], Dubois [6] and Risler [19]:

Theorem 1 (Real Nullstellensatz). Let J,h, ... ,Jr E R[X1",.,Xn]. Then J

vanishes on the setVR(h, ... ,Jr) iff there is a polynomial identity o/the/orm
r
J2t + L9; = Lq;!i
;=1 ;=1

for certain s, t E IN,91,'" ,9.,Q1,··· ,qr E R[Xl, ... ,Xn].

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
174 E. Becker, J. Schmid

In 1927, Artin [1] solved Hilbert's 17th problem in the affirmative, i.e. he
proved that a positive semidefinite polynomial I E JR[X1 , ... , Xn] is always a
sum of squares in the field JR(X1 , •.. ,Xn ) of rational functions. Generalizations
of this result are Stengle's Positivstellensiitze (cr. [24]). In order to state the
following result properly we have to introduce some notation. If h,· .. , Ir E
R[X1 , ••• , Xn] where R is again an arbitrary real closed field we let

S(h, ... '/r) = { x E R n I h(x) ;:: 0, ... ,Ir(x) ;:: o}.

By T(h, ... , Ir) we denote the set of all finite sums of elements of the form
l;n' where ml, ... ,mr are natural numbers and q is a sum of squares of
q . rr~=l
polynomials. With these notations we have:

Theorem 2 (Positivstellensatz, Stengle 1977). Let I, h,···, Ir E R[X1 , ••• , Xn].

Then I is strictly positive on S(h,···, Ir) iff there is a polynomial identity 01
the form
tl = 1 + t'
for certain t, t' E T(h, .. ·, Ir).
An easy application of the inequality for the arithmetic and geometric mean
shows that the polynomial

is strictly positive on JR 2 . By the Positivstellensatz there are t, t' E JR[X, Y]

which are sums of squares in JR[X, Y] such that tl = 1 + t'. Indeed

is such a representation. However, I is not a sum of squares of polynomials.

The occurrence of the denominator t therefore cannot be avoided in general.
However, under a further assumption on the set S(h, ... '/r) Schmiidgen [23]
proved the following result:

Theorem 3 (Schmiidgen, 1991). Let f, h, .. ·, Ir E JR[X1 , ... , Xn] and assume

that the set S(h, ... , fr) is compact. If f is positive on S(h, ... , ir) then i E
T(h,· .. ,ir)'

Schmiidgen proved his theorem by means from functional analysis. A purely

algebraic proof of Schmiidgen's theorem was given by Wormann (26). He proved
even more (cr. [27]):

Theorem 4 (Wormann, 1996). Let i, h, . .. ,ir E JR[X1 , .•• , Xn) and assume
that the set S(h, ... , ir) is compact. If i is positive on S(h, ... , ir) then i E
T 2 k(h, ... , fr) for every odd natural number k. Here T 2 k(h, ... , ir) is the set
of all finite sums of elements of the iorm q . rr;=l iim, where ml,"" mr are
natural numbers and q is a sum of 2k-th powers of polynomials.
 On the Real Nullstellensatz 175

In Schmiidgen's theorem the restriction to the field IR of real numbers is crucial.

If d E IR>o the polynomial 1 + d - X2 is positive on the intervall [-1, 1] =
S«1 - X 2)3). By Schmiidgen's theorem there are polynomials P, Q E IR[X]
which are sums of squares of polynomials such that
1 + d - X2 = P(X) . (1 - X2)3 + Q(X).
However, Stengle [25] recently proved that for such a representation necessarily
C
degP> IJ'
-yd
where C is a constant independent of d. An easy application of the model com-
pleteness of the theory of real closed fields then yields that if R is real closed
and w is a positive infinitesimal element of R then the polynomial 1 + w - X 2
does not admit a representation of the form

where P, Q are sums of squares in R[X], although 1 + w - X2 is positive on

[-1,1].

3 Complexity Issues
Complexity issues concerning polynomial ideals were first considered by Her-
mann [11] in 1926. If f, ft, ... , fr E K[X 1 , .•• , Xn] is a system of polynomials
over an arbitrary field K such that f vanishes in all common zeroes of the
polynomials ft, . .. , fr then, by Hilbert's Nullstellensatz, there are t E IN and
ql,"" qr E K[X 1, ... ,Xn] such that
r
ft = Lqik
i=1

Unfortunately the proof of Hilbert's Nullstellensatz gives no further informa-

tion about the polynomials ql, ... , qr and their degrees. Using elimination the-
ory Hermann proved that the exponent t and the degrees of the polynomials
ql, ... ,qr can be bounded by a double exponential function in n and the degrees
of f, ft, ... , fro Several authors tried to improve her bounds but until 1987 only
little progress was made. Then with the use of analytic tools Brownawell [4] gave
the first single exponential bound in the case K = <C. Actually he proved:
Theorem 5 (Brownawell, 1987). Let I, It, .. . , Ir E <C[Xl, ... ,Xnl and assume
that I vanishes on VIV (ft, ... ,1r). Let d = max(deg I, deg ft, ... , deg Ir). Then
there are t E IN and ql, ... ,qr E <C[X1, .•. ,Xnl such that
r
It = Lq;/i
i=1

and
176 E. Becker, J. Schmid

(i) t ~ (n + 1)(n + 2)(d + 1)n+1

(ii) deg(qili) ~ (n + 1)(n + 2)(d + 1)n+2

Brownawell's bounds are quite sharp as the following example shows. Let

1= (xt - X2'X~ - X 3 , ••• ,X~_} - Xn,X~) C C[X}, ... ,Xn).

It is easy to see that (0, ... ,0) is the only zero of the ideal I. Hence X} vanishes
on V®(I) and thus
n-}

xf = L qi . (xt - Xi+}) + qn . X~
i=}

for certain t E IN,q}, ... ,qn E C[X}, ... ,Xn). Now the substitution Xi t-+
X di - 1 (1 ~ i ~ n) yields

Comparing the degrees we immediately obtain t ;::: dn .

In 1988 Kollar [13) in fact proved that d" is also an upper bound for the
exponent t.

Theorem 6 (Kollar, 1988). Let K be an arbitrary field, K its algebraic clo-

sure, and let f,ft, ... ,fr E K[X}, ... ,Xn). Assume that f vanishes on the set
V K(ft, ... ,ir) and let d ;::: 3 be an upper bound lor degfi (1 ~ i ~ r). Then
there are t E IN and q}, ... ,qr E K[X}, . .. ,Xn) such that
r

It = Lqdi
i=}

and
(i) t~dn,

(ii) deg(qiM ~ d". (1 + degf).

In the case of the Real Nullstellensatz only little is known. Lombardi [16)
proved that if VR (ft, ... , I r) = 0 and deg Ii ~ d then there is an equation
t r
(1) 1+ Lh; = Lqdi
i=} i=}

for certain t E IN, h}, ... , ht, qi, ... , qr E R[X} , ... , Xn) such that t and the
degrees of the polynomials hi, qi can be bounded by
 On the Real Nullstellensatz 177

where P is a polynomial and the tower has length n + 4. Recently Lombardi

and Roy announced that they are able to reduce the length of this tower to 5,
independent of n. However, at this moment their result is not published.
One of the main problems seems to find the relevant parameters which the
degrees really depend on. A possible parameter is the dimension of the ideal
(h, ... , ir)' The second author has shown that in the case that dim (h, ... , ir) =
o one can obtain deg(qdi) :::; dn(dn + 1) in equation (1) and that there is a worst
case lower bound of the form O(dn- 1 ) (cf. [22]). A forthcoming paper of the
second author will be concerned with degree bounds in terms of the dimension
of the ideal.

4 Real Radical Computation

If A is a commutative ring and I C A an ideal of A the real radical of I is the
set

"Y'I = { a E A I a2t + s E I for certain t E IN, sEE A 2 },

where E A2 denotes the set of sums of squares of A. Elementary algebra shows

that "ifi is again an ideal of A. The usual radical of an ideal I of A is the
intersection of all prime ideals containing I; similarly the real radical of I is the
intersection of all real prime ideals of A containing I. An ideal I C A is called
real if for all a1, ... , an E A
n
La; E I =::} al, ... , an E I.
;=1

With the notion of the real radical the Real Nullstellensatz can be restated as

for every ideal I C R[X1, ... , Xn], IR denoting the vanishing ideal in the ring
R[X1, ... ,Xn].
In the recent years, several authors presented algorithms to compute the
usual radical of a polynomial ideal and certain algorithms are implemented. But
so far there is no working implementation of any algorithm for the computation
of the real radical of a general polynomial ideal.
The first algorithm for the computation of the real radical of a polynomial
ideal was presented by Becker and Neuhaus [3] in 1993. Their algorithm is of
double exponential complexity (cf. [17]). The basic idea of this algorithm is to
use the method of localizing, introduced by Gianni, Trager and Zacharias in [10].
This method reduces the general situation of an ideal I C R[X1"'" Xn] to the
univariate case over a field of rational functions R(X1, .. . , Xd), d being the di-
mension of I. This case can be handled by factorization and a positivity test. As
was shown in [17] factorization is really needed in an algorithm for the compu-
tation of the real radical. From the point of view of a practical implementation,
178 E. Becker, J. Schmid

the positivity test is the real obstacle in the algorithm of Becker/Neuhaus. Of

course, from the theoretical point of view, one can use quantifier elimination to
solve that problem, but at this moment there is no practically working algorithm
to decide positivity of polynomials in a wide scale.
An interesting approach is due to Traverso [5). Let I C JR[X1 , ... ,Xn ) be an
ideal. The computation of rV'J works by induction on dim I. First we compute
the minimal prime ideals PI, ... , Pm of I. Since r@ = rV'J we get

rV'J = n rifF;.
m

i=1

If VJR(Pi) contains a smooth point, then VJR(Pd is Zariski-dense in V<D(Pi) and

thus
rifF; = IJR VJR(Pi) = IJRV<D(Pi ) =.JP:
= P;.
However, if VJR(Pd does not contain any smooth point then VR(Pd lies in the
singular locus ofV<D(Pd which has smaller dimension. Hence ry'P; can be com-
puted by induction on the dimension.
In [21), Sander's analysis of that idea led him to study the class of fields K
which have the property that whenever P is a prime ideal of K[X 1 , • •• , Xnl and
VK(P) contains a smooth point then the set VK(P) is Zariski-dense in Vk(P).
Sander proved that for a field K, belonging to that class, the K-radical

of an ideal I C K[X 1 , ••• ,Xn ) can be computed provided that K allows polyno-
mial factorization and the existential theory Th3(K) is decidable (cf. [21)).
Further algorithms for the computation of the real radical of a polynomial
ideal were presented by Galligo/Vorobjov (1995)[9) and Roy /Vorobjov (1996)
[20). Both algorithms were based on the idea to compute an ideal J such that
V(J) equals the Zariski closure of VR(I) in V R(I) for the given ideal I. Then,
by Hilbert's Nullstellensatz and the real Nullstellensatz

and thus the computation of the real radical of I is reduced to the computation of
a usual radical. As the authors pointed out this reduction is of single exponential
complexity and thus the complexity for the computation of the real radical of
an ideal coincides with the complexity for the computation of the usual radical.
We now turn to a special class of ideals of great interset where much more can
be done. Polynomial ideals allowing a set of generators consisting of binomials
are called binomial ideals. They form a distinguished class of ideals, both from
a theoretical and algorithmical point of view. In the introduction of their paper
[7) Eisenbud and Sturmfels present a very interesting survey of the ubiquity
of binomial ideals. Their results suggested to study radicals of binomial ideals
in a quite general context. This was done by Becker, Grobe and Niermann in
 On the Real Nullstellensatz 179

[2]. The authors designed algorithms for the computation of various radicals
of binomial ideals which benefit from the special structure of these ideals. The
essential idea the authors follow is the suggestion from [7] to decompose the
affine variety of the binomial ideal 1 C K[X 1 , ... , Xn] into cells and to study
the cells via Laurent polynomial rings K[Xll, ... ,X;1,X1, ... ,Xr],O::; r::; n.
Given a subset ..1 C {I, ... , n} the ..1-cell of V(I) is

u
Clearly
V(/) =
.:lC{l, ... ,n}
Let now 1 be a binomial ideal generated by a set of binomials {b 1 , ... , b.} and
fix some set ..1 C {I, ... , n}. Let 11"4 : K[Xb"" Xn] -t K[Xili E ..1) be the
K -algebra homomorphism defined by
Xi '""""* Xi if i E ..1
X i '""""* 0 if i 1. ..1'
11
Set 1.1 = 11".1(/) and = I.:lK[Xi,Xi-lli E ..1] the extended ideal in the Laurent
polynomial ring. Further write
A.:l := K[Xi,Xi-lli E ..1]//1.
Then, in a canonical way,
v.:l(/) ~ HomK(A.:l,K)
and hence V.:l(I) depends on the structure of the ideal 11
C K[Xi,X;-lli ELl].
This leads to the study of binomial ideals in Laurent polynomial rings. Such
a binomial ideal 1 C K[Xi,Xi- l ll ::; i ::; n] is fully described by a sublattice
L C LZ n and a character
p:L -+Kx.
This correspondence reduces ideal theoretical operations to matrix operations.
With these methods one can prove:
Theorem 7 ([2], [7]). The real radical of a binomial ideal 1 C 1R.[X1 , ... ,Xnl is
again binomial.
Furthermore, in [2J an algorithm is presented to compute the real radical of
a binomial ideal which computes the real radicals of the 2n ideals 11
and their
intersection. In a first attempt, this latter procedure either needs Grobner ba-
sis computations of non-binomial ideals, requiring the complicated arithmetic of
real algebraic numbers, or a noetherian induction. In [18J this basic algorithm
has been improved by reducing the number of intersections and removing this
induction. Furthermore the arithmetic of coefficients has been reduced to prod-
ucts of pure roots of the input data, and criteria for the a-priori-detection of
trivial or empty cells have greatly improved the practical performance.
180 E. Becker, J. Schmid

5 Fields of Definition

In contrast to the computation of the usual radical, a new intrinsic problem

occurs in the computation of the real radical of an ideal. Suppose that K is a
perfect field and let I C K[XlJ .. . , Xn] be an ideal. H we want to compute the
radical ofthe extension ideal IL[Xl , ... , Xn] for some extension field L it suffices
to compute the radical of the ideal I. It is a well-known (but non-trivial) fact
that a system of generators forVI also generates the radical of IL[Xl , ... ,Xn],
i.e. VIL[Xl'''. ,Xn] = VIL[XlJ ... ,Xn]. Therefore, in order to compute the
radical of a polynomial ideal computations in the field of definition of the ideal
are sufficient.
Unfortunately, as the following easy example shows, this does not hold in the
case of the real radical. Let I(X) = X3 - 2 ~CQ[X]. I is irreducible in CQ[X]
and CQ[Xl/(J) = CQ( {12) is a real field. Thus •• ICQ[X] = ICQ[X]. However, the
polynomial I has exactly one root in ffi., namely {12. Thus ·v'Iffi.[X] = (X -{12).
Although the coefficients of I are rational numbers, ·v'Iffi.[X] has no generator
inside CQ[X]. In order to compute the real radical of an ideal it is necessary to
perform computations in extension fields of the field of definition for the ideal.
We try to treat this phenomenon in a more general setting.
Suppose that K is a field and let I be an ideal of the polynomial ring
K[XlJ ... , X n]. A subfield F C K is called a field of definition for I if there
is an ideal J C F[Xl, ... , Xn] such that I = JK[XlJ ... , Xn]. Note that in
this case J = In F[Xl, ... , X n]. This is an easy consequence of the fact that
K[Xl' ... ,Xn] is a free F[XlJ . .. ,Xn]-module.

Lemma 1. Let Lj K be a field extension and let Ie K[XlJ .. . ,Xn] be an ideal.

Suppose that F is a subfield of K. Then F is a field of definition of I iff it is a
field of definition for IL[Xl , ... ,Xn ].

Proof. Let X := (Xl, ... ,Xn). H F is a field of definition for I L[X] then I L[X] =
JL[X] for some ideal J C F[X]. Therefore

1= JL[X] n K[X] = (JK[X])L[X] n K[X] = JK[X].

The other implication is clear. o
Lemma 2. Let K be a per/ect field, k its algebraic closure and assume that I
is a radical ideal of k[Xl , ... ,Xn]. Then the following conditions are equivalent:

(i) K is a field of definition lor I.

(ii) l'r = I for all U E Gal(kjK).
(iii) Vj((I)rr =Vj(I) for all U E Gal(kjK).
Proof. The implications (i) => (ii) and (ii) => (iii) are obvious and (iii) => (ii) is
an easy consequence of Hilbert's Nullstellensatz. It remains to show (ii) => (i).
Let I E I and define J = InK[Xl, ... ,Xn]. Then also J is a radical ideal. The
 On the Real Nullstellensatz 181

set {rl u E Gal(K/K)} is finite and all its elements are contained in I. Denote
these elements by f1, . .. , f m' Then
m m

II(T - /;) = Lgi Ti

i=l i=O

for certain go, ... , 9m-1 E I, 9m = 1. Furthermore gl, ... , gm are fixed under the
action of Gal(K / K) and thus gl,"" gm E In K[Xlo ... , Xn] = J. Therefore
m-1
fm = - L gd i E JK[X1"",Xn]'
i=O

As we already mentioned above, JK[X 1, ... ,Xn ] is a radical ideal since J is

radical. Thus f E JK[X1"",Xn]. This shows I = JK[X 1, ... ,Xn ] and hence
K is a field of definition for I. 0

Lemma 3. Let K be a perfect field, K its algebraic closure and assume that I
is a radical ideal of K[X1, ... , X n ]. Let further U := {u E Gal(K / K) I I" = I }
and denote the fixed field of U by F. Then
(i) U is a closed subgroup of finite index of Gal(K / K),
(ii) F is the smallest field of definition for I which contains K.
Proof. Obviously U C Gal(K / F). Now suppose that L is a field of definition for
I such that K C L c K. Then Lemma 1 yields I" = I for all u E Gal (K / L )
and thus Gal(K/L) cUe Gal(K/F). Thus F C L. We can choose a field L
of definition for I such that L / K is finite. Then Gal( K / L) and hence U are of
finite index in Gal(K / K). Consequently U is open w.r.t. the Krull topology on
Gal(K / K). Since U is of finite index it is also closed. Now infinite Galois theory
yields Gal(K / F) = U and thus F is a field of definition for I by Lemma 2. 0
Lemma 4. Let K be a subfield of IR and denote the relative algebraic closure
of Kin IR by R. Let furthermore I be an ideal of K[X 1, ... ,Xn]. Then:
(i) A polynomial f E IR[X 1, ... ,Xn vanishes on VIR(I) iff it vanishes on V R(I)
(ii) 'yfIIR[X1, ... ,Xn ] = re IR[X1, ... ,Xn ]IR[X 1, ... ,Xn ]
(iii) VlR(I) = V R(I) w.r.t. the IR-Zariski topology on IRn.
Prool. By the corollary of Chap. I, §5 in [12] we obtain that R is real closed. Let
f E IR[Xl,,,,,Xn]' If I vanishes on VIR(I) it also vanishes on VR(I) because
V R(I) C VIR(I). Now assume that I vanishes on V R(I). We choose an R-basis
(ai)iEA for IR. Then (ai)iEA is also an R[X1, ... ,Xn]-basis for IR[X 1, ... ,Xn ]
and therefore I admits a representation

for some finite set AI C A and certain J; E R[X1, ... , X n ]. Since f vanishes on
V R(I) all the polynomials J; must also vanish on V R(I). By model completeness
182 E. Becker, J. Schmid

of the theory of real closed fields the polynomials h also vanish on VIR.(I) and
thus also J vanishes on this set of zeroes. This proves (i) and (ii). Finally (iii) is
just a reformulation of (i). 0

Theorem 8. Let K be a subfield of IR and denote the relative algebraic closure

of K in IR by R. Let furthermore I be an ideal of K[Xl. ... , X n ]. Then:

(1) There exists a smallest field of definition for ry'IIR[Xl , ... , Xn]. This field
is a finite algebraic extension of K contained in R.
(2) An intermediate field L of R/ K is a field of definition for ry'IIR[X l , ... , Xn]
iffVR(I) is Gal(K/L)-invariant.

Proof. Let J:= ry'IR[Xl , ... ,Xn]. Then, by Lemma 1 and Lemma4ii) an inter-
mediate field L of the extension R/ K is a field of definition for ry' JIR[X l , ... , Xn]
iff it is a field of definition for JK[Xl'" "Xn' As JK[Xl , ... ,Xn] is a radical
ideal L is a field of definition for re IIR[Xl,,,,,Xn] iff Vf(J) is Gal(K/L)-
invariant by Lemma 2. Since J is a real ideal of R[Xl , . .. , Xn] we get VR(J) =
V f(J). Furthermore VR(I) = VR(J) by the Real Nullstellensatz. This proves
(2). In order to prove (1) let

U := {a E Gal(K / K) I J K[Xl , . .. , Xn] is a - invariant}

and denote its fixed field by L. Obviously Gal(K / R) c U and thus L C R. Then,
by Lemma 3, L is the smallest field of definition for JK Xl"'" Xn], finite over
K and also the smallest field of definition for r. IIR[Xl. ... , Xn]. This proves
the theorem. 0

Corollary 1. Let K be a subfield of IR and suppose that J E K[X] \ {O} is

irreducible. Then K is a field of definition for ry' JIR[X] iff J has only real
zeroes or no real zero at all.

Proof. If J has only real zeroes, then ry' JIR[X] = JIR[X] and hence K is a
field of definition for ry' fIR[X]. Now assume that K is a field of definition for
ry' JIR[X] and let R be the relative algebraic closure of Kin IR. Then VIR.(f) =
V R(f) is Gal(K/K)-invariant. However, V R is a finite set and thus it is Zariski-
closed. Thus the set of real zeroes of J is Gal(K / K)-invariant. If V R(f) = 0 then
ry' JR[X] = (1) and ry' JIR[X] = (1) is defined over K. Assume VR(f) f:. 0. Since
any two zeroes of the irreducible polynomial J are conjugate over K we obtain
that all zeroes are real. 0
Finally we want to give an estimate how big a field of definition for a real
radical of a principal ideal can be. To do this, we first need a lemma.

Lemma 5. Let n, k be natural numbers, 0 :5 k :5 n and assume that n - k is

even. Then there is an irreducible polynomial J E <Q[X] of degree n with Galois
group Sn which has exactly k real roots.
 On the Real Nullstellensatz 183

Proof. Let g(X) = :E~=o aiXi E ~[X] be of degree n with exactly k real roots
but without any multiple root. Since n - k is even such a polynomial exists.
Let aI, ... ,an E <Q be the zeroes of g. To 9 we assign the following symmetric
(n x n)-matrix
Tg = (ti+i-2kj,
where tk = :E~=1 a~. The entries of Tg are symmetric functions in aI, ... , an and
hence they are polynomial expressions in the coefficients of g. Therefore they are
rational numbers and, moreover, they depend continuously on the coefficients of
g. By Pg E ~[X]let us denote the characteristic polynomial of Tg. Since Tg is
symmetric Pg has only real roots. By ([12], Chap. I, §7) Tg is regular, i.e. a = 0
is not a zero of Pg and sign(Tg) = k. Since

sign(Tg) = #{ a E IR I Pg(a) = O,a > O} - #{ a E IR I Pg(a) = O,a < O},

we get by the continuity of roots that there exist open neighbourhoods Uo, ... , Un
of ao, ... , an such that for all bo E Uo, ... , bn E Un the polynomial J = :E~=o biXi
has exactly k real roots. Now let p(To, ... , Tn, X) = :E~=o TiX i E ~(To, ... , Tn)[X].
It is well-known that p is irreducible with Galois group Sn. By Lemma 12.12 [8J
and Corollary 4 Chap. VIII §2 [15] there are (bo, ... ,bn ) E (Uo x ... x Un) n ~n+
such that p(bo, . .. , bn , X) E ~[X] is irreducible with Galois group Sn. This is
the polynomial we wanted to construct. 0

Theorem 9. For every natural number n ~ 1 there is a polynomial J E ~[X]

of degree deg J = n such that the field K of definition for "y' JIR[X] satisfies

2n - 1
[K:~]>-I·
- n+

Proof. If n ::; 3 there is nothing to show. So let n ~ 4. Choose j E {O, ... , n}

such that (i) ~ (7) for 0 ::; i ::; n. Then j =1= 0,1, n. An easy computation shows

n) + (n)
(j-l j+l = (n-l)
j-2 + (n-l)
j-l + (n-l)
i + (n-l)
j+l

Thus there is at least one k E {j - 1, j, j + I} such that n - k is even and

(;) Hi).
~ Then we get

and hence
(n)k -> n+l
2n - 1
.
184 E. Becker, J. Schmid

According to the above lemma we choose an irreducible polynomial J E <Q[X]

of degree n with Galois group Sn which has exactly k real roots. Let L be the
splitting field of J over <Q. Then
n
J(X) = c II(X - Oi)
i=1

for certain c E <Q', 01, ... ,On E L. We may assume that 01, ... ,Ok are the real
roots of J. Let
g(X) = I1~=1 (X - Oi),

h(X) = I1~=k+1 (X - Oi)

Then 9 is the monic generator for ry'JIR[X]. Let g(X) = L:~=o aiXi. Then
K = <Q(ao, ... ,ak)' By F = <Q(01, ... ,Ok) we denote the field which is obtained
by adjoining all real roots of J to <Q. Then F is the splitting field of 9 over K.
Hence
[F: K] ::; k!.
Moreover h E F[X] and thus

[L : F] ::; (n - k)!,

because L is the splitting field of hover F. Galois theory yields

[L : <Q] = #Gal(L/<Q) = #Sn = n!

and hence

n! = [L: <Q] = [L : F]· [F : K]· [K : <Q] ::; (n - k)! . k! . [K : <Q].

This finally yields

2n-1
[K : <Q] ~ (~) ~ n + 1 .
o

References
1. Artin, E.: Uber die Zerlegung definiter Funktionen in Quadrate, Abh. Math. Sem.
Univ. Hamburg 5 (1927), 100-115
2. Becker, E., Grobe, R., Niermann, M.: Radicals of binomial ideals, Journal of Pure
and Applied Algebra 117 & 118 (1997), 41-75
3. Becker, E., Neuhaus, R.: Computation of real radicals of polynomial ideals, in:
Computational Algebraic Geometry, Progress in Math., Vol. 109, Birkhauser 1993,
1-20
4. Brownawell, D.: Bounds for the degrees in the Nullstellensatz, Ann. Math. 126
(1987), 577-592
5. Conti, P., Traverso, C.: Practical computation of the real radical, preprint 1998
 On the Real Nullstellensatz 185

6. Dubois, D.W.: A nullstellensatz for ordered fields, Arkiv for Mat. 8 (1969), 111-
114
7. Eisenbud, D., Sturmfels, B.: Binomial ideals, Duke Math. J. 84 (1996), 1-45
8. Fried, M.D., Jarden, M.: Field Arithmetic, Ergebnisse der Mathematik, Vol. 11,
Springer 1986
9. Galligo, A., Vorobjov, N.: Complexity of finding irreducible components of a semi-
algebraic set, J. Complexity 11 (1995), 174-193
10. Gianni, P., Trager, B. Zacharias, G.: Grobner bases and primary decomposition
of polynomial ideals, in: Computational aspects of commutative algebra, Academic
press, 15-33
11. Hermann, G.: Die Frage der endlich vielen Schritte in der Theorie der Polynom-
ideale, Math. Ann. 95 (1926), 736-788
12. Knebusch, M., Scheiderer, C.: Einfiihrung in die reelle Algebra, Vieweg 1989
13. Kollar, J.: Sharp effective Nullstellensatz, Journal Amer. Math. Soc. 1 (1988),
963 - 975
14. Krivine, J.L.: Anneaux preordonnes, Journal d'analyse mathematique 12 (1964),
307-326
15. Lang, S.: Diophantine Geometry, Interscience, New York 1962
16. Lombardi, H.: Une borne sur les degres pour Ie theoreme des zeros reels effectif,
in: Real Algebraic Geometry, Lecture Notes in Math. 1524, Springer 1992, 323-345
17. Neuhaus, R.: Computation of real radicals of polynomial ideals, Part II, J. Pure
Appl. Algebra, to appear
18. Niermann, M.: Beitrage zur konstruktiven Idealtheorie, Thesis, Dortmund 1998
19. Risler, J.J.: Une caracterisation des varietes algebriques reelles, C.R.A.S. Paris
271 (1970), 1171-1173
20. Roy, M.F., Vorobjov, N.: Computing the complexification of a semialgebraic set,
Proc. of Int. Symposium on Symbolic an Algebraic Computation (1996), 26-34
21. Sander, T.: Effektive algebraische Geometrie iiber nicht algebraisch abgeschlosse-
nen Korpern, Thesis, Dortmund 1996
22. Schmid, J.: On the complexity of the real Nullstellensatz in the O-dimensional
case, to appear in: Journal of pure and applied Algebra
23. Schmiidgen, K.: The K-moment problem for compact semi-algebraic sets, Math.
Ann. 289 (1991), 203-206
24. Stengle, G.: A Nullstellensatz and a Positivstellensatz in Semialgebraic Geometry,
Math. Ann. 207 (1974), 87-97
25. Stengle,G.: Complexity Estimates for the Schmiidgen Positivstellensatz, J. Com-
plexity 12 (1996), 167-174
26. Wormann, T.: Short algebraic proofs of theorems of Schmiidgen and P6lya,
preprint 1996
27. Wiirmann, T.: Strikt positive Polynome in der semialgebraischen Geometrie,
Thesis, Dortmund 1998
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and
Comparisons

Wolfram Decker!, Gert-Martin Greue1 2 , and Gerhard Pfister 2

1 Universitiit des Saarlandes, Fachbereich 9 Mathematik, Postfach 151 150,

D-66041 Saarbriicken
2 Universitiit Kaiserslautern, Fachbereich Mathematik, Erwin-Schriidinger-Strasse,
D-67663 Kaiserslautern

1 Introduction

Primary decomposition of an ideal in a polynomial ring over a field belongs to

the indispensable theoretical tools in commutative algebra and algebraic geom-
etry. Geometrically it corresponds to the decomposition of an affine variety into
irreducible components and is, therefore, also an important geometric concept.
The decomposition of a variety into irreducible components is, however,
slightly weaker than the full primary decomposition, since the irreducible com-
ponents correspond only to the minimal primes of the ideal of the variety, which
is a radical ideal. The embedded components, although invisible in the decom-
position of the variety itself, are, however, responsible for many geometric prop-
erties, in particular, if we deform the variety slightly. Therefore, they cannot be
neglected and the knowledge of the full primary decomposition is important also
in a geometric context.
In contrast to the theoretical importance, one can find in mathematical pa-
pers only very few concrete examples of non-trivial primary decompositions
because carrying out such a decomposition by hand is almost impossible. This
experience corresponds to the fact that providing efficient algorithms for primary
decomposition of an ideal I C K[Xl,.'" xn], K a field, is also a difficult task
and still one of the big challenges for computational algebra and computational
algebraic geometry.
All known algorithms require Grabner bases respectively characteristic sets
and multivariate polynomial factorization over some (algebraic or transcenden-
tal) extension of the given field K. The first practical algorithm for computing
the minimal associated primes is based on characteristic sets and the Ritt-Wu
process ([20], [21], [30], [29]), the first practical and general primary decomposi-
tion algorithm was given by Gianni, Trager and Zacharias [14]. New ideas from
homological algebra were introduced by Eisenbud, Huneke and Vasconcelos in
[8]. Recently, Shimoyama and Yokoyama [25] provided a new algorithm, using
Grabner bases, to obtain the primary decompositon from the given minimal
associated primes.
In the present paper we present all four approaches together with some im-
provements and with detailed comparisons, based upon an analysis of 34 exam-

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
188 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

pIes using the computer algebra system SINGULAR [10]. Since primary decom-
position is a fairly complicated task, it is, therefore, best explained by dividing it
into several subtasks, in particular, while sometimes only one of these subtasks
is needed in practice. The paper is organized in such a way that we consider the
subtasks separately and present the different approaches of the above-mentioned
authors, with several tricks and improvements incorporated. Some of these im-
provements and the combination of certain steps from the different algorithms
are essential for improving the practical performance.
Section 2 contains the algorithms. After explaining some important splitting
tools, we explain two different approaches for computing the radical of I respec-
tively the radical of the equidimensional hull. In Subsection 2.2 we present two
algorithms for computing the equidimensional hull itself and a weak, that is, up
to radical, decomposition of the equidimensional hull.
The algorithms of [14] and [8] both reduce the general problem to pri-
mary decomposition of zero-dimensional ideals. We, therefore, consider the 0-
dimensional case, together with some theoretical background, in Subsection 2.3.
In Subsection 2.4 we describe the three algorithms of [14], [8] and [25] for
the general case, together with an algorithm to compute the minimal associ-
ated primes of I. The algorithm of [8] uses the normalization of K[Xl, . .. ,xn]1I
and we present a new algorithm ([15]), based on a criterion of Grauert and
Remmert, in Subsection 2.5. Another algorithm for computing the minimal as-
sociated primes is based on characteristic sets and this is presented, together
with some basic facts about characteristic sets, in Subsection 2.6.
Section 3 is devoted to the examples and comparisons of the different ap-
proaches. The examples were taken from a still larger list and they demonstrate
our present knowledge about the relative performance. Our table on the last
page shows that a general best strategy does not exist. Generally speaking, the
characteristic set method has problems if the examples require too many fac-
torizations over extension fields, while [14] has problems if the examples require
going to general position by a random coordinate change. So far, we can only
recommend a combination of the different subalgorithms, depending on the ex-
ample. In contrast to the opinion of some authors, our experience is that one
should use factorization as often as possible, since usually the Grobner bases
computations are the hardest part. This is, in particular, true for the algorithm
computing the minimal primes, where we use the factorizing Grobner, but also
there are exceptions. We are aware of the fact that comparison of algorithms
by examples is certainly affected by the choice of the examples and by tricky
implementation features. On the other hand, the present paper appears to be
the first systematic comparison of the four, so far, most important algorithms
under equal conditions.
All algorithms presented in this paper are, or are about to be, implemented in
SINGULAR with options for the user to combine his own favourite subalgorithms
and are available in the library primdec.lib and distributed with the programme
(d. [10]).
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 189

Throughout this paper, we assume that Gri:ibner bases computations and

multivariate polynomial factorization are possible over all fields considered. All
Gri:ibner bases are minimal, if not mentioned otherwise. For some assertions and
algorithms, if char(K) = p, we need to assume p = 0 or p > > O.
Acknowledgement: the authors were supported by the Deutsche Forschungs-
gemeinschaft through projects within the Schwerpunktprogramm.

2 The Algorithms
In this section, K is a field, R = K[X1' ... ,x n ], and I ~ R is an ideal.
Our aim is to explain how to compute several decompositions of I, its radical
VI, and the normalization of the factor ring R/ I. Our main tools are Gri:ibner
bases, but, for a complete primary decomposition, we also need multivariate
polynomial factorization. All algorithms presented in this note are, or are about
to be, implemented in SINGULAR.
If I = .n
<=1
Qi is a minimal primary decomposition (that is, r is minimal)
with associated primes Pi = ..fiJi, then we write Ev(I) := n Qi for
codim(Q;)=v
the equidimensional part of I of codimension v (if codim(Qi) =1= v for all i let
Ev(I) = R).
We are interested in solving the following problems:

1. Compute the equidimensional hull Ec(I), c = codim(I).

2. More generally, compute the equidimensional decomposition of I, that is, for
v ~ c compute Ev(I).
2'. To solve a weaker problem, compute equidimensional ideals Iv such that
v'"l: = VEv(I), v ~ c.
3. Compute Ass(I) = {P1 , ••• , Pr } and minAss(I) = {Pi E Ass(I) I Pi ~ Pj
for i =1= j}.
4. Compute the radical VI = n
i=l
Pi = n P and the equidimensional
PEminAss(I)
radical eqif] = vEc(I), c = codim(I).
5. Compute, for I radical, the normalization of R/ I, that is the integral closure
of R/I in its quotient ring Q(R/I).
6. Compute a minimal primary decomposition of I.

Splitting tools may allow the reduction of a given problem to a problem

involving ideals which are easier to handle.

Lemma 1 (splitting tools).

Let I ~ R be an ideal.

1. If I: f = I : p for some fER, then I = (I : f) n (I, f).

2. Iff·gEI, and(f,g)=R, thenI=(I,f)n(I,g).
3. If f· gEl, then VI = v'fl7) n V(I,g).
4· If rEI, then VI = V(I, f).
190 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

5. If J ~ R is an ideal, then .Jl = vT7 n J I + J = vT7 n J I : (I : J).

Remark 1. Our experience shows that in all algorithms one should use Lemma
1 to split the ideal as often as possible.

Remark 2. Polynomials f as in Lemma 1, 1. can be found via saturation: if

I : hoo = I : hN, then I = (I : hN) n (I, h N ). If hl ' ... ' h. is the square-free part
of h, then we may replace hN by h~l ..... h~', where I : hoo = I : h~l ..... h~' .
In fact, we may compute I: hoo via ideal quotients by successively increasing
the powers of the hi.
This idea applies, in particular, in the following case.

Lemma 2. Let I ~ K[x], x = {Xl,'" ,x n }, be an ideal, and let u ~ X be a

subset of variables. Fix a block-ordering < on K[x] with u < < x '-. u, that is,
with Xa < Xb whenever Xa E u and Xb E x '-. u. Let 8 be a Grabner basis of I with
respect to <. Then 8 is a (not necessarily minimal) Grabner basis of IK(u)[x'-.u]
with respect to the order < restricted to x '-. u. 8et h = lcm{lc(g) I g E 8}, where
lc(g) E K[u] is taken of 9 as a polynomial in K(u)[x '-. u]. Then

1. IK(u)[x '-. u] n K[x] = (I : hOO).

2. Assume that IK(u)[x'-.u] =
Jf=IK'=-=""(u-,.-),....[x-'-.-u~]. Then.Jl = (I: hDO)n..j(fJi).
An important application of extension and contraction as in Lemma 2 reflects
the dimension of I. In fact, the following may be taken as a definition of dim(I):

dim (I) = max{ #u I u ~ x, u is independent mod I}.

Recall that u is independent mod I if In k[u] = {a}. In particular, I is zero-

dimensional if and only if I contains for each i a non-constant polynomial in the
variable Xi. Let

XI := {u ~ x I u is a maximal independent set mod I with #u = dim(I)}.

Then for u E XI the extension IK(u)[x '-. u] is zero-dimensional, and the con-
traction IK(u)[x '-. u] n K[x] is equidimensional of dimension dim(l).
Instead of computing XI it is much easier to compute the (possibly proper)
subset X/ := XL(I), where < is a given admissible term-ordering on K[x], and
L(I) is the corresponding leading or initial ideal of I.

2.1 Radicals

We shall describe two different approaches to the computation of radicals. An-

other approach, which will not be treated here, is due to Becker and Wormann
([4]).
We start with an algorithm, which, in its main part, is due to Krick and
Logar ([16]).
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 191

Proposition 1. Let I ~ K[X1, ... , xn] be a zero-dimensional ideal. For i =

1, ... , n let Fi(Xi) E K[Xi] n I be a polynomial of minimal degree, and let Li(Xi)
be the square free part of Fi . Then../l = 1+ (L 1, ... , Ln).
The general case can be reduced to the zero-dimensional case via Lemma 2.
Algorithm 1.
RADICAL(I)
Input: an ideal I in K[X1' . .. ,xn ]
Output:../l
- choose any admissible term-ordering < on K[X1' ... ,xn];
- use the factorizing Grobner basis algorithm to split Ij
the result m is a set of ideals given by Grobner bases such that
• all elements of the Grobner bases are irreduciblej
• the radical of the intersection of the elements of m is the radical of Ij
- for J Em do
• compute Xf j
• Result := (I), W := Jj
• for u E Xf do
* compute a Grobner basis S of W with respect to a block-ordering
< with u < < x '-. Uj
* using linear algebra and the Grobner basis S, compute for all Xi E X'-.
U a polynomial Fi(Xi) such that (Fi(Xi» = W K(u)[x'-. u]nK(U)[Xi]j
* compute the square free part Li of Fij
* compute a Grobner basis T of WK(u)[x '-. u] + ({Lilxi Ex '-. u})
such that the elements of T are polynomials in K[x]j
* compute the least common multiple h E K[u] of the leading coeffi-
cients of the elements in T as in Lemma 2;
* compute Result := Result n( (T) : hOO) in K[x];
* W:= (W,h);
• (at this point Result equals the equidimensional radical of J if dim W <
dim J; this condition is not necessarily fulfilled since Xf might be a
proper subset of XJ);
• Result := Result n RADICAL(W);
- return Result.
A quite different approach is due to Eisenbud, Huneke, and Vasconcelos ([8]).
We suppose that K is a field of characteristic 0, or of characteristic p > 0, p
sufficiently large.
Let A = K[X1, . .. ,xn]1 I be a K -algebra of finite type. We denote by Ja(A)
the a-th fitting ideal of the module of Kahler differentials fJAIK, and by Ja(I)
the pull-back of Ja(A) in K[xr, ... , xn]. Recall that if I = (/1, ... ,1m), then
Ja(I) = 1+ the ideal generated by the (n - a)-minors of the Jacobian matrix
( ~ ). Note, that the formation of Ja (A) commutes with localization and base
change.
The idea of the algorithm goes back to the following theorem of Scheja and
Storch ([23]).
192 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

Theorem 1. Let A be a local Artinian K -algebra with maximal ideal MA. Then
A is a complete intersection if and only if (0) : Jo(A) = MA.

In our case A = K[Xb"" xnll I; this result can be formulated as follows.

Let I ~ K[Xl, ... , xnl be an (Xl, ... , xn)-primary ideal. Then I is a complete
intersection if and only if I : Jo(1) = (Xl, ... , Xn).
Corollary 1. Let I ~ K[Xl, ... , xnl be a complete intersection of dimension d.
Then .,fi = I : Jd(l).
Corollary 2. Let I ~ K[Xl, ... , xnl be an equidimensional ideal of codimension
c and II, ... ,fe E I a regular sequence. If 10 = (II, ... , fe), then

Remark 3. Write I = II nI2 , where h is the equidimensional part of I intersected

with the embedded components corresponding to the equidimensional part, and
where 12 is the remaining part of higher codimension. Then 12 = I : ..;r;N,
where N has the property that I : ..;r;N = I : ..;r;N+1.
We obtain the following algorithms:
Algorithm 2.
EQUIRADICAL(I)
Input: an ideal I in K[Xl' ... , xnl
Output: the radical of the equidimensional hull of I

- choose any admissible term-ordering < on K[Xl,'" ,xnl;

- compute a Grabner basis of I and c := codim(I);
- choose a regular sequence II, ... , f e in I (try the first c elements of a minimal
set of generators of I; if this does not work, choose c elements as generic linear
combinations of the generators of I with coefficients in K);
- compute the Jacobian ideal Jo := In-e(lO) of 10 := (II,· .. , fe);
- compute VTo = 10: Jo;
- return VTo: (VTo : 1).
Algorithm 3.
RADICAL(I)
Input: an ideal I in K[Xl, ... , xnl
Output: the radical of I

- II := EQUIRADICAL(I);
- compute N such that I : It' = I : If+l;
- return lIn RADICAL(I : It').
The main drawback of Algorithms 2 and 3 is the computation of regular
sequences via random linear combinations. A second approach of Eisenbud,
Huneke, and Vasconcelos ([8]) avoids the computation of regular sequences. This
is based on
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 193

Proposition 2. Let K be a perfect field, and let I 5; K[Xl, . .. ,xnJ be an ideal

of dimension d. If K has characteristic p > 0, suppose that the nil-radical of
K[Xl' . .. ,xnJI I is generated by elements whose index of nil-potency is smaller
than p. If for some a ~ d

dim JaH (1) <d ,

then II := I : J a (1) has the same equidimensional radical as I. If a = d then II is
radical in dimension d, that is, the primary components of II having dimension
d are prime.

The proof of Proposition 2 relies on the following

Theorem 2. Let K be a perfect field, A = K[Xl' .. . , xnJI I and P J I a prime

ideal. Then the following conditions are equivalent:

1. (ilAIK)P is free of rank d;

2. I: Jd-l (1) rt P and Jd(I) rt P;
3. Ap is regular of dimension d.

Algorithm 4.
EQUIRADICAL(1)
Input: an ideal I in K[Xl' ... , xnJ
Output: the radical of the equidimensional hull of I

- choose any admissible term-ordering < on K[Xl' . .. , xnJj

- compute a Grabner basis of I and d := dim(I)j
- a:= n -lj
- while a > d do
• while dim J a (1) = d do
I := I : J a (1)j
• a:= a -lj
- return I : Jd(I).

2.2 Equidimensional Hulls and Equidimensional Decompositions

Again we present two different approaches. The first approach, which is used in
several papers ([14], [16J, ... ), is based on Lemma 2.

Algorithm 5.
EQUIDIMENSIONAL(I)
Input: an ideal I in K[Xl' ... ,xnl
Output: two ideals, the equidimensional hull Ec(I) of I (c = codimI), and an
ideal W of codimension > c such that 1= Ec(1) n W

- choose any admissible term-ordering < on K[Xl, . .. , xnlj

- compute c := codim(1)j
194 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

- compute Xf j
- Result := (1), W := Ij
- for u E Xf do
• compute a Grabner basis S of W with respect to a block-ordering <
with u < < x , Uj
• choose T, a subset of S, which is a minimal Grabner basis of W K(u)[x,
u) and compute the least common multiple h E K[u) of the leading
coefficients of the elements in T as in Lemma 2j
• Result := Result n((T) : hOC) in K[x)j
• W:= (W,h)j
• if dim(W) < dim(1), then
return {Result, W}j
- Result = Result n EQUIDIMENSIONAL(W)[l)j
- return {Result, EQUIDIMENSIONAL(W)[2)}.

Caboara, Conti and Traverso ([6)) propose a modification of this approach as

follows: choose a set u ~ x such that In K[u) is one-codimensional. If I n K[u)
is not principal, then its generators need to have a non-trivial common divisor
and we can split In K[u) by applying Lemma 1, 1. to a suitable power of this
divisor. If InK[u) = (g) and 9 factorizes into different factors, we can again split
the ideal. If 9 is the power of an irreducible polynomial, and if G is a Grabner
basis of I, with respect to a block-ordering on K[x) with u « x, u, such that
GnK[u) = {g}, then we may consider the ideal (G, {g})K(u)[x, u) and choose
a subset T of G, which is a minimal Grabner basis of this ideal. Let h E K[u)
be the least common multiple of the leading coefficients of the elements in T
as in Lemma 2. If I : hOC ~ I, then we can split again. If / = / : hOC, and
if 9 and h have no common divisor, then / is already equidimensional because
Spec K[X)h/ I -+ Spec K[U)h/ (g) is flat. If 9 and h have a common divisor, then
we have to apply Algorithm 5.
Remark 4. The approach above has the advantage that it also yields the equidi-
mensional decomposition of I (use recursion). With the next approach this will
be much more difficult.
The second approach goes back to Eisenbud, Huneke, and Vasconcelos ([8)).
It is based on the following proposition:

Proposition 3. Let I ~ R = K[Xl' ... ,xn ) be an ideal of codimension c. For

v ~ c let Ev(I) be the equidimensional part of I of codimension v. Then
1. Ec(1) = annExt'R(R/I,R).
2. If /0 ~ / is a complete intersection of codimension c, then

Ec(1) = 10 : (10 : 1) .
3. For v ~ c

JEv(I) = VEv(ann(Ext'R(R/I,R)))
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 195

We obtain the following algorithm:

Algorithm 6.
EQUIDIMENSIONAL(I)
Input: an ideal I in K[Xl' ... ,xnl
Output: the equidimensional hull of I

- choose any admissible term-ordering < on K[Xl, ... , xn];

- compute a Grabner basis of I and c := codim(I);
- choose the first c elements h, ... , Ie in a set of minimal generators of I and
set 10 := (h, ... ,Ie);
- if 10 is a complete intersection, then
return 10 : (10 : I);
- return annExt'k(R/I,R).
If we compare Algorithms 5 and 6, the second algorithm looks more ele-
gant, but our experience shows that it is very efficient only for small codimen-
sions, or for a small number of variables. Furthermore, with Algorithm 6, it
is difficult to obtain the other equidimensional parts of I, because, in general,
n ann(ExtR(R/I,R)) is strictly bigger than I, as one can see in the example
v
R = K[x,y] and I = (x2,xy).
In [28] the following approach to this problem is proposed: let J v =
ann(ExtR(ExtR(R/I,R),R)). Then J" is equidimensional of co dimension v or
J v = R. Assume that the equidimensional parts Ie, ... , Is are already computed
and let Ls = Ie n ... n Is. Then the equidimensional hull 18+1 of (I + J~l) : L.
is the (8 + l)-st equidimensional part of I. Here N is a number satisfying
(I + J~l) : L. = (I + J~tl) : Ls and J~l n L8 C J.+1Ls.
In any case, Proposition 3 yields an algorithm to compute a set of equidi-
mensional ideals Iv of codimension v with v'Ev(I) = ffu.
Algorithm 7.
WEAKEQUIDIMENSIONAL( I)
Input: an ideal I in K[Xl' ... ,xn ]
Output: equidimensional ideals Iv, such that v'E,,(I) = .;r:
- choose any admissible term--ordering < on K[Xl' ... , xn];
- compute a Grabner basis of I and c := codim(I);
- Result := {EQUIDIMENSIONAL(I)};
- for v := c + 1 to n do
• J:= ann(ExtR(R/I,R));
• if codim(J) = v, then
Result := Result U{EQUIDIMENSIONAL(J)};
- return Result.

Remark 5. If we need the output ideals to be radical, we just have to replace

EQUIDIMENSIONAL( ) by EQUIRADICAL( ).
196 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

2.3 Zero-dimensional Primary Decomposition

We shall first give the theoretical background, which is used for the algorithm
of Gianni, Trager, and Zacharias ([14]). Notice that in [11], Gianni, Miller, and
Trager generalize the Berlekamp algorithm to obtain a zero-dimensional decom-
position. We do not treat this approach here.
Let K be a field of characteristic zero, or of characteristic p > 0, p sufficiently
large.
Definition 1. Let P be a maximal ideal in K[XI' ... ,xn ]. P is called in general
position with respect to the lexicographical ordering induced from Xl > ... > Xn ,
if the reduced Grobner basis of P is of type

with fi E K[xn].

Remark 6. Notice that automatically in is irreducible and deg Ii < deg in,
i < n.
Every Q = (al, ... , an-I) Kn-l defines an automorphism <{is!. of
E
n-l
K[XI' ... ,xn] by «iQ.(Xi) = Xi if i < n, and «iQ.(xn) = Xn + L: aiXi.
i=l

Proposition 4. Let P C K[XI, ... , xn] be a maximal ideal. Then there exists
a dense open subset U C Kn-l such that every «iQ.(P), Q E U, is in general
position with respect to the lexicographical ordering induced from Xl > ... > Xn .

Definition 2. Let I C K[XI' ... ,xn ] be a zero-dimensional ideal. I is called in

general position with respect to the lexicographical ordering induced from Xl >
... > Xn , if the following holds for the minimal primary decomposition I =
QI n ... n Q. with associated primes PI, ... ,p.:
1. PI' ... ' p. are in general position with respect to the lexicographical ordering
induced from Xl > ... > Xn ·
2. PI n K[x n ], . .. ,p. n K[x n ] are coprime.

Proposition 5. Let I C K[XI' ... ,xn ] be a zero-dimensional ideal. Then there

is a dense open subset U C K n - l such that every <(is!.(I), Q E U, is in general
position with respect to the lexicographical ordering induced from Xl > ... > Xn .

Theorem 3. Let I C K[XI' ... ,xnJ be a zero-dimensional ideal in general posi-

tion with respect to the lexicographical ordering induced from Xl > ... > Xn ,
G a corresponding minimal Grobner basis of I, and {f} = G n K[xn]. Let
f = fi' ..... if- be the decomposition of i into a power product of pairwise
non-associated irreducible factors !k. Then the minimal primary decomposition
of I is given by
1= n(l,f:')
k=l
.
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 197

Theorem 3 yields the following algorithm.

Algorithm 8.
ZEROPRIMDEC(I [, CHECK])
Input: a zero-dimensional ideal in K[Xl' ... ,Xn ]
Output: {Ql,Pl, ... ,Q.,p.}, Qi primary, -.fiJi = Pi, Pi f= P j for i f= j and
1= Ql n··· n Q.

# The ideal CHECK and all commands involving CHECK are optional;
# CHECK is needed later on for the higher dimensional decomposition
# in order to avoid redundant components.
- Result := 0;
- [if CHECK £;; I, then
return Result;]
- compute a Grobner basis G of I with respect to the lexicographical ordering
induced from Xl > ... > Xn;
- let G n K[xn] = {f};
- factorize f = J{' ..... ff' ;
- for k := 1 to s do
• [if CHECK ~ (I,ff'), then]
test whether (I, ff') is primary and in general position, that is, com-
pute a Grobner basis S of (I, ff') with respect to the lexicographical
ordering induced from Xl > .. , > X n , and check whether S contains
(k) (k)
hI , ... , hn such that
1 • h n(k) -- f kP'
2. hi(k) -_ (X.. - gi(k) ( Xn ))n~') mod (hi+l'
(k) (k»)..
... , hn ,z < n,
if (I, 1:') is primary and in general position, then
* rk:= (Xlk
D
- gl) , ... ,Xn-l - (k)
gn-ll . t ed prIme
k IS the assocla
f)' . to
Qk := (I, ff');
* Result := Result U{Qk, Pk};
else
* choose Q E Kn-l by random;
* Result:=ResultU<p~l (ZEROPRIMDEC(<Pa«(I, ff'))[,<Pa(CHECK)]))
- return Result.

Remark 7. To make this algorithm really efficient, it is necessary to do some

preprocessing in order to avoid as many random coordinate changes as possible.
A random coordinate change destroys sparseness, and usually makes the subse-
quent Grobner basis computations very difficult. Therefore, we use the splitting
tools

1. I = (I: f) n (1,1) if! : f = I : f2,

2. (I,f' g) = (I,f) n (I,g) if (f,g) = (1)
198 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

to split the ideal as often as possible before starting Algorithm 8 (if in 2. the
condition (I, g) = (1) is not fulfilled, we still can apply 1. to a suitable power of
f). In order to use 1. and 2., we produce as many reducible elements as possible.
This leads to the following preprocessing algorithm.
Algorithm 9.
SPLIT(I)
Input: a zero-dimensional ideal I in K[XI" .. , xnJ
Output: two sets of ideals, Primary = {QI,Pl, ... ,Qs,Ps }, and Rest
{h, ... , Id, such that I = (nQi) n (nIi), Qi primary, and v'lJi = Pi
- Primary := 0, Rest := 0 ;
- for i := 1 to n do
• compute (Fi) := In K[XiJ;
• enlarge the system of generators of I by Fi;
- factorize all the generators of I and split the ideal and the resulting ideals
as often as possible;
- compute for all ideals obtained in this way a Grabner basis with respect to
the lexicographical ordering induced from Xl > ... > Xn;
- test whether the ideals are primary and in general position with respect to
the lexicographical ordering induced from Xl > ... > Xn; put the detected
primary ideals and their associated primes to Primary and the other ideals
to Rest;
- return Primary, Rest.

Remark 8. Each ideal in Rest comes with a set of generators (which in fact
is a Grabner basis with respect to the lexicographical ordering induced from
Xl > ... > xn) such that every generator is a power of an irreducible element.

Remark 9. The preprocessing for a zero-dimensional ideal, which we know to

be radical, is simpler than in the general case: we can use the fact that

= ..)(I,f)nJV:g) ,
")(I,/·g)
which holds without the assumption (I, g) = (1). In particular, we can use the
factorizing Grabner basis algorithm to split the ideal. Also the prime test for a
zero-dimensional ideal is simpler than the primary test:
I is prime if there is an irreducible gEl n K[XiJ for some i such that deg(g) =
dimK K[xl, ... , xnJI I.
Especially, we obtain:
I is prime and in general position with respect to the lexicographical ordering
induced from Xl > ... > Xn if and only if for a corresponding minimal Grabner
basis G, and {g} = GnK[xnJ, we have deg(g) = dimKK[xI, ... ,xnJII, and 9
is irreducible.
The following probabilistic algorithm, proposed by Eisenbud, Huneke, and
Vasconcelos ([8]), also goes to general position.
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 199

Algorithm 10.
DECOMPEHV(I)
Input: a zero-dimensional radical ideal I in K[Xl' ... , xnl
Output: the associated prime ideals

- choose a generic I E K[Xl, ... , xnl, and test whether I is a zero-divisor

modI (that is, check whether I: I ~ I);
- if I is a zero-divisor mod I (which implies I = (I : f) n (I, f), then
return DECOMPEHV(I: f)u DECOMPEHV(I,f));
- choose m minimal such that 1, I, ... , 1m are linearly dependent mod I, and
denote by F E K[Tl the corresponding dependence relation;
- if m < dimK K[Xl, ... , xnl/ I restart the algorithm with another I;
- if F is irreducible, then
return {I};
- if F factors as F = Gl . G 2 , then
return DECOMPEHV(I,Ql(J»))U DECOMPEHV(I,Q2(J»)).

2.4 Higher Dimensional Primary Decomposition

The minimal associated primes

One approach, proposed by Eisenbud, Huneke, and Vasconcelos ([8]), starts
with a radical ideal, computes all associated primes, and uses normalization.
The normalization algorithm presented later on in 2.5 has, as input, a radical
ideal I C R = K[Xl, ... , xnl and, as output, r polynomial rings R 1, . .. , R r , r
prime ideals h C R 1 , .•• , Ir eRr, and r maps 7I"i : R ---t Ri such that the
induced map

is the normalization of R/ I. In fact, if we plug in the computation of idempo-

tents as explained in 2.5, then the result of the normalization algorithm is the
minimal prime decomposition I = 71"1 1 (h) n ... n 71";1 (Ir) of I (recall that nor-
malization commutes with localization). Notice, however, that the computation
of the idempotents still needs zero-dimensional prime decomposition.
Another possibility, also reducing the problem to the zero-dimensional case,
does not necessarily need a radical ideal to start with. This approach, relying on
Lemma 2, goes back to Gianni, Trager, and Zacharias ([14]).

Algorithm 11.
MINAssPRIMES(I)
Input: an ideal I in K[Xl, . .. ,xnl
Output: the minimal associated prime ideals of I

- Result := 0;
- choose any admissible term order < on K[Xl, ... , xnl;
200 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

- use the factorizing Grobner basis algorithm to split Ij

the result m is a set of ideals given by Grobner bases such that
1. all elements of the Grobner bases are irreduciblej
2. the radical of the intersection of the elements of m is the radical of Ij
-forJEmdo
• compute X:f j
• for u E X:f do
* compute Ass(JK(u)[x " u]) by using zero-dimensional prime de-
compositionj
* for P E Ass(JK(u)[x" u]) do
Result := Result U{P n K[x]}j
* compute h such that JK(u)[x" u] n K[x] = J: hj
* J:= (J,h)j
• Result := Result U MINAssPRIMES(J)j
- return Result.

A third possibility, also starting not necessarily with a radical ideal, is based
on characteristic sets. We will treat this approach later.

Associated Primary Ideals

The first approach, proposed by Eisenbud, Huneke, and Vasconcelos ([8]), is
based on the following lemma:

Lemma 3. Let I be an ideal, P E minAss(I), and m an integer satisfying I :

pm ~ P. Then the equidimensional hull of I + pm is a P-primary ideal of a
decomposition of I.

Remark 10. If P E Ass(I) is an embedded prime, then one can obtain a

P-primary ideal Q of a decomposition of I as

Q = EQUIDIMENSIONAL(I + pm)

for some m. In this case, it is more difficult to estimate m (cf. [8]): let I[F] =
{b E R I I: b rt. Pl. Then Q is a P-primary ideal of a decomposition of I if and
only ifthe map (I[P] : POO)/I[p]) ----t R/Q is injective.
The Algorithm of Eisenbud, Huneke, and Vasconcelos

Algorithm 12.
PRIMARYDECEHV (1)
Input: an ideal I in R = K[Xl, ... , x n ]
Output: a set Result = {Ql,P1, ... ,Q.,p.} such that I = nQ" is a minimal
primary decomposition and ~ = P", v = 1 ... s.

- E:= {ann(ExtR(R/I,R)), v;::: codim(I)}j

- m := {EQUIRADICAL(J) I J E E, J i- R}j
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 201

- compute Ass(I) = {PI"'" p.}:= U Ass(L) (by using the normalization

LEm
algorithmj notice that here all associated primes of I are computed)j
- for i := 1 to s do
compute Qi :=EQUIDIMENSIONAL(I + P[") with m as in Lemma 3 or
Remark 25j
- Return {Ql,Pt, ... ,Q.,p.}.

A second approach, based on Lemma 2, is due to Gianni, Trager, and

Zacharias «(14]).

The Algorithm of Gianni, Trager, and Zacharias

Algorithm 13.
PRIMARYDECGTZ(I (, CHECK])

- Result := 0j
- if CHECK is not defined, then
CHECK:=(I)j
- choose any admissible term-ordering < on K(Xl,"" xn]j
- if CHECK ~ I, then
return Resultj
- compute Xf j
- for u E Xf do
• m:= ZEROPRIMDEC(IK(u)(x" u], CHECK)j
• Result := Result U{Q n K(x],P n K(x] I (Q,P) E m}j
• compute h such that IK(u)(x" u] n K(x] = I : h = I : h 2 j
• 1:= (I,h)j
• for (Q, P) E m do
CHECK = CHECK n Qj
- Result = Result U PRIMARYDECGTZ(I, CHECK)j
- return Result.

A third approach, proposed by Shimoyama and Yokoyama «25]), is based on

the following two lemmata:
Lemma 4. Let I be an ideal and minAss(I) = {PI, ... ,Pr }. Assume there are
h, ... ,lr such that
- Ii E n Pj;
#i
- Ii ¢ Pi.
Let k i be defined by I : lico =I : lik', Oi := I : It' and J := 1+ (ff' ,... ,I;r).
Then

1. VQ: = Pi, that is, Oi is pseudo-primary with associated prime Pi;

r -
2.1= nQinJ;
i=l
202 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

3. codim(J) > codim(I);

4. let Qi = 0Qyl be a minimal primary decomposition of Qi, i = 1, ... , T.
3
Then nQYl
1,3
is a minimal primary decomposition of .n Qi
t=l
(no redundant
components!) and l) Ass(Qi) n Ass(J) = 0.
•
Remark 11. Let I be an ideal and minAss(I) = {PI, ... ,Pr }. Assume that
GI , ... , G r are Grobner bases of PI, ... , Pro Since Pi is minimal in Ass(!), there
are always elements tj in Gj not being in Pi for i 1= j. Now define h := n
#i
tj.

Then /I, ... , ir satisfy the assumptions of Lemma 4.

Lemma 5. Let Q be pseudo-primary with y'Q = P prime and u ~ x a maximal

independent set mod Q. Then QK(u)[x '- u) n K[x) =: Q is P-primary. Let
h E K[u) be chosen such that QK(u)[x '- u) n K[x) = Q : h = Q : h 2 , and set
J:= (Q,h). Then

1. Q=QnJ;
2. codimJ > codim(Q).

Definition 3. 1. Polynomials h as in Lemma 4 are called separators.

2. A decomposition as in Lemma 4, 2. is called a pseudo-primary decomposi-
tion, with remaining component J and pseudo-primary components Qi.
3. A decomposition as in Lemma 5, 1. is called extraction of Q from Q, with
remaining component J.

We obtain the following two procedures:

Algorithm 14.
PSEUDOPRIMARYDECOMP(!)
Input: an ideal I in K[XI' ... , xn)
Output: a set Result = {(QI,PI,/I), ... ,(Qr,Pr,ir),J} with Qi, Pi, /;, and J
as in Lemma 4

- compute minAss(I) := {H, ... ,Pr } (use your favourite algorithm);

- if r = 1, then
return {(I, PI, 1), (I)};
- Result := 0;
- J:=Ij
- compute separators iI,···, ir;
- for i = 1 to T do
• compute k i such that I: iioo = I : fik' =: Qi;
• Result:= Result U(Qi,Pi,h)j
• J:= (J,iik')j
- return Result U J.
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 203

Algorithm 15.
EXTRACTION ( Q)
Input: a pseudo-primary ideal Q in K[Xl, ... , xnl, and P = .JQ
Output: (Q, J) as in Lemma 5

- choose any admissible term-ordering < on K[Xl, ... , xnlj

- compute Xi j
- for u E X/< do
compute hu such that QK(u)[x '- uj n K[xj = Q : h':j
- choose h = hu of minimal degree among all huj
- compute N with Q:= Q: hN = Q: hN+!j
- return (Q, (Q,h N )).

By combining pseudo-primary decompositions and extractions, we obtain an

algorithm for the computation of a not necessarily minimal primary decomposi-
tion. Criteria such as Lemma 4, 4. simplify the search for redundant components.
In fact, we can do better. We may eliminate ideals, which only lead to redundant
components, much earlier in the process. This idea of Shimoyama and Yokoyama
([25)) is based on the next lemma. Let us first introduce some notations.

Definition 4. 1. Pseudo-primary decomposition and extraction are also called

elementary operations. Any ideal arising from a given ideal V by one ele-
mentary operation is called a son of V.
2. When computing a primary decomposition of a given ideal I as indicated
above, the ideals arising from I via elementary operations fit as vertices into
a tree 7. The edges of T are ordered pairs (W, V) such that V is a son
of W. T is called a decomposition tree of I. Vertices which are a primary
component of the resulting decomposition of I (possibly redundant), are called
component vertices.
9. Let V be a vertex in a decomposition tree of I. The weighted tree depth of V
is the number of edges in the path from I to V, where any edge (W, V), V a
remaining component arising from W by a pseudo-primary decomposition,
is counted twice .
..{.. Let V be a vertex in a decomposition tree of I. Let (Vi, Vi+!), i = 1, ... , r,
be all edges in the path from I to V such that Vi+l is a pseudo-primary
component of Vi arising by a pseudo-primary decomposition. The tester of
V is the product f = n~=l h, where fi is the separator corresponding to
(Vi, Vi+!). V satisfies the separating condition if v'v' does not contain f.
5. Let T be a decomposition tree of I. The associated reduced decomposition
tree Tred is obtained from T by eliminating all subtrees whose roots do not
satisfy the separating condition.

Lemma 6. Let I be an ideal in K[Xl, ... , xnj, and let T be a decomposition tree
of I. Then:
1. In Tred all component vertices have distinct associated primes.
204 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

2. For each prime P E Ass(I) there exists a unique component vertex Qp in

hed associated to P.
3. I = n{Qp I P E Ass(I)} is a minimal primary decomposition.

Altogether, we obtain the following algorithm:

The Algorithm of Shimoyama and Yokoyama

Algorithm 16.
PRIMARYDECSY(I)
Input: an ideal I in K[Xl' ... , xnl
Output: a set Result = {Q 1 , H, ... , Q., p.} such that I = nQ v is a minimal
primary decomposition, and -vr:Tv = Pv , v = 1 ... s.

- Result := 0, V := {I}j
- L:= {1}j
- w:=Oj
- while I ~ L do
• if {V E V I weighted tree depth of V = w} is empty, then
w:=w+lj
• choose a vertex V E V of weighted tree depth Wj
• V:= V\ {V}j
• W := {sons of V} (apply either PSEUDOPRIMARYDECOMP(V), or
EXTRACTION(V}}j
• if there is a component vertex Q E W, then
* if L rt. Q, then
Result: =Result U {(Q, P)}, where P is the radical of Q, which
is known from a pseudo-primary decomposition beforej
L:= LnQj
* W:= W\ {Q}j
• V:= V U {V E W I V satifies the seperating condition}j
- return Result.

2.5 The Normalization

Here we describe an algorithm, proposed by T. de Jong ([15]), which goes back

to Grauert and Remmert [12]. Other algorithms were given, for example, by
Seidenberg [22], Stolzenberg [26], Gianni and Trager [13], and Vasconcelos [27].
The algorithm of De Jong is based on the following criterion for normality
due to Grauert and Remmert [12]:

Proposition 6. Let R be a Noetherian, reduced ring. Let J be a radical ideal

containing a non-zero divisor such that the zero set of J, V(J), contains the non-
normal locus of Spec(R). Then R is normal if and only if R = HomR(J, J).
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 205

Remark 12. Let Rand J be as in the proposition, and let i be a non-zero divisor
of J. Then

1. iJ: J = i· HomR(J,J),

and, consequently,

2. R = HomR(J, J) if and only if iJ: J ~ (f).

3. Let io = i, h, ... ,i. be generators of i J : J as an R-module. Because
HomR(J, J) is a ring, we have 8(8i 1 ) quadratic relations of type
8

t;- . t;- = Lf.~;, s ~ i ~ j ~ 1, f.~ E R ,

k=O
in 7(j J : J). Together with the linear relations, that is, the R-module
syzygies between io, .. . , is, the quadratic relations define the ring structure
of HomR(J, J): the map

'D --+
r
..2-
• f
is surjective, and its kernel is the ideal generated by the elements of type
8 .. 8 8
T;Tj - E f.~JTk (with To = 1), and E 'fJkTk, where E 'fJkik = o.
k=O k=O k=O
Now we are prepared to give the normalization algorithm:
Algorithm 17.
NORMAL(I [, INFORM])
Input: a radical ideal I in K[X1' ... 'Xnl
Output: r polynomial rings R 1, ... ,Rr , r prime ideals It C R 1, ... ,Ir eRr,
and r maps 11"; : R ~ R;, such that the induced map 11" : K[X1, ... , xnll I ~
RtfIt x ... x Rrl Ir is the normalization of K[X1, . .. , xnll I

# Additional information provided by the user (respectively by the algorithm)

# can be given in the optional list INFORM. For example, INFORM may contain
# - the information that I defines an isolated singularity at 0 E K n
# - some elements of the radical of the non-normal locus,
# which are already known.

- Result := 0;
- compute the idempotents of K[X1' ... ,xn]II;
this is optional; the splitting

defined by the idempotents is needed for the computation of the associated

primes of I as explained at the beginning of 2.4;
206 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

- for i := 1 to t do
• compute the singular locus J of h
• choose I E J ..... Ii and compute Ii : I to check whether I is a zero divisor
mod Ii;
• if Ii : I ~ Ii, then
Result := Result U NORMAL(Ii : (I; : f))U NORMAL(I; : f);
(notice that ..j (I;, I) = Ii : (Ii: f) in this situation;)
else
if Ii has an isolated singularity at 0 E Kn, then
J:= (Xl, ..• ,xn );
else
if J o is the radical of the singular locus of a normalization
loop before, given by the list INFORM, then
J := ..j(Ii' I + Jo);
else
J:= ..j(Ii,j);
• compute H := I J : J =: (I, II,·· . ,Is);
• if H = (I), then
Result := Result U{K[XI' . .. ,Xn],Ii, idK[xl, ... ,x n ] }
else
* compute, as described in Remark 33, an ideal L such that
1;
K[XI, ... , Xn , T I , ... , Ts]1 L ~ Hom(J, J), T i ."..
* S :=NORMAL(L);
* let t : K[XI' ... ,xn] -+ K[XI' ... ,Xn, TI , ... ,Ts] be the inclusion;
* replace S by S with all ring maps composed with t;
* Result := Result uS;
- return Result.

It remains to give an algorithm to compute the idempotents.

We shall explain this for the case when the input ideal I is (weighted) homo-
geneous with strictly positive weights.
An idempotent e, that is, e2 - e E I, has to be homogeneous of degree O.
Therefore, no idempotent will occur in the first loop.
Idempotents may occur after one normalization loop in Hom(J, J) ~
K[XI, ... , Xn , T I , ... , T.]I L because some of the generators may have the same
degree.
Let T S;; {TI , ... , T.} be the subset of variables of degree O.
Then L n K[T] is zero-dimensional because TJ - E ~tjTk E L n K[T] for all
Tj E T (the weights are 2: 0 and, therefore, ~tj E K, Tk E T).
For this situation there is an easy algorithm:

Algorithm 18.
IDEMPOTENTS(I)
Input: I S;; K[XI, ... ,xn] a (weighted) homogeneous radical ideal, deg(xt} =
... = deg(xk) = 0, deg(xi) > 0 for i > k, In K[XI' .. . , Xk] zero-dimensional.
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 207

Output: ideals h, ... , It such that K[XI, ... , xnJI I = K[Xl, ... , xnJI II X ••• X
K[XI, ... ,xnJlIt, and such that InK[XI, ... ,XkJ = n(Iv nK[Xl, ... ,Xkj) is the
prime decomposition

- Result := 0;
- J:= In K[XI' ... ,Xk);
- compute the (zero-dimensional) prime decomposition J = PI n ... n Pt ;
- for i := 1 to t do
• choose 9i -# 0 in n Pv ;
v#i
• Result := Result u{I : gil;
- return Result.

2.6 Minimal Associated Primes via Characteristic Sets

The concept of characteristic sets goes back to Ritt ([20), [21]) and Wu (30). In
our context, when applying this concept, the basic strategy is the following.
Let X be a finite set of generators for the given ideal I C K[xI, ... , xn).
Compute a characteristic set of X. Successively extend this characteristic set via
pseudo-division. Split the radical of I with the help of the extended characteristic
set F. Distinguish two different types of splitting, depending on whether F is
irreducible (then F corresponds to a prime ideal) or not. When applying the
above idea recursively, the prime ideals corresponding to irreducible extended
characteristic sets provide a not necessarily minimal prime decomposition of VI.
Let us be more precise and recall the basic definitions and facts. We refer to
[5], [18), and [29J for details and proofs.

Definition 5. Let f be a polynomial in K[XI' ... ,xnJ.

1. We define the class of f, class(f) , and the class-degree of f, cdeg(f), as
follows. If f is constant, let class(f) := 0 and cdeg(f) := O. Otherwise, let
class (f) be the maximal k such that deg x• (f) is non-zero, and let cdeg(f) :=
degxcI"'(f) (f).
2. Let class(f) > O. Then the initial of f, In(f), is the leading coefficient of f
considered as a polynomial in Xclass(f).
9. A polynomial g E K[Xl' ... ,x n ) is Ritt- Wu reduced with respect to f -# 0 if
degxcl"'(f) (g) < degxcl'''(f) (f).

Remark 19. The lexicographical ordering on N x N induces an ordering -< on

K[Xl' ... ,xn) via the map

K[XI, ... , xn)-t N x N, f I-t (class(f), cdeg(f)) .

-< is well-founded, that is, every non-empty subset of K[Xl, ... ,xnl has a mini-
mal element. -< is, however, not a total ordering.
208 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

Definition 6. Let I,g E K[Xl, ... ,XnJ. I is said to be 01 lower mnk than gil
I --( g. I and 9 are said to be 01 the same mnk, I ~ g, il neither I --( 9 nor
9 --( I, that is, class(l) = class(g) and cdeg(l) = cdeg(g).

Definition 7. A finite sequence of polynomials F {1t, ... ,1r} C

K[Xl' ... , xnJ is called an ascending set, il either
1. r = 1 and It f:. 0, or
2. r> 1, 0 < class(lt) < ... < class(Jr), and each Ii, i = 2, ... ,n, is Ritt-Wu
reduced with respect to {It, ... , h-d, that is, h is Ritt-Wu reduced with
respect to Ij, j < i.

The basic computational tool in the context of ascending sets is pseudo-division

(or Ritt-Wu reduction).
Remark 14.

1. If I f:. 0, 9 are polynomials in K[Xl, ... , xn], with class(J) = k, then pseudo-
division yields an expression

In(l)O/g = ql + r, with deg",. (r) < deg",> (I) ,

and with a := max{ 0, deg",. (g) - deg",. (I) + I}. The pseudo-quotient
pquot(glJ) = q and the pseudo-remainder prem(glJ) = r are uniquely de-
termined. Clearly, 9 is llitt-Wu reduced with respect to I if and only if
prem(glJ) = g.
2. Let F {It, ... , Ir} C K[Xl, ... , xnJ be an ascending set
with class(lt) > 0, and 9 E K[Xl, .. . , xnJ. The pseudo-
remainder prem(gIF) = prem(gllt, ... , Ir) is inductively defined by
prem(gllt, ... ,1r) = prem(prem(glh,···,lr)lh)· Note that there is an
expression of type
In(It)"' ..... In(Jr)Srg = qt/l + ... + qrfr + prem(gIF) .

Clearly, 9 is llitt-Wu reduced with respect to F if and only if prem(gIF) = g.

Remark 15. A well-founded ordering --( on the set of ascending sets is defined as
follows. If two such sets F = {It,.··, Ir} and 9 = {gl, ... , gs} are given, then
F --( g, if either
1. h --( gi for the first i with h f gi, or
2. r > s and h ~ gi, i = 1, .. . , s.
Definition 8. Let X be any non-empty subset of K[Xl, ... , xnJ\ {o}. A minimal
element 01 the set 01 ascending sets contained in X is called a chamcteristic set
olX.
Since --( is a well-founded ordering, minimal elements do exist. If X is finite,
then there is an obvious algorithm for the computation of a characteristic set:
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 209

Algorithm 19.
CHARSET(I)
Input: a finite subset X of K[Xl' ... ,xnl '- {O}
Output: a characteristic set of X

- Result := 0, Rest := X j
- while Rest =1= 0 do
• choose f of lowest rank in Restj
• Result := Result U {J}j
• if class(1) = 0, then
Rest := 0j
else
Rest:= {g E Rest '- {J} I 9 is Ritt-Wu reduced with respect to J}j
- return Result.

Definition 9. Let X be any finite subset of K[Xl,.'" xnl \ {O}, and I = (X)
the ideal genemted by X. An ascending set :F = {It, ... , fr} c I is called an
extended chamcteristic set of X, if either
1. r = 1 and It is constant, or
2. class(ft} > 0 and prem(gl:F) = 0 for all 9 EX.
The existence of extended characteristic sets is clear from the following algo-
rithm (Ritt- Wu process) for the computation of an extended characteristic set.
Since -« is a well-founded ordering, the termination of this and the subsequent
algorithms is guaranteed by
Remark 16. Let X be any non-empty subset of K[Xl,"" xnl \ {O}, :F a char-
acteristic set of X, and 9 E K[Xl,"" xnl \ {O} Ritt-Wu reduced with respect to
:F. Then {} -« :F for every characteristic set {} of Xu {g}.
Algorithm 20.
EXTCHARSET(I)
Input: a finite subset X of K[Xl' ... , xnl \ {O}
Output: an extended characteristic set of X

- Int := Rest := Xj
- while Rest =1= 0 do
• Result := CHARSET(lnt)j
• if Result = {J} with f E K, then
Rest := 0j
else
Rest := {prem(gl Result) =1= 0 I 9 E Int \ Result }j
• Int := Int U Restj
- return Result.

We next explain how characteristic sets are related to primary decomposition.

210 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

Definition 10. Let F = {II, ... , fr} C K[X1, ... , xnl be an ascending set, and
let m = n-r. After renaming the variables we may assume that class(fi) = Xm+i,
i = 1, ... , r. With this assumption F is called irreducible, if each h is irreducible
in Ki[xm+il, where Ki is inductively defined by Kl := K(X1, . .. , xm), and Ki :=
Ki- 1 [xm+i-d/ (h-l).
Proposition 7. LetF= {1I, ... ,fr} C K[x1, ... ,xnl be an irreducible ascend-
ing set. Then
P:= {g E K[X1,'" ,xnll prem(gllI, ... , fr) = O}
is a prime ideal with F as a characteristic set.
It follows from the pseudo-remainder formula in Remark 38, 2. that P can
be computed via Grobner bases:
Lemma 7. Let F = {h, ... , fr} C K[X1,"" xnl be an irreducible ascending
set, J = (F) the ideal generated by F, and P the prime ideal with characteristic
set F as in Proposition 44. Then
P = (... ((J : In(ft}OO) : In(h)OO) : ... ) : In(fr)OO
Now we come to the two different types of splitting.
Lemma 8. Let X be any finite subset of K[X1,'" ,xnl \ {O}, I = (X) the ideal
generated by X and F = {h, ... , fr} an extended characteristic set of X. Sup-
pose that F is irreducible, and let P be the prime ideal with characteristic set F
as in Proposition 44. Then
Vi = P n J(X U {In(h)}) n··· n J(X U {InUr)})
The following remark allows the application of Lemma l.
Remark 17. Let F = {h, ... , fr} C K[X1, ... , xnl be a reducible ascending
set. Assume that the variables are ordered as in Definition 43 with m = n -
r.Choose i minimal with {h, ... , h} reducible. Let fi = iif' ..... ii~· be the
factorization of h into irreducible factors over K i • Then there is a relation of
type 9 = Gh - hf' ..... h~' in K[Xl,'" ,xnl, where hj is obtained from ii j by
clearing denominators, and where G E K[Xl, ... ,xml. Then g, considered as a
polynomial in Ki-l[x m+il, is zero. The irreducibility of {h, ... , h-I} implies
that prem(glh, ... ,h-l) = O. Hence there exist 81, •.. ,8i-l such that InUt}·, .
.... In(h_t}·'-'hf'·····h~· E (h,···,/;)· Definegj :=prem(hjlh, ... ,fi-d,
j = 1, ... , s. Then all gj are Ritt-Wu reduced with respect to F, class(gj) =
c1ass(fi), and In(fd'" ... ·In(h-l)·'-'gf'· .... g~. E (h,···,/;)·
Altogether we obtain the
Algorithm 21.
MINAssPRIMESCHARSETS(I)
Input: an ideal I in K[Xl, ... , xnl
Output: the minimal associated primes of I
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 211

- let Y C K[XI, ... ,xnJ \ {O} be a finite set of generators of I;

- Result := 0, Rest := {Y};
- while Rest =I 0 do
• choose X E Rest;
• Rest:= Rest \{X};
• F:= EXTCHARSET(X);
• if F = {f} with f E K, then
return (1);
else
if F is irreducible, then
* Result := Result U {F};
* Rest := Rest U {X U F U {In(f)} If E F, class(In(f)) > O};
else
* find h, ... , Ii-I E F and 91, ... ,g. as in Remark 47;
* Rest := Rest U{X U FU In(/j)jj = 1, ... , i - I }
U{X U F U {gj}li = 1, ... , s, class(In(fj)) > O};
- let Result = {F1, ... ,Fk};
- for i = 1 to k do
• J:= (Fi);
• for f E Fi do
J := J : In(f)OO;
• Result := (Result \{F;}) U {J};
- omit redundant prime ideals in Result;
- return Result.

3 Examples
All algorithms described in Section 2 are, or are about to be, implemented in
SINGULAR.
In this Section we compare the implementations. In the table below we give
the timings (in seconds) for 34 examples computed on a HP 720. "*" means that
the computation was stopped after three hours. All computations are done over
the prime field K = IF32oo3. The ordering of the monomials is always the degree
reverse lexicographical ordering with the underlying ordering of the alphabet.
In the first column we give the timings for the computation of the minimal
associated primes via characteristic sets (Algorithm 22). In the second column,
we list the timings for the computation of the associated primes by first us-
ing Algorithm 7 (WEAKEQUIDlMENSIONAL), followed by a prime decomposition
of the equidimensional parts via Algorithm 11. The third column gives the
timings for the minimal associated primes by using Algorithm 11. The fourth
column contains the timings for a complete primary decomposition following
Gianni, Trager, and Zacharias (Algorithm 13). The fifth column gives the tim-
ings for the primary decomposition by using the Algorithm 16 of Shimoyama
and Yokoyama and computing the minimal associated primes via characteristic
sets. In this column "*, 46" means that the characteristic sets algorithm could
212 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

not compute the minimal associated primes, and that we need 46 seconds with
Algorithm 16, if we first compute the minimal associated primes via Algorithm
11. In all other cases, the timings for Algorithm 16, based on Algorithm 11, can
be obtained by subtracting the first column from the fifth column and adding
the third column. The next two columns give the timings of the computation of
the equidimensional radical and the radical by using a combination of the Algo-
rithms 1, 2, and 3 (we use 2 and 3, if the first c generators of a c-codimensional
ideal already form a regular sequence, and if the number of variables is less or
equal to 5). Column 8 contains the information on the number and the dimension
of the components. 3, ... ,3,0, for instance, means 15 components of dimension 3
'----v---"
15
and one component of dimension O. Column 9 indicates, whether the given ideal
is already radical or not. Finally, column 10 contains the number of embedded
components.
The examples show that there is no unique strategy for the computation
of primary decompositions. Sometimes much more time is used for computing
the radical or the minimal associated primes than for the complete primary
decomposition a la Gianni, Trager, and Zacharias. The reason for this is the use
of the factorizing Buchberger algorithm, which is usually very efficient (in a few
cases, however, it can be quite time-consuming).
1. Chemistry (describes a chemical processes in glass melting)

a+2b+c-d+g, f2 gh-a, efg-c, f g2j-b,

a + b + c + f + 9 -1, 3ad + 3bd + 2cd + df + dg - a - 2b - c - g.

2. Sturmfels and Eisenbud (the 2 x 2- permanents of a generic 3 x 3-matrix,

cf. [9, Example 3.5])

su+bv, tu+bw, tv+sw, sx + by, tx+bz,

ty+sz, vx+uy, wx+uz, wy+vz.

3. Schimoyama/Yokoyama (cf. [25, Example J])

xy2z2 _ xy2z + xyz2 - xyz, xy3z + xy2z, xy4 - xy2,

x 2yz2 _ x 2yz, x 2y 3 _ x 2y2, x4 z3 _ X4 Z2 + 2x 3Z3 _ 2x 3Z2 + x 2Z3 _ x 2z2,
x 2y2z, x4yz + x 3yz, 2x4y2 + 6x 3y2 + 6x 2y2 + xy3 + xy2,
x 5 z + X4z 2 + x 4z + 2X3Z2 - x 3z + X2Z2 - x 2z, x 6 y + 3x 5 y + 3x 4 y + x 3y.

4. Schimoyama/Yokoyama (cf. [25, Example St])

su - bv, tv - sw, vx - uy, wy - vz.

5. Butcher(cf. [29, Example 12], [3], POSSO test suite)

a + c + d - e - h, 2df + 2cg + 2eh - 2h2 - h -1,

3dP + 3cg 2 - 3eh 2+ 3h 3 + 3h2 - e + 4h, 6bdg - 6eh 2+ 6h 3 - 3eh + 6h 2 - e + 4h,
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 213

4dj3 + 4eg3 + 4eh3 - 4h4 - 6h3 + 4eh - 10h2 - h - 1,

Sbdfg + Seh 3 - Sh 4 + 4eh 2 - 12h3 + 4eh - 14h2 - 3h - 1,
12bdg2 + 12eh3 - 12h4 + 12eh2 - ISh 3 + Seh - 14h2 - h - 1, -24eh3 +
24h4 - 24eh2 + 36h 3 - Seh + 26h2 + 7h + 1.

6. Gonnet (cf. [3], POSSO test suite)

ag, gj + am + np + q, bl, nq,

bg + bk + al + lo + lp + b + e,
ag + ak + jl + bm + bn + go + ko + gp + kp + lq + a + d + f + h + 0 + p,
gj + jk + am + an + mo + no + mp + np + gq + kq + e + j + q + s - 1,
jm+jn+mq+nq, jn+mq+2nq, gj+am+2an+no+np+2gq+kq+q+s,
2ag + ak + bn + go + gp + lq + a + d, bg + al, an + gq,
2jm+ jn+mq, gj + jk+am+mo+2mp+np+e+2j +q,
jl + bm + gp + kp + a + f + 0 + 2p, lp + b, jn + mq, gp + a.

7. Horrocks (related to the Horrock bundle on IPs, cf. [7])

2adef + 3be 2f - eef2, 4a~ f + 5bdef + edj2, 2abdf + 3b2ef - bef2,

4a 2df + 5abef + aej2, 4a~e + 3bde2 + 7cdef, 2acde + 3bee 2 - c2ef,
4abde+3b2e2-4acdf+2beef-e2j2,4a2de+3abe2+7aeef,4a~+5bcde+e2df,
4a~ + 3b2de + 7bcdf, 16a2~ - 9b2e2 + 32acdf - ISbeef + 7e2j2,
2abcd + 3b2ee - be2f, 4a2cd + 5abee + ac2 f, 4a 2bd + 3ab2e + 7abef,
abe2f - cdef2, ab2ef - bdef2, 2a2bef + 3be 2f2 - eef3,
ab3 f - 3bdf3, 2a2b2f - 4adf3 + 3bej3 - er,
a 3bf + 4aej3, 3ae3e - ede 3, 3b2e2 e - be3f + 2~ef, abe2e - cde 2f,
6a2e2e - 4ade3 - 3be4 + ee 3 f, 3b 3ce - b2c2 f + 2b~ef, 2a 2bee + 3be3f - ee2j2 ,
3a3ee + 4ae3 f, 4be3d + rose, 4ae3d - 3be3e - 2~e2 + e4 f,
sb2 c2d - 4ad4 - 3bd3e - ed3 f, 4b3 cd + 3bdl f, 4ab3 d + 3b4e - b3 ef - 6b~ j2,
4a4d + 3a 3be + a 3ef - Sae2 j2

S. Arnborg-Lazard (POSSO test suite)

x2YZ+xy2Z+xyz2+xyZ+XY+XZ+Yz, x 2y2Z+xy2z2+X 2yZ+xyz+yz+x+z,

X2y2z 2 + x 2y2z + xy2z + xyz + xz + z + 1.

9. Schwarz (constructing idempotents in group theory)

-ab - b2 - 2de - 2eh, -ae - 2be - e 2 - 2dh, -c2 - ad - 2bd - 2eh,

-2ed - ae - 2be - h 2, -~ - 2ee - ah - 2bh.

10. Katsura4 (POSSO test suite)

2t2 + u 2 + 2X2 + 2y2 + 2Z2 - u, 2tu + xy + 2tz + 2yz - t,

t2 + 2ty + 2uz + 2xz - z, 2tx + 2uy + 2tz - y, 2t + u + 2x + 2y + 2z - 1.
214 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

11. Katsura5 (POSSO test suite)

2X2 + 2y2 + 2z2 + 2t2 + 2u 2 + v 2 - v, xy + yz + 2zt + 2tu + 2uv - u,

2xz + 2yt + 2zu + u 2 + 2tv - t, 2xt + 2yu + 2tu + 2zv - z,
t 2+ 2xv + 2yv + 2zv - y, 2x + 2y + 2z + 2t + 2u + v-I.

12. Cyclic roots 5 homog (d. [2])

a + b + e + d + e, ab + be + ed + ae + de, abe + bed + abe + ade + ede,

abed + abee + abde + aede + bede, abede - h 5 •

13. Cyclic roots 5 (cf. [2], POSSO test suite)

a + b + e + d + e, ab + be + ed + ae + de, abe + bed + abe + ade + cde,

abed + abce + abde + aede + bede, abede - 1

14. Cyclic roots 4 (cf. [2], POSSO test suite)

a + b + e + d, ab + be + ad + ed, abe + abd + aed + bed, abed - 1.

15. Roczen (related to the classification of singularities

in positive characteristic)

0+ 1, k4 + k, hk, h4 + h, gk, gh,

g3 + h 3 + k 3 + 1, fk, f4 + f, eh, ef,
Ph 3 + e3k 3 + e3 + P + h 3 + k 3 + 1, e 3 g + pg + g, e4 + e,
dh 3 + dk 3 + d, dg, df, de, d3 + e3 + f3 + 1,
e 2g 2 + ~h2 + e, j2g2 + ~k2 + b, j2h2 + e2k 2 + a.

16. De Jong (related to the base space of a semi-universal

deformation of a rational quadruple point)

-2hjk+4ef+bj+ak, -2hjl+4eg+cj+al, -4fhj -4ehk-djk+2be+2af,

-4ghj - 4ehl- djl + 2ce + 2ag, -2dfj - 2dek + ab, -2dgj - 2del + ac.

17. Becker-Niermann (example for testing FGLM)

y4 + xy2 Z + x 2 _ 2xy + y2 + z2, _x 3 y2 + xyz3 + y4 + xy2 Z - 2xy,

xy4 + yz4 - 2x 2y - 3.

18. Caprasse4 (POSSO test suite)

y2 Z + 2xyt - 2x - z,
_x 3 Z + 4xy2 Z + 4x 2yt + 2y 3t + 4x 2 - 10y2 + 4xz - lOyt + 2,
2yzt + xt2 - x - 2z,
-xz 3 + 4yz 2t + 4xzt2 + 2yt 3 + 4xz + 4Z2 - 10yt - 10t2 + 2.
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 215

19. eassou (POSSO test suite)

6b4c3 + 21b4c2d + 15b4c~ + 9b4d 3 - 8b2c2e - 28b2cde + 36b2~e - 144b2c -

648b2d - 120, 9b4c4 + 30b4c3d + 39b4C2~ + 18b4cd3 - 24b2c3e - 16b2c2de +
16b2~e + 24b2d 3e - 432b2c 2 - 720b 2cd - 432b2~ + 16c2e 2 - 32cde 2 +
16~e2 + 576ce - 576de - 240c + 5184,
-15b22e + 15b2c2de - 81b2c2 + 216b2cd - 162b2~ + 40c2e 2 - 80cde 2 +
40~e2 + 1008ce - 1008de + 5184,
_4b2c2 + 4b2cd - 3b2~ + 22ce - 22de + 261.

20. mat3 2 (the square of a generic 3 x 3-matrix, POSSO test suite)

a2 + bd + cg, ab + be + ch, ac + bf + ci,

ad + de + fg, bd + e 2 + fh, cd + ef + fi,
ag+dh+gi, bg+eh+hi, cg+fh+i2.

21. Shimoyama/Yokoyama (cf. [25, Example 18 ]

_k 9 + 9k 8l- 36k7l 2 +84k6l 3 -126k 5l 4 + 126k4l 5 -84k 3l 6 + 36k 2z7 - 9kl 8 +l9,
-bk8 + 8bel + k 8l- 28bk6l 2 - 8el 2 + 56bk 5l 3 + 28k6 l 3 -70bk 4l 4 - 56k 5l 4 +
56bk 3l 5 + 70k 4l 5 - 28bk 2l 6 - 56k 3l 6 + 8bkl 7 + 28k 2l 7 - bl8 - 8kl 8 + 19,
ce - 7ck 6l - k7l + 21ck 5l 2 + 7k 6 l 2 - 35ck413 - 21k 5l 3 + 35ck 3l 4 + 35k4l 4 -
21ck 2l 5 - 35k3l 5 + 7ckl 6 + 21k 2l 6 - cl 7 - 7kl7 + l8,
-dk 6 + 6dk 5l + k 6l-15dk 4l 2 - 6k 5l 2 + 20dk 3l 3 + 15k4l 3 -15dk 2l4 - 20k 314 +
6dkl 5 + 15k2l 5 - dl 6 - 6kl 6 + l7,
ek 5 - 5ek41 - k 5l + lOek 3l 2 + 5k 412 - lOek 213 - 10k3l 3 + 5ekl 4 + lOk 2l 4 -
el 5 - 5kl 5 + l6,
- fk 4 + 4fk 3l + k41- 6fk 2l 2 - 4k 3l 2 + 4fkl 3 + 6k 2l 3 - fl4 - 4kl4 + l5,
gk 3 - 3gk2[ - k 3[ + 3gk[2 + 3k 2[2 - g[3 - 3kl 3 + [4,
-hk 2 + 2hkl + k 2l- hl 2 - 2kl2 + l3,
jk-jl-kl+l2.

22. Gerdt (cf. [3], POSSO test suite)

2tw + 2wy - wz, 2uw 2 - 10vw 2 + 20w 3 - ttu + 35tv - 70tw,

6tw 2 + 2w 2y - 2w 2z - 2lt2 - tty + 7tz,
2v3-4uvw-5v2w+6uw2+7vw2-15w3-42vy, 6tw+9wy+2vz-3wz-21x,
9uw 3 - 45vw 3 + 135w4 + 14tv 2 -70tuw + 196tvw - 602tw 2 -14v 2Z + 28uwz +
14vwz - 28w 2z + 147ux -735vx + 2205wx - 294ty + 98tz + 294yz - 98z 2,
36tw 3 + 6w 3y - 9w 3Z - 168t2w -14v 2x + 28uwx + 14vwx - 28w 2x - 28twy +
42twz + 588tx + 392xy - 245xz,
2uvw - 6v 2w - uw 2 + 13vw2 - 5w 3 - 28tw + 14wy, u 2w - 3uvw + 5uw 2 -
28tw+ 14wy,
tuw + tvw - lltw 2 - 2vwy + 8w 2y + uwz - 3vwz + 5w 2Z - 21wx,
5tuw-17tvw+33tw 2-7uwy+22vwy-39w2y- 2uwz+6vwz-l0w 2 z+63wx,
20t 2w -12uwx + 30vwx -15w 2x -lOtwy - 8twz + 4wyz,
216 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

4t 2w -6uwx+ 12vwx-6w2x+ 2twy- 2wy2 - 2twz+wyz, 8twx+8wxy -4wxz

23. Moller (cf. [19])

a + b+ c+ d, u + v + w + x, 3ab+ 3ac+ 3bc+ 3ad + 3bd+ 3cd+ 2,

bu + cu + du + av + cv + dv + aw + bw + dw + ax + bx + ex,
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+.+~+~,
abc + abd + acd + bcd, bcdu + acdv + abdw + abex.

24. Riemenschneider (related to deformations of quotient singularities)

SU, vx, qu, xz, stx + ux, uv 3 - uvw + ux,

_pu 2V 2 + pu 2w + qtx, tx 2y - uv 2z + uwz.
25. Mikro (coming from analyzing analog circuits)

59ad + 59ah + 59dh - 705d - 1199h,

330acde + 330aceh + 330cdeh - 407acd - 1642ade - 1410cde - 407ach -
407cdh - 1642aeh - 2398ceh - 1642deh,
-483acd - 483ach - 483cdh + 821ad + 705cd + 821ah + 1199ch + 821dh,
13926abcde + 13926abceh + 13926bcdeh - 9404abcd - 9239abde - 4968acde -
13157bcde - 9404abch - 9404bcdh - 9239abeh - 4968aceh - 13025bceh -
9239bdeh-4968cdeh,
-cde - 377cdh - ceh - deh, -54acf - 54adf + a + d, adfg + a + d.

26. Amrhein (cf. [1, Example S6])

a 2 + ~ + 2ce + 2bf + a, 2ab + 2de + 2cf + b, b2 + 2ac + e2 + 2df + c,

2bc + 2ad + 2ef + d, c2 + 2bd + 2ae + J2 + e, 2cd + 2be + 2af + f.

27. Buchberger (POSSO test suite)

t- b- d, x+y+z+t -a- c-d, xz+yz+xt+zt-ac-ad-cd, xzt- acd.

28. Lanconelli (POSSO test suite)

a + c + d + e + f + 9 + h + j - 1,
-c2k - 2cdk - ~k - cek - dek - cfk - dfk - cgk - dgk - egk - fgk - chk-
dhk - ehk - f hk + c + d,
-c2 l- cdl- cel- cfl- cgl- dgl- egl- fgl +c2 +2cd+~ +cg+dg +ch+dh,
-b + c + e + 9 + j.

29. Huneke

30. Wang 1 (cf. [29, Example 13])

f 2h - 1, ek 2 - 1, g2[_ 1,
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 217

2ej2g2hk 2 + j2g2h 2 k 2 + 2ej2g2k 2l + 2j2g2hk 2l + j2g2k 2l 2 + ek 2 ,

2e 2 fg2hk 2 + 2efg2h 2k 2 + 2e 2 fg2k 2l + 4efg2hk 2l + 2fg2h 2k 2l + 2efg2k 2l 2 +
2fg2hk 2l 2 + 2bfh,
2e 2 f2ghk 2 + 2ef2gh 2k 2 + 2e 2 f2gk 2l + 4ej2ghk 2l + 2f2gh2k 2l + 2ef2gk 2l 2 +
2f2ghk 2l 2 + 2dgl,
e 2 j2g2k 2 + 2ef2g2hk 2 + 2ej2g2k 2l + 2j2g2hk 2l + f2g2k 2l 2 + bj2,
2e 2 j2g2hk+ 2ej2g2h 2k + 2e 2 j2g2kl +4ej2g2hkl +2j2g2h 2kl +2ej2g2kl 2 +
2j2g2hkl 2 + 2eek,
e 2 f2g2k 2 + 2ej2g2hk 2 + j2g2h 2k 2 + 2ej2g2k 2l + 2j2g2hk 2l + dg 2 ,
_e 2 j2g2hk 2 _ef2g2h2k 2 -e 2 j2g2k 2l-2ej2g2hk 2l- j2g2h 2k 2l_ej2g2k 2l 2 _
f2g2hk 2l 2 + a 2 .

31. Wang2(cf. [29, Example 7])

32. Siebert
w 2xy + w 2xz + w 2z 2, tx 2y + x 2yz + X 2Z 2,
twy2 + t y 2z + y2 z 2, t 2 wx + t 2 wz + t 2 z 2.

33. Macaulay (Macaulay2 tutorial)

b4 - a 3d, ab3 - a 3e, be4 - ae3d - bed3 + ad4 ,

e6 _ be3~ - e 3d 3 + bd5 , ae5 _ b2e 3d - ae2~ + b2d 4 ,
a 2e 4 _ a 3d 3 + b3d 3 _ a 2cd3, b3e3 - a 3d 3 ,
ab2e3 - a3e~ + b3~ - ab2d 3 , a 2be3 - a 3c2d + b3 e2 d - a 2bd3 ,
a 3e 3 _ a 3 bd2, a 4 e 2 - a 3b2d.

34. Amrhein2 (cf. [1])

a 2 + 2de + 2ef + 2bg + a, 2ab + e2 + 2df + 2eg + b,

b2 + 2ae + 2ef + 2dg + e, 2be + 2ad + j2 + 2eg + d,
e2 + 2bd + 2ae + 2fg + e, 2ed + 2be + 2af + g2 + f,
~ + 2ee + 2bf + 2ag + g.
218 W. Decker, G.-M. Greuel, G. Pfister

Ass primary dec. radical dim is emb.

chSet EHV GTZ GTZ SY equiR rad red. com.
1 2 9 3 1 35 6 11 3,3,3,3 no no
2 6 32 5 31 35 2 2 3, ... ,3,0 no 1
'"-v--'

3 1
° ° 4 3
° °
15
2,1,1,1,1,0, ... ,
'"-v--'
° no 7
6
4 1 1 3 11 13 1 6,6,5,4 no 1
5
6
3
9
* 12 1210
2 1
20
20
°
9
9
9 3,3,3,2,2,2,2,0,0,0
9 3,3,3
no
no
2
no
*
7 15 25 2 5 16 1 1 3,3,3,3,3,3 yes no
8 5 2 4 1 22 4 5 0, ... ,0 yes no
'"-v--'
14
9 * 3 10 4 *,46 2 2 1, ... ,1 yes no
'"-v--'
12
10 6 5 2 2 12 1 2 1, ... ,1 yes no
'"-v--'
9
11 * 83 7 5 *,41 9 9 1, ... ,1 yes no
'"-v--'
6
12 44 89 70 111 452 35 35 1, ... ,1 no no
'"-v--'
25
13 * 52 402 35 *,548 396 396 0, ... ,0 no no
'"-v--'
20
14 2 1 3 3 1 1,1,0, ... ,0 no 6

15 103
° 14 12 123
°
2 2
'"-v--'
6
0, ... ,0 no no
*
'"-v--'
30
16 21 98 354 6 31 9 270 8,7,6,5 yes no
17 123 14 26 18 125 14 14 0,0 yes no
18 18 52 93 7 64 19 19 0, ... ,0 no no
'"-v--'
19
19 * 2 71 1 *,42 44 88 1,1 yes no
20 114 360 2 5 122 3 27 4,0 no 1
21 1 167 1 6 12 1 2 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 no 8
22 5 * 3 10 13 2 2 2,2,2,1,1,1,1,1,0 no 2
23 17 * 10 16 68 6 6 2, ... ,2,1, ... ,1 no 12
'"-v--' '"-v--'
10 17
24 3 21 1 11 11 1 8,6,6,4,4,4 no 1
25
26
35 * 2 325 43 °
5 342 5,4,3,3,1,1 no 2
* 101 14 13 *,224 12 13 0, ... ,0 no no
'"-v--'
40
27 7 2 1 1 9 1 1 4,4,4 yes no
28 25 4 1 2 91 4 4 7,7 yes no
29 1 * 11734 4266 11 * 2,1, ... ,1,0 no 11
'"-v--'
10
 Primary Decomposition: Algorithms and Comparisons 219

Ass primary dec. radical dim is emb.

chSet EHV GTZ GTZ SY equiR rad red. com.
30 26 * 51 58 115 7 7 1, ... ,1 no no
~
18
31 6 0 2 2 6 0 0 1 yes no
32 2 * 1 50 21 1 12,2,2,2,2,2,1, ... ,1,0 no 9
~
10
33 1 0 1 2 2 0 0 2,1,1 no no
34 * * 7132 110 *,* 7190 7190 1, ... ,1 yes no
~
128

References
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3. Boge, R.; Gebauer, R.; Kredel, H.: Some examples for solving systems of algebraic
equations by calculating Grobner bases. J. Symb. Compo 2, 83-89 (1987).
4. Becker, E.; Wormann, T.: Radical computations of zero-dimensional ideals and
real root counting. Mathematics and Computers in Simulation 42, 561-569 (1996).
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cations, D. Reidel, 1988.
6. Caboara, M.; Conti, P.; Traverso, C.: Yet another ideal decomposition algorithm.
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(1996)
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ports On Computer Algebra Number 12, May 1997, Centre for Computer Algebra,
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of Polynomial Ideals. J. Symbolic Computation 6, 149-167 (1988).
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putation (to appear).
16. Krick, T.; Logar, A.: An algorithm for the computation of the radical of an ideal
in the ring of polynomials. AAECC9, Springer LNCS 539, 195-205.
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8.
18. Mishra, B: Algorithmic Algebra, Texts and Monographs in Computer Science,
Springer, 1993.
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19. Moller, H.M.: Solving of algebraic equations - an interplay of symbolical and

numerical methods. Multivariate Approximation, Recent Trends and Results,
Akademie Verlag, 161-176, 1997.
20. Ritt, J.F.: Differential equations from the algebraic standpoint. Colloquium Pub-
lications XIV, AMS, 1932.
21. Ritt, J.F.: Differential algebra. Colloquium Publications XXXIII, AMS, 1950.
22. Seidenberg, A.: Construction of the integral closure of a finite integral domain II.
Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 52, 368-372 (1975).
23. Scheja, G.; Storch, U.: Uber Spurfunktionen bei vollstandigen Durchschnitten. J.
reine angew. Math. 278, 174-190 (1975).
24. Sturmfels, B.: Algorithms in Invariant Theory. Springer Verlag (1993).
25. Shimoyama, T.; Yokoyama, K.: Localization and Primary Decomposition of Poly-
nomial ideals. J. Symbolic Computation 22, 247-277 (1996).
26. Stolzenberg, G.: Constructive normalization of an algebraic variety. Bull. Amer.
Math. Soc. 74, 595-599 (1968).
27. Vasconcelos, W.: Computing the integral closure of an affine domain. Proc. AMS
113 (3), 633-638 (1991).
28. Vasconcelos, W.: Arithmetic of Blowup Algebras. Lecture notes of the London
Math. Soc. 195 (1994).
29. Wang, D.: Characteristic sets and zero structures of polynomial sets. Preprint,
RISC-LINZ, 1989.
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tries. J. of System Science and Mathematical Science, 4(3}, 1984, 207-235.
 Real Quantifier Elimination In Practice

Andreas Dolzmann, Thomas Sturm, and Volker Weispfenning

Universitiit Passau, D-94030 Passau, Germany

{dolzmann.sturm.veispfen}~fmi.uni-passau.de

Abstract. We give a survey of three implemented real quantifier elimi-

nation methods: partial cylindrical algebraic decomposition, virtual sub-
stitution of test terms, and a combination of Grobner basis computations
with multivariate real root counting. We examine the scope of these im-
plementations for applications in various fields of science, engineering,
and economics.

1 Introduction
The basic motivation of real quantifier elimination is to "eliminate" unwanted
variables from an algebraic description of some situation. The unwanted variables
may represent unknown real quantities, e.g. quantities that cannot be measured
or determined directly in the given model. Consider the following simple exam-
ple: We want to test the solvability of the equation ax 2 + b = 0 where a and bare
considered real parameters. Then we find that this equation has a real solution
if and only if ab < 0 or b = O.
Thus even if we start with a single equation and eliminate a single variable,
we cannot avoid the use of order inequalities in the elimination result. Moreover,
we have to allow logical connectives like "and" and "or." So it makes sense to
formulate the real elimination from the outset as the problem of eliminating
variables from a Boolean combination of polynomial equations and inequalities.
In fact, the proper formulation of the problem requires first-order logic.
Nevertheless, the heart of real quantifier elimination belongs to algebra, more
precisely to real algebra. The central problem is to count the number of real
solutions of a system of polynomial equations and inequalities with parametric
coefficients as a function of these coefficients. In other words, the coefficients may
take on arbitrary real values, and the number of solutions should be expressed
uniformly by conditions on these parametric coefficients.
The past history of real quantifier elimination dates back to the 17th century.
In 1637, Descartes established his rule of signs, cf. [17]:
Let f be a squarefree univariate real polynomial. Denote by s the number
of sign changes in the coefficients of f ignoring zeroes, and by n the
number of positive real roots of f. Then n ~ s, generally s - n is even,
and if all roots of f are real, then n = s.
Budan (1807), cf. [4], and Fourier (1831), cf. [26], showed that Descartes' rule
of signs is actually a special case of a more general theorem:

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
222 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

Let 1 be as above, let D be the finite sequence of higher non-zero deriva-

tives of 1, and let a < b be real numbers such that 1(a) -=1= 0 and 1(b) -=1= O.
Denote by s the difference between the number of sign changes in the se-
quence D(a) and the number of sign changes in the sequence D(b), and
let n be the number of real roots of 1 on [a, b]. Then n ::; s, s - n is even,
and if all roots of 1 are real, then n = s.

The first decisive exact result on real root counting is the famous theorem of
Sturm (1835), cf. [47]:

Let 1, a, b, n be as above, and let S be the finite sequence of polynomials

obtained from 1 and its derivative l' by successive division with negative
remainder. Denote by s the difference between the number of sign changes
in the sequence S(a) and the number of sign changes in the sequence S(b).
Then n = s.

Sturm's crucial idea was to change Budan's and Fourier's sequence D of higher
non-zero derivatives to the Sturm sequence S described above in order to get the
exact number of roots.
In 1853 Sylvester observed that Sturm's theorem can easily be extended to
cover an additional inequality as a side condition, cf. [51]:

Let 1, a, b be as above, and let g be another univariate real polynomial

that is relatively prime to 1. Denote by T the finite sequence of poly-
nomials obtained from 1 and l' g by successive division with negative
remainder. Denote by s the difference of the number of sign changes in
the sequence T(a) and the number of sign changes in the sequence T(b).
Let n+ and n_ be the number of real roots of 1 in [a, b] at which g is
positive or negative, respectively. Then n+ - n_ = s.
The sequence T is usually refered to as Sturm-Sylvester sequence. From the total
number of real roots of 1 in [a, b] obtained by Sturm's theorem and the difference
of numbers obtained by Sturm-Sylvester one can easily obtain the number of
real roots of f in the interval [a, b], where g is positive or negative, respectively.
By a little combinatorial trick, this procedure can be extended to count the
number of real roots of f, where finitely many other real univariate polynomials
have fixed signs. See [7] for an efficient variant of this trick.
Such a combinatorial extension of the Sturm-Sylvester theorem is the core
of the first real quantifier elimination procedure found by Tarski in the 1930's,
which remained unpublished until 1948, cf. [52]. Tarski's procedure was very
inefficient, more precisely it was not elementary recursive.
In 1975 Collins introduced a new method called cylindrical algebraic decom-
position (CAD), cf. [14], which is worst-case doubly exponential in the number
of variables. This was the first real quantifier elimination procedure which has
been implemented.
For a long time the use of quantifier elimination in application problems
outside pure mathematics has been fairly limited due to the practical complexity
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 223

of the implemented methods. Not until a few years ago, some of these methods
have been able to solve problems of interesting size in science, engineering, and
also in economics, namely in operations research. Though the enormous increase
in computational power plays a certain role, it was mainly theoretical work that
contributed to this development.
On one hand CAD has gone through numerous improvements, cf. [38], [31,32],
resulting in partial CAD, cf. [12], implemented in Hong's QEPCAD program. On
the other hand it had been shown that real quantifier elimination is inherently
hard for some problem classes, cf. [18,53]. Thus the attention turned to special
procedures for restricted problem classes, where the elimination procedures can
be tuned to the structure of the problem. The focus was on considering formu-
las in which the occurrence of quantified variables is restricted to low degrees,
cf. [53,37,33,34,27,57,58]. This was initiated by the third author in 1988. In
his virtual substitution method the number of parameters plays a minor role for
the complexity. The worst-case complexity of the method is doubly exponential
only in the number of the quantifier blocks of the input formula. This makes the
method attractive for problems containing many parameters. It is implemented
in the REDUCE package REDLOG, cf. [20,21] by the first and the second author.
The version of the method currently implemented is incomplete in that it can
fail for input problems violating certain degree restrictions wrt. the quantified
variables. In principle the method can be extended to arbitrary degrees, cf. [58].
In 1993 the third author introduced a new complete elimination procedure
based on comprehensive Grabner bases in combination with multivariate real
root counting, cf. [55] and [54, 11,42]. The focus of the method is on problems
containing many equations. It is, however, complete, i.e., there is no restriction
on the possible input problems. This procedure has been implemented in the
package QERRC by the first author within the computer algebra system MAS,
cf. [19].
In recent years there have been impressive results on asymptotically fast real
elimination algorithms, cf. [43,8]. Implementation of these methods is still at a
very early stage. So the question to what extent these methods are of practical
relevance cannot be answered yet.
In this note, we will examine the applicability of automatic real quantifier
elimination using the three available packages QEPCAD, REDLOG, and QERRC.
We wish to emphasize that we do not consider this to be a competition between
the packages. In particular, the majority of the examples will be computed with
RED LOG since our current research focuses on this package and the methods
implemented there.
The plan of our paper is as follows: Section 2 summarizes the logical founda-
tions necessary for understanding the discussed elimination methods. Section 3
focusses on the mathematical background of the packages under consideration.
Section 4 discusses how to encode problems from science, engineering, and eco-
nomics in such a way that they can be solved by elimination methods. It also
includes some automatic elimination examples with timings and references to
further examples. In Section 5, we will summarize and evaluate our results.
224 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

2 A Formal Framework
In order to give a formal framework for real quantifier elimination, we introduce
first-order logic on top of polynomial equations and inequalities.
We consider multivariate polynomials f (u, x) with rational coefficients, where
u = (Ul ... ,um ) and x = (Xl, ... ,xn ). We call u parameters and we call x main
variables. Equations will be expressions of the form f = 0, inequalities are of
the form f 2: 0, f > 0, or f =1= 0. Equations and inequalities are called atomic
formulas. Quantifier-free formulas are Boolean combinations of atomic formulas
by the logical operators "A," "V," and "...,." Existential formulas are of the form
3Xl ... 3x n'I/J(u, x), where 'I/J is a quantifier-free formula. Similarly, universal for-
mulas are of the form 't/Xl ... 't/xn'I/J(u, x). A general (prenex) first-order formula
has several alternating blocks of existential and universal quantifiers in front of
a quantifier-free formula.
The real quantifier elimination problem can be phrased as follows: Given a
formula <p, find a quantifier-free formula <p' such that both <p and <p' are equivalent
in the domain of the real numbers. A procedure computing such a <p' from <p is
called a real quantifier elimination procedure.
Quantifier elimination for an existential formula <p(u) == 3Xl ... 3xn'I/J(u, x)
has a straightforward geometric interpretation: Let
M = {(u,x) E Rm +n I 'I/J(u,x)},
and let M' = {u E Rm I <p(u) }. Then M' is the projection of M along the coor-
dinate axes of the existentially quantified variables x onto the parameter space.
Quantifier elimination yields a quantifier-free description of this projection.
Sets defined by first-order formulas are called definable sets. Sets defined
by quantifier-free formulas are called semi-algebraic sets. Obviously, every semi-
algebraic set is definable. The existence of a quantifier elimination procedure
implies that, vice versa, every definable set is already semi-algebraic.
We have already indicated in the Introduction that quantifier elimination for
existential formulas provides a test that determines the solvability of a paramet-
ric system of equations in dependence on the parameters. The procedure gives,
however, no information on possible solutions of the input system. This point
of view gives rise to the following generalization of quantifier elimination: Given
an existential formula <p == 3Xl" . xn'I/J(u, x), we wish to compute a set
ifl = {(<p~(U)'O!k(U)) IkE K}, K finite,
which has the following properties:
1. The <p~ are quantifier-free formulas. The O!k provide terms tl(U), ... , tn(u)
corresponding to the eliminated variables x!, ... , x n .
2. Define <p' as VkEK <Pk' Then <p' is equivalent to <p in the reals. In other words,
<p' is obtained from <p by quantifier elimination.
3. Fix real values for the parameters u: if <p and hence <p' holds, then there is
some <Pk which holds. The corresponding answer O!k is a sample point, which
when virtually substituted for x satisfies 'I/J.
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 225

For the notion of virtual substitution d. Section 3.2. An algorithm mapping <p
to (p' as described above is called an extended quantifier elimination procedure,
or a quantifier elimination with answer.

3 The Implemented Real Elimination Methods

3.1 Cylindrical Algebraic DecOlnposition

Cylindrical algebraic decomposition (CAD), cf. [14,1], is the oldest and most
elaborate implemented real quantifier elimination method. It was developed by
Collins and his students starting in 1974. During the last 10 years particularly
Hong made very significant theoretical contributions that improved the perfor-
mance of the method dramatically, cf. [31,32], resulting in partial CAD, d. [12].
Hong has implemented partial CAD in his program QEPCAD based on the com-
puter algebra C-library SACLIB. QEPCAD is not officially published but available
from Hong on request.
We sketch the basic ideas of CAD: Suppose we are given an input formula

Let F be the set of all polynomials occurring in 1/J as left hand sides of atomic
formulas. Call C ~ IRm +n sign invariant for F, if every polynomial in F has
constant sign on all points in C. Then 1/J(c) is either "true" or "false" for all
cE C.
Suppose we have a finite sequence III, ... , IIm+n with the following proper-
ties:
1. Each IIi is a finite partition of IRi into connected semi-algebraic cells. For
1 :::; j :::; n each IIm+j is labeled with Qj.
2. IIi-1 consists for 1 < i :::; m + n exactly of the projections of all cells in
IIi along the coordinate of the i-th variable in (UI, ... , U m , Xl, ... , xn). For
each cell C in IIi- 1 we can determine the preimage S(C) ~ IIi under the
projection.
3. For each cell C in lIm we know a quantifier-free formula c5c(UI, ... ,um)
describing this cell.
4. Each cell C in IIm+n is sign invariant for F. Moreover for each cell C in
IIm+n, we are given a test point to in such a form that we can determine
the sign of !(to) for each! E F and thus evaluate 1/J(tc).
A quantifier-free equivalent for <p is obtained as the disjunction of all c50 for
which C in lIm is valid in the following recursively defined sense:
1. For m :::; i < m + n, we have that IIi+1 is labeled:
(a) If IIi+1 is labeled "3," then C in IIi is valid if at least one C' E S(C) is
valid.
(b) If IIi+! is labeled "V," then C in IIi is valid if all C' E S(C) are valid.
2. A cell C in IIm+n is valid if 1/J(to) is "true."
226 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

We now have to clarify how to obtain such a sequence III, ... , IIm+n' the
quantifier-free formulas oe, and the test points te. This happens in two phases,
the projection phase and the construction phase.
In the projection phase, one determines from F ~ IR[UI' ... ,U m , Xl, ... ,xnl
a new finite set
F' ~ IR[UI, ... ,U m ,XI"",x n -ll
such that the following condition is satisfied: Consider a, b E IRm +n - 1 such that
for all I' E F' the signs of both f'(a), f'(b) E IR are equal. Then for all 1 E F
the corresponding univariate polynomials l(a, xn), l(b, xn) E lR[x n l both have
the same number of different real and complex roots.
This has the following important consequence: Let C be a connected subset
of IRm +n - 1 that is sign invariant for F'. For each 1 E F consider the functions
r2k : C -t IR assigning to a E C the k-th real root of l(a, xn) E lR[xnl. Then all
these r2k are continuous. Moreover, the graphs of the various r2k do not intersect.
In other words, the order of the real roots does not change as they continuously
change their position on the real line. In the CAD framework they are called
delineated. The step from F to F' is called a projection.
Iterative application of such projections leads to a finite sequence F m +n ,
... , F I , where

F m +n := F, Fi := FI+l for 1:::; i < m + n.

Technically, each Fi will contain certain coefficients, discriminants, resultants,
and subresultant coefficients obtained from the polynomials in Fi+l and their
higher derivatives, regarded as univariate polynomials in their last variable,
which is the (i + l)-st one in (UI, ... , Urn, Xl, ... , xn). The final set FI contains
univariate polynomials in UI.
The construction phase starts with the construction of a partition III ~ IR of
the real line into finitely many intervals that are sign-invariant for Fl. Simulta-
neously one obtains both a test point and a quantifier-free description for each
interval.
For 1 < i :::; m + n the cell partitions IIi ~ lRi are constructed recursively:
Above each connected cell C in IIi - 1 the roots of all polynomials in Fi regarded
as univariate polynomials in their last variable are delineated. They thus cut
the cylinder above C into finitely many connected semi-algebraic cells. We take
IIi to consist of all these cells arising from cylinders above the cells of IIi-I'
Notice that we know which cells 5(C) in IIi origin from which cell C in IIi-I'
The required test points in the new cells are obtained by lifting the test point in
the base cell C in IIi - 1 into the various segments of the cylinder. A quantifier-
free description of each cell in IIi is constructed together with the cell from the
polynomials in F i .
Hong made the important observation that not every cell in this construc-
tion is actually necessary for eliminating quantifiers in a given input formula cpo
Consider, e.g., the case that cp is of the form
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 227

-2

-4

-~~6~--~4--~-2O--*--~--'4--~6
u

Fig. 1. The CAD of Example 1

Then it is superfluous to construct the cells in the cylinder above a cell C of

II2 where !(UI,XI) < 0, since we know that! < 0 V 9 = 0 will be "true" for
every point in this cylinder. This observation generalizes to partial CAD, which
systematically exploits the logical structure of the input formula. This can cut
down enormously the number of cells to be constructed.
Notice that CAD performs a cell decomposition of the m+n dimensional space
of both parameters and quantified variables. Thus the number of parameters is
as relevant for the complexity as the number of quantified variables.

Example 1. For 1jJ( u, x) = x 2 + ux + 1 = 01\ x > 0, we eliminate the quantifier

from <p(u) == 3x1jJ(u,x). In the projection phase, we obtain

F2 = {x 2 + UX + 1,x} and FI = {_u 2 + 4, -u}.

Figure 1 pictures the zeroes of the polynomials in FI and F 2 .

As the first step of the construction phase, we obtain for FI the following
sign-invariant decomposition III of the real u-line:

CI = ]-00, -2[, C2 = {-2}, C3 = ]-2,0[, C4 = {O}, C5 = ]0,2[,

C6 = {2}, C7 = ]2,00[.
For the cells Ci E III we obtain the set TI of test points tCi and the set Lli of
quantifier-free formulas 8Ci describing C i :

TI = {-3, -2, -1,0,1,2, 3},

Lli = {u < -2,u = -2,-2 < ul\u < O,u = 0,0 < ul\u < 2,u = 2,2 < u}.
For obtaining II2, we decompose the cylinder above each cell in III according
to the signs of the polynomials in F2 viewed as univariate polynomials in x. We
228 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

obtain for C1 E II1 :

C11 = C1 x ]-00,0[,
C 12 = C1 x {O},
C 13 = C1 X ]0, -u-F [,
C 14 = C1 {-U-F}'
X

C 15 = C1 X ] -u-F,
-utF [,
C 16 = C 1 X {-utF},
C17 -- C1 x] -utrr=4"
2 " oo[

C21 = C2 x ]-00,0[,
C22 = C2 X {O} = {(-2,0)},
C23 = C2 X ]0,1[,
C24 = C2 x {1} = {(-2, 1)},
C25 = C2 x ]1,00[.

The decomposition above C3 E II1 is determined by x E F2 alone:

C31 = C3 X ]-00,0[, C32 = C3 x {O}, C33 = C3 X ]0,00[.

The decompositions above C4 , C5 E II1 are analogous to that above C3 , and the
ones above C6 , C7 E II1 are mirrored to those above C2 and C 1 , respectively.
The test points tCij for the cells of II2 are taken exactly above the test points
in T1 for the cells in II1 . For the cylinder above C1 , we have:

T21 = {( -3, -1), (-3,0), (-3, t), (-3, 3-2/&), (-3,1), (-3, ¥), (-3,3)},
for the cylinder above C2 , we have

T22 = {(-2,-1),(-2,0), (-2,~),(-2,1),(-2,2)},

and for the cylinder above C3 , we have

T23 = {(-1,-1),(-1,0),(-1,1)}.
Just as the decompositions, the subsets T 24 , ... , T27 of test points are similar
to those already computed. The test points tCij belonging to II2 are the union
T2 = T21 u··· UT27 ·
Since II2 already belongs to the quantified variable x, it is not necessary to
compute quantifier-free formulas describing the cells. Instead, II2 is labeled "3."
This concludes the construction phase.
We now return to II1 , which is the intermediate decomposition belonging to
the last-in our case only-free variable u. For each of the cells Ci E II1 , we
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 229

have to check whether Ci is valid. That is, we substitute the test points to,;
belonging to the cells in II2 origining from Ci into 1/J( U, x) evaluating it to either
"true" or "false." Since II2 is labeled ":3," C i is valid if and only if at least one
such test point yields "true."
For C1 the test points tON = (-3, 3-2v'5) and to'6 = (-3, ¥)
satisfy 1/J,
i.e., C1 is valid. So is C2 due to the test point to2• = (-2,1). The cells C3 ,
... , C7 are not valid. The result of the quantifier elimination is thus

~Ol V ~02 :::::: U < -2 V U = -2.

This is obviously equivalent to U :::; -2.

3.2 Virtual Substitution of Test Terms

The virtual substitution method dates back to a theoretical paper by the third
author in 1988, cf. [53]. During the last five years a lot of theoretical work has
been done to improve the method, cf. [37,57,23,22,58]. After promising experi-
mental implementations by Burhenne in 1990, cf. [10], and by the second author
in 1992, the method was efficiently reimplemented within the REDUCE package
REDLOG by the first and the second author. REDLOG is in fact a computer logic
system providing not only quantifier elimination but a sophisticated working en-
vironment for first-order logic over various languages and theories, cf. [21]. There
are also interfaces to QEPCAD and QERRC available such that these packages can
be called from RED LOG and the results are available to be further processed by
REDLOG. The REDLOG source code and documentation are freely available on
the WWW.l
The applicability of the method in the form described here is restricted to
formulas in which the quantified variables occur at most quadratically. Moreover
quantifiers are eliminated one by one, and the elimination of one quantifier can
increase the degree of other quantified variables. On the other hand there are
various heuristic methods built in for decreasing the degrees during elimination.
One obvious example for such methods is polynomial factorization.
For eliminating the quantifiers from an input formula

the elimination starts with the innermost quantifier regarding the other quanti-
fied variables within 1/J as extra parameters. Universal quantifiers are handled by
means of the equivalence Vx1/J +--+ ..,:3x..,1/J. We may thus restrict our attention
to a formula of the form

where the U rn +!, ... , Uk are actually Xi quantified from further outside.

1 http://vvv.fmi.uni-passau.de/Nredlog/
230 A. Doizmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

We fix real values a1, ... , ak for the parameters U1, ... , Uk. Then all poly-
nomials occurring in 'IjJ* become linear or quadratic univariate polynomials in x
with real coefficients. So the set

of all real values b of x satisfying 'IjJ* is a finite union of closed, open, and half-
open intervals on the real line. The endpoints of these intervals are among ±oo
together with the real zeroes of the linear and quadratic polynomials occurring
in 'IjJ*. Candidate terms 01, ... , Or for the zeroes can be computed uniformly in
U1, ..• , Uk by the solution formulas for linear and quadratic equations.
If all inequalities in 'IjJ* are weak, then all the intervals constituting M will,
into each direction, be either unbounded or closed. In the latter case, such an
interval will contain its real endpoint. Thus M is non-empty if and only if the
substitution of ±oo or of one of the candidate solutions OJ for x satisfies 'IjJ*.
The substitution of ±oo into a polynomial equation or inequality is evaluated
in the obvious sense. The substitution of expressions in U1, •.. , Uk of the form
(a + by'c)/d among the OJ can be rewritten in such a way that all denomi-
nators involving the Ui and all square-root expressions are removed from the
result, cf. [58]. By disjunctively substituting all candidates into 'IjJ* we obtain a
quantifier-free formula equivalent to 3x'IjJ*.
If 'IjJ* contains also strict inequalities, we need to add to our candidates for
points in M expressions of the form o±c, where 0 is candidate solution for some
left-hand side polynomial occurring in a strict inequality. The symbol c stands
for a positive infinitesimal number. Again the substitution of these expressions
into a polynomial equation or inequality can be rewritten in such a form that
there occur neither denominators involving any of the Ui, nor any square root
expressions, nor the symbol c: in the result, cf. [58]. Again this yields a quantifier-
free formula equivalent to 3x'IjJ* . For practical applications this method, of course,
has to be refined by a careful selection of a smaller number of candidate solutions
and by a combination with powerful simplification techniques for quantifier-free
formulas, cf. [22] for details.
Recall that the well-known solution formula for quadratic equations

requires a i- O. In our situation a is a term in U1, ..• , Uk, so a i- 0 can in

general not be decided uniformly but depends on the interpretation of the Ui.
Thus a quadratic polynomial ax 2 + bx + c does not only deliver two square-
root expressions 01 and 02 as candidate solutions but also 03 = -c/b, which in
turn requires b i- O. Let h, t2, and t3 be the candidate points for M obtained
from 01,02, and 03, respectively, by possibly adding or subtracting c. With the
substitution of all the ti into 'IjJ*, it is necessary to add the conditions on the
non-vanishing of a and b. Formally, we obtain
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 231

where ..1 denotes the discriminant of the equation ax 2 + bx + c = O. If, however,

a is a rational constant, then the case distinction is superfluous. In particular, if
a is non-zero, the second case can be dropped.
Suppose we have eliminated an existential quantifier. Then we have in general
obtained a disjunction 'IjJ~ V ... V 'IjJ~. If the next quantifier to be eliminated is
also an existential one, then we make use of the equivalence

3X n - l ('IjJ~ V ... V 'IjJ~) +---t 3X n - l ('ljJD V ... V 3X n - l ('IjJ~)

eliminating all 3X n - l ('ljJj) independently. As a consequence, no candidate solu-

tions obtained from, say, 'IjJ~ are substituted into the other 'ljJj. This decreases
the complexity class of our procedure for single quantifier blocks from doubly
exponential to singly exponential in the number of quantifiers, cf. (53].
Dramatic improvements of the general procedure sketched up to now can
be obtained by reducing the number of test candidates for M depending on
the structure of the formula 'IjJ*, cf. (37,58]. One simple instance for such an
improvement is the following natural extension of Gauss elimination: Suppose
'IjJ* is of the form
bx + c = 0/1. 'IjJ**,
where at least one of the coefficient terms b, c is a rational non-zero constant.
Then we know that under any interpretation of the Ui the equation is non-trivial,
i.e. different from 0 = O. Hence the only test candidate required is -clb substi-
tuted, of course, with the condition b i= o. No additional test candidates arising
from equations or inequalities in the remainder 'IjJ** of 'IjJ* need be considered.
This idea can easily be extended to a quadratic equation instead of a linear one,
taking into account again the discriminant.
Ideas very similar to our extended Gauss elimination have independently
been considered by Hong within the CAD framework, cf. (34].
An extended quantifier elimination can be straightforwardly derived from this
method by not constructing a disjunction at the end. Instead all the quantifier-
free substitution results are kept separately together with the candidate terms
yielding them.
The notion of virtual substitution refers to both adding conditions and re-
solving non-standard subterms such as surds or infinitesimals. The complexity
of this method depends on the number of quantified variables and, even more,
on the number of quantifier changes. In theory, parameters playa minor role for
the complexity. They turn in fact out to be very cheap in practice, too.
Example 2. We return to the example rp(u) := 3x'IjJ(u, x), where

'IjJ(u, x) :=x 2 +ux+l =O/l.x > 0,

of the last section. The elimination of "3x" from rp is a typical example for
extended Gauss elimination. Any x satisfying 'IjJ must satisfy the equation x 2 +
ux + 1 = O. Thus
{
-u+N"=4 -u-
2 '
N"=4}
2
232 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

is a sufficient set of candidate points. Virtual substitution for x of the terms has
to introduce the condition u 2 - 4 ~ 0 and to resolve the square roots and the
denominators. For the first term, we obtain

u 2 - 4 ~ 0 A 0 = 0 A -u + ..ju 2 - 4> 0 ==
u 2 - 4 ~ 0 A (-u > 0 V (_U)2 < u 2 - 4) == u 2 - 4 ~ 0 A u < o.
Similarly, we obtain for the second term

u 2 - 4 ~ 0 A 0 = 0 A -u - ..ju 2 - 4 > 0 ==
u 2 - 4 ~ 0 A -u > 0 A (-u? > u 2 - 4 == u 2 - 4 ~ 0 Au < o.
The final elimination result is the disjunction of both substitution results:

(u 2 - 4 ~ 0Au < 0) V (u 2 - 4~ 0Au < 0).

It easy to see that this formula is, like the result of CAD in Example 1, equivalent
to u:::; -2.

3.3 Grobner Bases plus Multivariate Real Root Counting

The basis for this quantifier elimination method is a theorem on root counting
similar to those discussed in the introduction. This beautiful and far-reaching
extension of a univariate theorem by Hermite (1853), cf. [28], was found inde-
pendently by Becker and Warmann, cf. [5,11], and Pedersen, Roy, and Szpirglas,
cf. [41,42].

Let [ ~ JR[xI' ... ,xn ] be a zero-dimensional ideal. For 9 E IR[XI , ... ,xn ]
consider the symmetric quadratic form Qg = (trace(m gb,bj))I:5i,j::;d on
the linear IR-space S = IR[XI, ... ,xn]1[, where {b l , ... , bd} ~ S is a basis,
and the mh : S -+ S are linear maps defined by mh(f + 1) = (hI) + [.
Let s be the signature of Qg, and denote by n+ and n_ the number
of real roots of [ at which 9 is positive or negative, respectively. Then
n+ - n_ = s.

The use of a Grabner basis of the ideal [ allows to obtain a basis of S, and to
perform arithmetic there, cf. [9], thus obtaining the matrix Qg.
Similar to the Sturm-Sylvester theorem, this approach can be extended to
obtain the exact number of roots under a side condition, and can be moreover
extended to several side conditions:
Let F, {gl, ... , gk} ~ IR[XI , ... , xn] be finite, and assume that [ = Id(F)
is zero-dimensional. Denote by N the number of real roots a E IRn of F
for which gi > 0 for 1 :::; i :::; k. Define

T({gl, ... ,gk}) = {g? ···g~·1 (el, ... ,ek) E {1,2}k}.

Then defining Qg as above we have 2k N = L.."er({91, ... ,gd) sig(Q..,,).

 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 233

For real quantifier elimination, this root counting has to be further extended
to multivariate polynomials with parametric coefficients in such a way that it
will remain correct for every real specialization of the parameters including spe-
cializations to zero. This task has been carried out by the third author using
comprehensive Grobner bases, cf. [55]. It has been implemented by the first au-
thor within the package QERRC of the computer algebra system MAS, cf. [19] and
also [46,36].
We explain how to eliminate the quantifiers from an arbitrary input formula

rp(Ut, ... ,Um) == Q1Xl ... QnXn.,p(Ul, ... ,Um,Xl, ... ,Xn), Qi E {3,'v'}.

Using CNF /DNF computations, eliminating the quantifiers blockwise starting

with the innermost block, and using the equivalence 3x.,p f--? -..vx-,.,p, the prob-
lem can be reduced to quantifier elimination for the existential formula

rp(U)* == 3Xl ... 3xn( 1\ f(u,x) = 0/\ 1\ g(u,x) > 0).

/EF gEG

H rp does not contain any equation at all, it is possible to construct redundant

equations from the inequalities 9 > O. We may thus assume that F i- 0. As a
first step, we compute a Grobner system of F, cf. [54], Le., a system of the form

such that whenever .,pi(a) holds for a E am, then Fi(a, x) is a Grobner basis of
{h(a, x), ... , h(a,x)} ~ R[x]. On the formula level this corresponds to passing
from rp* to the equivalent formula
r

rp**(u) == V (.,p;(u) /\ 3x1 ... 3xn( 1\ f(u,x) = 0/\ 1\ g(u,x) > 0)).
;=1 /EF, gEG

We further restrict our attention to quantifier elimination for a single disjunctive

branch

rp;*(u) == .,pi(U) /\ 3Xl ..• 3xn ( 1\ f(u, x) = 0/\ 1\ g(U, x) > 0)

/EF, gEG

of rp**. Notice that the condition .,pi ensures that Fi is a Grobner basis of Id(F)
if rpi* holds, and that in this case we know the head terms of the polynomials
in F;, which are uniformly determined. We thus can uniformly determine the
dimension of Id(F;).
Let us for the moment assume that this dimension is zero. Then we can
determine for 'Y E r(G) the matrices Q'Y of the above theorem on root counting.
In contrast to the situation of the theorem, however, the matrix elements are
not real numbers but polynomials in Ul, ... , u m •
For a univariate polynomial p denote by r(p) the number of positive real
roots of p minus the number of negative real roots of p counting multiplicities.
234 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

For quadratic forms Q it is well-known that sig(Q) = r(XQ)' Moreover, we have

that
L r(XQ~) = r( II XQ~)
1'Er(G,) 1'Er(G;)

reducing the computation of the sum of signatures to that of r(I1 XQ~) for
a single univariate polynomial I1 XQ~ which has only real roots. We have to
construct a quantifier-free formula stating that r(I1 XQ~) :f. O. This can be done
by applying Descartes' rule of signs discussed in the introduction to all possible
combinations of signs of the coefficients of I1 XQ~ .
It remains to be clarified how to proceed in the case that Id(G;) has a di-
mension greater than zero: We then compute, uniformly in UI, ... , Urn, a max-
imally independent set Y ~ {Xl, ... , x n }. Since the elimination ideal ofId(G;)
wrt. {Xl, ... , Xn} \ Y is zero-dimensional, we can eliminate all quantifiers 3x; for
Xi i Y considering all Xj E Y as additional parameters.
In the procedure above, it can happen that already Y = {Xl, ... , x n }. That
is, there is no non-trivial equation under the condition 'l/Ji. It is, however, always
possible to replace <pi* by an equivalent formula

<P;**(U) == V('I/J;(u) 1\ 3XI ... 3x n (aj(u, x) = 01\ 1\ g(u, x) > 0))

j gEG

such that restarting the whole elimination procedure on <pi**, we can eliminate
at least one quantifier in the next step.
Introducing several sophisticated modifications, the first author has improved
the practical complexity of this method considerably. First, it is not necessary
to consider all permutations of signs of coefficients of I1 XQ~' Furthermore, in-
equalities 9 :f. 0 can be treated much more efficiently than by coding them as
9 > 0 V -g > 0 or g2 > 0, cf. [19).
Like CAD, this approach is a general real quantifier elimination procedure.
In practice a successful application requires that the system of equations in the
input is globally zero-dimensional i.e. zero-dimensional for all real parameter
values. Moreover there should be at most one order side condition. This class
of inputs is nevertheless mathematically quite interesting and comprises e.g.
most implicitization problems for parametric real varieties. Similar to the virtual
substitution method, the number of parameters plays a minor role compared to
that of the quantified variables.

Example 3. We once more eliminate the quantifier from <p(u) == 3X(X2 +ux+l =
01\ X > 0). This input formula is already a conjunctive existential formula such
as <po in the description of the procedure. The corresponding Grobner system is

Cancelling 0 = 0, the formula <p** of the description thus in turn equals the
original <p, and there is no disjunction to be split. Furthermore, x 2 + ux + 1 = 0
is a nontrivial equation, and thus Id(x2 + UX + 1) is zero-dimensional. From the
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 235

order inequality x > 0 we obtain r({x}) :::: {x,x 2 }. Using the basis {l,x} of
JR(u)[xlj Id(x 2 + ux + 1), we compute the matrices

mx : : (~1 !u)' mx2:::: (~1 U2-~ 1) ,

m3- (
U u 2 -1 )
x - _u 2 +1 _u 3 + 2u '
From these matrices we obtain the following symmetric matrices of traces:

Q _ (trace(m x )
x - trace(mx2)
traCe(m X 2))
trace(m x3) ::::
(-u u +
u2 - 2
2 -
_u 3
2 )
3u '
Q 2 _ (trace(m X2) trace(m",3)) (u2 - 2 _u 3 + 3u )
x - trace(m x3) trace(m x') :::: _u 3 + 3u u 4 - 4u 2 + 2 .
The product of the corresponding characteristic polynomials is
XQ • . XQ.2 :::: (X2 + (u 3 - 2u)X + (u 2 - 4)) . (X2 + (_u 4 + 3u2)X + (u 2 - 4))
:::: X4 + C3X3 + C2X2 + c1X + eo
with coefficients
C3 :::: _u 4+ u 3 + 3u2 - 2u,
C2 :::: -u 7 + 5u 5 - 6u 3 + 2u 2 - 8,

Cl :::: _u 6 + u 5 + 7u 4 - 6u 3 - 12u 2 + 8u,

eo :::: u 4 - 8u 2 + 16.
The following quantifier-free formula states that the difference r(XQ • . XQ.,)
between the number of positive and negative roots-counting multiplicities-of
this product is different from 0:

..., ( (eo :::: 0 1\ Cl :::: 01\ (C3 :::: 0 V C2 < 0)) V (eo > 01\ (C2 < 0 V CIC3 < 0)) ).
Thus the result of the quantifier elimination is the following:

+ u 5 + 7u 4 - 6u 3 - 12u2 + 8u :::: 0 1\
..., ( (u 4 - 8u 2 + 16 :::: 01\ _u 6
(_u 4 + u 3 + 3u 2 - 2u :::: 0 V _u 7 + 5u 5 - 6u 3 + 2u 2 - 8 < 0)) V
(u 4 _ 8u 2 + 16 > 01\ (-u 7 + 5u 5 - 6u 3 + 2u 2 - 8 < 0 V
UlO _ 2u 9 - guS + 18u 7 + 25u 6 - 52u 5 - 16u 4 + 48u 3 - 16u 2 < 0)) ).

This is equivalent to u :::; -2.

4 Applying Quantifier Elimination

All example computations mentioned in this section have been performed on a
SUN Ultra 1 Model 140 workstation using 32 MB of memory.
236 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

4.1 Constraint Solving

Constraint solving classically involves a system

... ,

of parameter-free non-strict polynomial inequalities. One wishes to test whether

such a system is feasible, i.e., whether it has a solution. Moreover one often wishes
to determine at least one solution if there exists one. Most classical methods,
e.g. the simplex method, cf. [16], or the Fourier-Motzkin method, cf. [40], require
the variables Xl, ... , Xn to occur only linearly.
In this setting, quantifier elimination applied to the formula

will yield "true" if and only if the system is feasible. Extended quantifier elimi-
nation will in addition yield a sample solution.
Moreover quantifier elimination can be straightforwardly applied to solve the
following generalizations of the problem:
- The constraints are arbitrary Boolean combinations instead of simply con-
junctions.
- The coefficients of the Xi are polynomials ai(Ul, .. . , urn) in the parameters.
- The constraints include strict inequalities such as ">" and ""#."
- The Xi occur with arbitrary degree. There are also arbitrary products of
different Xi and Xj. Here, one possibly has to obey restrictions imposed by
the quantifier elimination method used.
Notice that with strict inequalities the sample solutions provided by REDLOG
will in general involve non-standard terms containing "c." This can in principle
be overcome for the price of higher complexity, cf. [37]. With higher degrees,
solutions can in general not be determined as closed terms but in some algebraic
form.
Example 4. Determine necessary and sufficient conditions for the feasibility of

Applying QEPCAD to 3XaX2 (xi + X~ ~ UlI\ XI > U2) yields Ul - U2 > O!\ Ul ~ 0
after 1 s. REDLOG obtains the same result after 10 ms. QERRC could not compute
a result within 1 minute. Extended quantifier elimination in RED LOG yields also
within 10 ms in addition the sample point (Xl, X2) = (JUl, 0).

4.2 Optimization
Optimization differs from constraint solving in that a sample solution point is
required for which an objective function F(Xl' ... ,xn ) is minimal. The simplex
algorithm, cf. [16], is designed for this task with a parameter-free linear func-
tion. With the Fourier-Motzkin, cf. [40], method linear objective functions are
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 237

introduced via an additional constraint z ~ F(Xl, ... ,xn), where z is a new

variable.
This coding of objective functions by constraints can be used also with quan-
tifier elimination methods. For instance, one can do hyperbolic optimization, i.e.,
optimization wrt. an objective function F(u, x) = feu, x)/g(u, x) for polynomials
f and 9 and a system of polynomial constraints 'Ij;(u, x) by eliminating
:lXl ... :lx n ('Ij; A ((g > 0 A f <.5. zg) V (g < 0 A f ~ zg))).

Example 5. We consider the following example taken from [25]:

F=
Xl + 3X2 + 2
2Xl + X2 + 1
QEPCAD obtains after 1 s the elimination result 3z + 8 ~ 0 stating that -8/3 is
the minimal value of F. REDLOG obtains after 70 ms the less simplified though
equivalent result
3z 2 + 2z - 16 <.5. 0 V 2z + 3 ~ 0 V
(10z 2 + 13z + 4 ~ 0 A 2Z2 + 5z + 2 <.5. 0 A 2z2 + 3z + 1 ~ 0 A z + 3 =I- 0).
QERRC could not determine a minimum within 1 minute. Extended quantifier
elimination in RED LOG yields also within 70 ms in addition sample solution
points in the form of fractions involving z.
See [56, 59] for further information on optimization by quantifier elimination.

4.3 Scheduling
The classical scheduling problem is as follows: Tasks 1, ... , n have to be per-
formed on machines 1, ... , m. Each task i is assigned to a machine mi and
requires a processing time Pi. Moreover, there is a partial ordering "-<" defined
on the tasks. The problem is to determine starting times ti for each task i such
that none of the ordering constraints on the tasks is violated, no machine is
occupied by more than one task at the same time, and the last task is finished
at the earliest time possible.
This classical setting can be restated as a quantifier elimination problem as
follows:
n
:It 1 ... :ltn (1\ ti ~ 0 A
i=l
n
1\ ti + Pi <.5. tj A 1\ (ti + Pi <.5. tj V tj + Pj <.5. ti) A 1\ z ~ ti + Pi).
i-<i 1:5 i <;5" i=l
171i =Tnj

The last conjunction of constraints involving z corresponds to the treatment of

objective functions discussed with optimization.
Quantifier elimination allows to tackle the following more general types of
scheduling problems:
238 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

- For each job there is given an interval of time within which it has to be
performed.
- Certain machines are allowed to process several tasks in parallel.
- Certain jobs require more than one machine in parallel.
- The cost function to be minimized is an arbitrary piecewise rational function
of starting times of the tasks.
- The extreme freedom in the form of constraints allows to do hierarchical
scheduling: In two elimination steps, a second objective function is optimized
under the assumption of an optimal solution wrt. a first objective function.

This includes e.g. job shop problems on several machines, problems requiring
several units of different resources arising, e.g., in the construction of buildings,
and transportation problems involving penalties for earliness or tardiness of cer-
tain tasks. Here the constraint formula will usually involve disjunctions resulting
from resource restrictions.

Table 1. A simple scheduling problem

job 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1-<2-<3
~ 4020152020201015152015 4-<5-<6-<7
mj 4 2 1 1 2 4 3 2 1 3 4 8 -< 9 -< 10 -< 11

M1 4 II 9 3

M2 8 5 2

M3 10 [TI
M4 1 6 11 I
,
0 20 40 60 75 t

Fig. 2. A solution to the problem in Table 1

Example 6. We consider the simple scheduling problem figured in Table 1. Both

QEPCAD and QERRC fail on the input formula, which has 11 quantified variables
and one parameter z. It contains 42 atomic formulas. Extended quantifier elim-
ination in RED LOG provides after 3.7 s the elimination result z - 75 2: 0 stating
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 239

that the last task will have finished after 75 units of time. It also provides ap-
propriate starting times tl, ... , tu for the jobs. Figure 2 shows this result as a
Gantt chart.

4.4 Simulation, Sizing, and Diagnosis

We consider simulation, design, and error diagnosis of electrical, mechanical, or
hydraulic networks.

Fig. 3. A simple example network consisting of resistors

Figure 3 shows a very simple electrical sample network, cf. [59J. It consists of
resistances rjk subject to wattage restrictions Pjk. For fixed resistances rjk and
input voltage U3 -Uo, all amperages ijk and voltages Uk are uniquely determined
by physical laws. A description of this circuit as a formula is obtained as follows:
By Ohm's law we have

w == 1\ (Uk - Uj) = rjkijk, N = {(O, I), (0, 2), (I, 2), (I, 3), (2, 3)}.
(j,k)EN

Next, Kirchhoff's laws state that

K, == - io + i Ol + i02 = 01\ -iOl + i12 + i l3 = 01\

-i02 - i12 + i 23 = 01\ - i l3 - i23 + i3 = O.

Furthermore, we write down the wattage restrictions for the resistors:

p == 1\ (Uk - Uj}ijk '5. Pjk·

(j,k)EN
240 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

This yields an algebraic translation v =: W /\ K, /\ p. Finally, we may normalize

Uo =: 0, and we may certainly assume that i3 =: i o. Since our network is intended
to be a 12V circuit, we also set U3 =: 12 yielding vo.
The easiest thing to do now is simulation of the circuit, i.e., we plug in values
for the Tjb and then eliminate all the amperages and voltages. This will yield
either "true" or "false." In the latter case some wattage restriction is violated.
Extended quantifier elimination would yield in addition to "true" sample values
for the amperages and voltages, which are in fact the uniquely determined values
assumed. More sophisticated applications of quantifier elimination in this area
include, d. [48]:
Sizing In the example one can determine resistances obeying certain constraints
on the amperages and voltages.
Error diagnosis Imagine a concrete network in which all resistances, amper-
ages, and voltages are known. Suppose T12 is actually an ammeter for mon-
itoring the network. If the amperage i12 changes, one determines from its
new value which part of the circuit is damaged in which way.

Example 7. In vo described above we plug in 0.25 W resistors with the following

resistances (in 11): TOI =: 1000, T02 =: 100, T12 =: 300, T13 =: 47000, T23 =: 200.
QEPCAD fails on this input due to lack of memory. QERRC also fails to compute
a result within 1 minute. REDLOG obtains within 130 ms the elimination result
"false." Changing T23 to 400, extended quantifier elimination in REDLOG yields
after 70 ms "true" together with the exact amperages and voltages.

4.5 Control Theory and Stability

Hong, Liska, and Steinberg have shown that certain stability problems for ODE's
and PDE's can be rephrased as real quantifier elimination problems. While many
of these problems are still out of the range of present day elimination methods,
some non-trivial and interesting instances of such problems have been solved by
QEPCAD and REDLOG, d. [29].
Abdallah, Dorato, and Yang have also worked in this area. They have solved
an open problem in control theory using QEPCAD in combination with REDLOG,
cf. [3,24].
Jirstrand has examined stationary, stability, and following of a polynomially
parameterized curve for dynamical systems using QEPCAD, d. [35].

4.6 Real Implicitization

For n < m let f : lRn -* lRm be a rational map with component functions pdq,
where Pi, q E lR[Xl,' .. , xn] for 1 :::; i :::; m. The image f(lRn ) of f is a definable
and hence semi-algebraic subset of lRm described by the formula
m
::IX1·· .::IXn (q(Xl, ... ,xn ) =1= 0/\ 1\ Pi(Xl, ... ,xn ) =: uiq(Xl, ... ,Xn)).
i=1
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 241

Our aim is to obtain a quantifier-free description of fORn) in the variables UI,

•.. , Um, preferably a single equation, which would provide an implicit definition
of f.
Example 8. Descartes' folium d : R -+ R2 is given by component functions
3xI/(1 + xV and 3xil(1 +xV for UI and U2, respectively, cf. [13). For obtaining
an implicit form we apply quantifier elimination to
3XI (1 + x~ /; 0 A 3Xl = uI(1 + x~) A 3xi = u2(1 + xm.
QEPCAD obtains after 1 s the result ui - 3UI U2 + u~ = O. QERRC obtains after
1.6 s an elimination result with 7 atomic formulas. This can be automatically
simplified to the QEPCAD result using Grabner basis methods built into REDLOG,
cf. [22J. RED LOG fails on this example due to a violation of the degree restrictions.
Example 9. The Enneper surface e : R2 -+ 1R3 is given by the component func-
tions 3XI + 3XIX~ - xi, 3X2 + 3X?X2 - x~, and 3xi - 3x~ for UI, U2, and U3,
respectively. From the corresponding formula
3X13x2(3xl + 3XIX~ - x~ = Ul A 3X2 + 3xix2 - x~ = u2 A 3xi - 3x~ = U3),
REDLOG can eliminate the innermost quantifier 3X2 within 200 ms. Both QEPCAD
and QERRC cannot do so. Also, none of the programs can eliminate 3XI. From the
RED LOG elimination result only QERRC can eliminate 3XI. This takes 13 minutes.
Only QEPCAD in combination with RED LOG is able to prove the equivalence of
this result to a known complex implicitization. The latter can be easily computed
using Grabner basis techniques, cf. [13J.

4.7 Automatic Theorem Proving

Calculus
Example 10. Colmerauer has proved the following theorem using PROLOG III,
cf. [15): The infinite sequence of real numbers defined by Xi+Z := IXi+11 - Xi,
where Xl and Xz are arbitrary, is always periodic, and the period is 9. Both
QEPCAD and QERRC fail to prove the theorem due to lack of memory. REDLOG
succeeds within 4 s.

Geometry
Example 11. Let M be the center of the circumcircle of a triangle ABC. Then
LACB = LAMBj2 (see Figure 4). Choosing coordinates A = (-a,O), B =
(a,O), C = (xo, Yo), and M = (0, b) and encoding angles into tangents, an
algebraic translation of this problem reads as follows:
VXVtl VtzVtVb(c2 = a 2 + b2 A c2 = x~ + (Yo - b)Z A
Yotl = a + Xo AYot2 = a - Xo A (1- tlt2)t = tl + t2 --+ bt = a).
Both QEPCAD and QERRC fail on this input. REDLOG yields after 60 ms the
quantifier-free equivalent a/;O V Xo /; 0 V Yo /; 0 containing non-degeneracy
conditions for the triangles.
242 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

Fig. 4. The angle at circumference is half the angle at center

A variant of the virtual substitution method developed by the authors has

been successfully applied to numerous examples in geometric theorem proving,
cf. [23].

4.8 Computer Aided Design, Computer Vision, and Solid Modeling

Solids correspond to connected regular closed semi-algebraic sets in 3-space,
which we describe by quantifier-free formulas.

Projections, Lighting, and Shading of Solids Projections are either parallel

or central projections of a solid onto the surface of another solid in 3-space.
Quantifier elimination can also be used for computing the shaded and lighted
parts of a solid or the boundary between these parts. All these computations
can be performed wrt. a parametric direction of the light, cf. [49].
Example 12. We consider a parametric quadric in space ofthe form { (u, v, w) E
]R3 I au 2 + bv 2 + cw 2 :::; 1} and a light ray (k, I, m). Depending on the signs of
the parameters a, b, c, this quadric is an ellipsoid, a cylinder, or a hyperboloid.
Describing the boundary between the lighted and the shaded part of the quadric
by
ax 2 + by2 + cz 2 = 1/\ -,3u3v3w3t(t f:. 0/\
au 2 + bv 2 + cw 2 :::; 1/\ u + tk = x /\ v + tl = Y /\ w + tm = z)
RED LOG obtains within 8.5 s the quantifier-free equivalent
ak 2 + bl 2 + cm 2 > 0/\ akx + bly + cmz = 0/\ ax 2 + by2 + cz 2 - 1 = O.
The converse computation to projections is to reconstruct a solid from its
image. RED LOG has been used for reconstructing a rectangular solid from its par-
allel projection within 15.6 s eliminating 15 existential quantifiers and 2 universal
quantifiers in 3 blocks, cf. [49].
 Real Quantifier Elimination in Practice 243

Offsets, Rounding, and Blending Solid modeling, cf. [30,6], is concerned

with the mathematical manipulation of solids. Typical operations on solids are
modified set operations, offset operations, e.g. shrinking and expanding, or round-
ing and blending of solids. The latter is not part of standard computer aided
design systems, since in general the range of valid solids there is not closed un-
der the operations of rounding and blending, cf. [44,45]. Representing solids by
quantifier-free formulas might be a promising approach, cf. [50] for the explicit
computation of these operations.

4.9 Collision Detection and Path Finding

Suppose quantifier-free formulas a(x, y, z) and (3(x, y, z) describe objects A and
Bin 3-space at time t = 0, and (k,l,m), (p,q,r) are velocity vectors for the
motion of A and B, respectively. Then a collision situation of A and B is char-
acterized by both objects having a point in common. This is described by the
formula 1f; == 3t(t > 01\ cp(t)), where

cp(t) == 3x3y3z(a(x - kt, y - It, z - mt) 1\ (3(x - pt, Y - qt, z - rt)).

If we eliminate the four quantifiers from 1f;, we get either "false," i.e., A and
B will never collide, or "true" which means that a collision will take place. In
the latter case, extended quantifier elimination will yield, in addition, a common
point and the corresponding time. In general, this does not describe the first
collision of A and B. In order to obtain time and location of the first contact of
the two objects, we have to apply extended quantifier elimination to the formula
3t(t > 01\ cp(t) 1\ Vt'(O < t' < t --t ,cp(t'))).
For the automatic solution of collision problems using partial CAD and RED-
LOG cf. [12] and [49], respectively.
The explicit computation of a path for a robot avoiding collision with given
obstacles is much harder than collision detection. One possible approach is to
follow the Voronoi diagram, cf. [6], of the obstacles. For the computation of
Voronoi diagrams in REDLOG cf. [49]. Another approach uses the computation
of a semi-algebraic cell decomposition of configuration space together with a
computation of adjacent cells, cf. [2,39]. In general, one wishes not only to avoid
contact to the obstacles but to keep a certain safety distance. Here one would
use offset computations discussed above.

5 Conclusions
We have given a survey of three implemented quantifier elimination methods
sketching their advantages and drawbacks for certain types of problems. Testing
their applicability to various problems in science, engineering, and economics, it
has turned out that none of them is definitely superior to the others. It can, in
contrast, be necessary to combine all three of them in order to solve a problem.
Exploring the rules governing the applicability of the various methods and de-
signing a scheduling procedure automating the generation of subproblems and
244 A. Dolzmann, T. Sturm, V. Weispfenning

their distribution to the available procedures is certainly an interesting topic for

further research in this area. The availability of a uniform interface to all imple-
mentations in RED LOG is a reasonable first step into this direction. Altogether
quantifier elimination is now at a stage where it can solve significant application
problems.

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 Hilbert Series and Degree Bounds in Invariant
Theory

Gregor Kemper

IWR, Universitat Heidelberg, 1m Neuenheimer Feld 368

69120 Heidelberg, Germany
email Gregor.KemperQivr.uni-heidelberg.de

Abstract. The Hilbert series and degree bounds play significant roles
in computational invariant theory. In the modular case, neither of these
tools is available in general. In this article three results are obtained,
which provide partial remedies for these shortcomings. First, it is shown
that the so-called extended Hilbert series, which can always be calcu-
lated by a Molien type formula, yields strong constraints on the degrees
of primary invariants. Then it is shown that for a trivial source module
the (ordinary) Hilbert series coincides with that of a lift to characteris-
tic 0 and can hence be calculated by Molien's formula. The last result is
a generalization of Gobel's degree bound to the case of monomial repre-
sentations.

Introduction

In order to study structural properties of an invariant ring k[V]G (see [13] in this
volume), it is usually necessary to calculate generating invariants for k[V]G. For
finite groups G, there exists quite an elaborate machinery for this purpose. Refer-
ences can be found in Sturmfels [22], Kemper [9,10]' and Kemper and Steel [14].
However, when the examples become larger, the difficulty of the calculations in-
creases quickly, and it becomes essential that any additional information on the
invariant ring be exploited. Let us consider the situation somewhat closer. By
Noether's normalization lemma, the problem is split into two parts, which are
of roughly equal difficulty. First one has to calculate a system of homogeneous
parameters (in the sequel abbreviated by hsop), which by definition is a system
h, . .. , In of homogeneous invariants, algebraically independent over the ground
field k, with the property that the invariant ring k[V]G is finitely generated as
a module over the subalgebra k[Il, ... ,In] generated by the hsop. The mem-
bers of an hsop are often called primary invariants. After an hsop has been
found, the second task is to calculate the (finitely many) generators of k[V]G
as a module over k[Il, ... ,In]. Such generators are usually called secondary
invariants. Together with the primary invariants, they form the desired system
of generators for the invariant ring (as a k-algebra).
Now the knowledge of the Hilbert series H(k[V]G, t) (for the definition, see
Section 1) can facilitate the computations considerably at various points:

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
250 G. Kemper

- If II, ... ,in is an hsop of k[V)G with degrees di = deg(fi), then H(k[V)G, t)
can be written in the form
G f(t)
H(k[V) ,t) = (1 _ tdl) ... (1 _ tdn) (1)

with f(t) E Z[t) a polynomial with integer coefficients. This imposes a strong
constraint on the degree vectors (d 1 , • •. ,dn ) which can occur as the degrees
of an hsop. Since it is very important for the calculation of secondary invari-
ants that the d; be chosen as small as possible (see [10)), constraints of this
kind are crucial for a smooth operation of the algorithm from [10).
- If k[V)G is Cohen-Macaulay (see [13]), then the polynomial f(t) in Equa-
tion (1) is of the form
f(t) = te, + ... + te~,
where the ei are the degrees of the secondary invariants. This reduces the
task of finding secondary invariants to pure linear algebra (see [14]). Even if
k[V)G is not Cohen-Macaulay, a Hilbert-driven approach can speed up the
usual algorithm for the calculation of secondary invariants given in [9) or
[14).
- With the knowledge of H(k[V)G, t), one can get a very simple algorithm for
the calculation of k[V)G, which does not use primary and secondary invari-
ants. In fact, for a tentative set g1, ... ,gr of generators one can calculate
the algebraic relations between the gi by [22, Subroutine 2.5.3) and use the
algorithm given by Bayer and Stillman [1) to calculate the Hilbert series of
the sub algebra k[g1,' .. ,gr)' If this Hilbert series coincides with H(k[V)G, t),
then g1,' .. ,gr generate k[V)G. Now the tentative generators can be taken to
be k-bases for the vector spaces of all invariants of degree ~ d, for increasing
values of d.

In the non-modular case (Le., when the characteristic of k is not a divisor of

the order of G), the Hilbert series can be calculated without touching a single
invariant by Molien's formula (see (2) on the facing page). Unfortunately, this
formula is not available in the modular case. In Section 1, a variant of the Hilbert
series is considered, and it is shown how it can be calculated by a generalization
of Molien's formula. Then it is shown that Equation (1) carries over for this vari-
ant of the Hilbert series, which demonstrates its significance. The kG-module
V is called a trivial source module if it is a direct summand of a permuta-
tion module. In Section 2, we show that in this case another generalization of
Molien's formula yields the ordinary Hilbert series.

If char(k) > IGI, the famous "Noether bound" says that k[V]G can be gen-
erated by invariants of degrees ~ IGI (Noether [16]). In the modular case, no
general bound on the generators is known and it has in fact been shown that
there exists no bound which only depends on the group order (see Richman [17)
or Kemper [12]). Degree bounds are very important for computational purposes,
since taking a k-basis for the vector space of invariants of degree smaller than
 Hilbert Series and Degree Bounds in Invariant Theory 251

or equal to such a bound yields generators for k[V]G, which can then be mini-
malized by linear algebra. In the case that V is a permutation module, Gobel [6]
was able to prove that the invariant ring has generators of degrees bounded by
maxin, n(n - 1)/2}, where n = dimk(V). In Section 3, we give a generalization
to the case that V is a monomial representation. We also obtain a slight simpli-
fication of Gobel's arguments and of his rewriting algorithm.

I thank Jurgen Muller for suggesting to me that one could generalize Molien's
formula to the case of trivial source modules.

1 Molien's Formula in Modular Invariant Theory

Let G be a finite group and k an algebraically closed field. Consider a linear
representation of G, Le., a finite dimensional kG-module V. Then G also acts
on the symmetric powers of V, so the symmetric algebra S(V) becomes a kG-
module. We write k(V] for the symmetric algebra, which is a polynomial ring
k[XI, ... , xn] in the vectors Xl,'" , Xn of a basis of V. We are interested in
the invariant ring k[V]G consisting of all polynomials invariant under the action
of G. More generally, if S is a simple kG-module, we can consider the largest
submodule of k[V] consisting of a direct sum of copies of S. We denote this
subspace by k[V]s. By Smith [19, p. 7] or Benson [3, p. 2], k(V]S is isomorphic
to S@EndkO(S) HomkG(S, k[V]). If S is of dimension 1, then k[V]S consists of the
relative invariants with respect to a linear character, and k[V]G = k[V]S with S
the trivial module. Clearly k[V]S is a graded vector space, Le., it is the direct
sum of its graded components k[V]~ consisting of the polynomials in k[V]S of
total degree d, and O. The Hilbert series of k[V]S is the formal power series

H(k(V]S, t) =L dimk(k(vl~)' t d •
d2:0

If the characteristic of k is zero, then the Hilbert series can easily be calculated
by Molien's celebrated formula

(2)

where Xs(a) = Trs(a) is the character associated to Sand detv is the deter-
minant of the action on V (see Benson [3, Theorem 2.5.3]; the slight difference
between our formula and Benson's arises from the fact that by Benson's conven-
tion k[V] = S(V*)). Molien's formula can easily be generalized to the case that
the characteristic of k is positive but not a divisor of IGI by taking Brauer lifts.
This case will be covered by the considerations below as well as by Section 2.

Definition 1. Let G, k and S be as above. For a graded kG-module M =

(fJd>oMd
_ with finite dimensional graded parts M d, write m1d E ~ for the num-
ber of occurrences of S in a composition series of Md as a kG-module. Then the
252 G. Kemper

formal power series

ii(M, 8, t) = dimk (8) . 2: m~d . td

d~O

will be called the extended Hilbert series of M with respect to 8.

We are interested in ii(k[V] , 8, t), which is much more accessible to calcula-
tions than the ordinary Hilbert series. If char(k) f IGI, then both types of Hilbert
series coincide, but in general they differ. We will first explain how ii(k[V], 8, t)
can be calculated, and then why it is a useful function.
Let x: G -+ C be the projective indecomposable character of 8 (see
Goldschmidt [7, p. 6-11]), which is the Brauer character of the projective cover
(principle indecomposable module) of 8. This can easily be calculated if the
Brauer character table X of G is known, the main step being an inversion of
X. Furthermore, let 'Ij;: Gpl -+ C be the Brauer character associated to the
module V (see, for example, Curtis and Reiner [5, p. 420]). Here Gpl is the
set of all elements of G whose order is not divisible by the characteristic p of
k. Note that 'Ij; depends on the choice of a primitive m-th root of unity in C
and in k, where exp(G) = m . pa with P f m. We now Brauer-lift the expres-
sion detv(l - ta) in MoHen's formula (2) as follows: let Si E qx1 , ... ,Xn ] be
the i-th elementary symmetric polynomial and Pi = 2:j=1 X;
the i-th power
sum, where n = dimk(V). By Newton's formulae (see Curtis and Reiner [5,
p. 314]), the Si can be expressed as polynomials in the Pi, so there is a polyno-
mial F E qx1 , ... ,Xn ; t] such that
n

II (1 - tXi ) = F(P1,'" ,Pn; t).

i=1

Then fora E Gp/, F ('Ij;(a) , 'Ij;(( 2 ), ... ,'Ij;(a n ); t) will be the Brauer lift of detv(1-
ta). The following theorem, which was already hinted at by Benson [3, p. 22]
and Smith [20, p. 218], gives the appropriate generalization of MoHen's formula
to the modular case.
Theorem 1. With the above notation, we have

- dimk(8) " x(a- 1 )

H(k[V],8,t) = IGI . ~G F('Ij;(a),'Ij;(a 2 ), ... ,'Ij;(an);t)"
uE p'

Proof. If 8' is a simple kG-module with Brauer character 'PSI' then 1/IGI .
'PSI (a) . x(a- 1 ) is 1 if 8 ~ 8' and 0 otherwise by Goldschmidt [7,
2:<TEG p l
Theorem 6.10]. If W is any finite dimensional kG-module and 8 1 , ... ,8T the
composition factors (with repetitions) of W, then the Brauer character associ-
ated to W is 'Pw = 2:;=1 'Ps,' Hence the multiplicity of 8 as a composition factor
ofW is
 Hilbert Series and Degree Bounds in Invariant Theory 253

We obtain the formula

-
H(k[VJ, S, t) = dimk(S)
IGI . "
L ( ,L , rpk[vld (u) . t d)-1
x(u ).
uEG p ' d2:0

Hence we must show that for u E G p ' the identity Ld2:0 rpk[vld (u) . t d
1/ F ('Ij;(u), 'Ij;(u 2 ), ••• , 'Ij;(un)j t) holds. Indeed, if 'Ij;(u) = A1 + ... + An with m-th
roots of unity Ai, we have
n
F ('Ij;(u),'Ij;(u 2 ), ••. ,'Ij;(un)jt) = II(1- tAi),
i=1
and

hence
n n n
L rpk[vld (u) . t d = L II (Ait)i< =II L(Ait)j =II (1 - tAi)-1.
d2:0 it,·.· ,jn?:o i=1 ;=1 j?:O ;=1

o
We now explain how the knowledge of the extended Hilbert series can be used
for computational purposes. The following theorem poses severe restrictions on
the degrees that can occur in an hsop of k[V]G. It is well known (and often used)
for the ordinary Hilbert series (see the Introduction).
Theorem 2. Suppose that il, ... , in E k[V]G is an hsop of k[V]G with d; =
deg(J;) (i = 1, ... , n). Then for every simple kG-module S we can write
H(k[V], S, t) in the form

- is(t)
H(k[V], S, t) = (1 _ t d1 ) ••• (1 _ t dn ) (3)

with is(t) E Z[t].

Proof. We write A = k[il, ... , in]. Then k[V] is a finitely generated graded
module over the group ring AG. We will prove the theorem for an arbitrary
finitely generated graded AG-module M. Since the graded components Md
of M are finitelY generated kG-modules, the subspace MS and the extended
Hilbert series H(M, S, t) are well defined. Now observe that MS is a graded
submodule of Mover AG. Hence the sum of all MS' for S' any simple kG-
module is also a graded submodule, which we denote by Soc(M). Now we can
recursively define M(O) = M and M(i+1) = M(i) / Soc(M(i)) for i > O. There
are canonical maps M -+ M( i), whose kernels we denote by Soci (M). Then
254 G. Kemper

Socl(M) ~ Soc 2 (M) ~ ... ~ M is an ascending sequence of A-submodules of

M, hence by Noetherianity SocNH(M) = SocN(M) for some N, so M(i) = 0
for i > N. We form M = (9i>O M(i), which is a finitely generated graded AG-
module. Now by the definition of the extended Hilbert series we have
-
H(M, S, t) = H(M
-S
, t),
where the right hand side is the ordinary Hilbert series L:d>O dimk(M%) . t d of
MS. By Hilbert's syzygy theorem (see, for example, Smith [19, Theorem 6.3.1])
there exists a finite free resolution of M S as an A-module:
o --t Fr --t ... --t FI --t Fo --t M S --t O.

With the right choices of degrees for the free generators of the Fi , all maps are
degree-preserving, and we obtain
r r
H(MS,t) = L(-l)iH(Fi ,t) = L(-l)iJ;(t)H(A,t)
i=O i=O

with J;(t) E No [t] encoding the degrees of the generators of Fi . But H(A, t) =
rr=1 (1- td;)-I (see, for example Sturmfels [22, Lemma 2.2.3]), which completes
the proof. 0

Example 1. We consider two representations of the group A5 in characteristic 2.

In this example, the Brauer characters are taken from the Atlas of Brauer Char-
acters (Jansen et al. [8]).
(a) First let V be one of the irreducible two-dimensional modules defined over
k = lF4 . We calculate the extended Hilbert series of k[V) with respect to the
trivial module S and obtain
_ t I4 + t I2 + t lO + 2t9 + 2t7 + 2t5 + t 4 + t 2 + 1
H(k[V], S, t) = (1 _ t6)(1 _ t IO )

as the representation in the form (3) with the smallest possible degrees d i . It
turns out that the smallest degrees which are possible for an hsop are dl = 5
and d2 = 12 here, which corresponds to the representation
_ t I5 + t I3 + t ll + t lO + t 9 + t S + t7 + t6 + t 5 + t 4 + t 2 + 1
H(k[VJ, S, t) = (1 _ t5)(1 _ t 12 )

with the second-lowest degrees. So it can be said that H(k[VJ, S, t) contains

very strong restrictions on the degrees of an hsop.
(b) Now we take V as the irreducible module of dimension 4, which occurs as a
submodule of the natural permutation module. Here again the representation
of H(k[V], S, t) with the second-smallest degrees di actually gives the degrees
of an optimal hsop. It is
_ t lO + t S + 3t7 + 4t6 + 6t 5 + 4t4 + 3t3 + t 2 +1
H(k[V],S,t) = (1- t2)(1- t3)(1- t4)(1- t5) . (4)
 Hilbert Series and Degree Bounds in Invariant Theory 255

2 The Hilbert Series for Trivial Source Modules

We now turn to the quest for generalizations of Molien's formula which will
yield the ordinary Hilbert function H(k[V]G, t). It has been noted that this is
easily possible in the case where G acts as a permutation group on a basis of
V, since due to the purely combinatorial description of permutation-invariant
polynomials, H(k[V]G, t) does not depend on the ground field k (see Smith [19,
Proposition 4.3.4]). We will now generalize this observation to the case where V
is a trivial source module. We assume the following situation:
Let V be a trivial source module for G over the finite field k of characteristic p,
and let (K, R, k) be a p-modular system (see, for example, Curtis and Reiner [5,
p. 402]). By Benson [2, Corollary 3.11.4], V lifts to an RG-module 11 which is
also a trivial source module. Now V := K Q9R 11 is a KG-module. Moreover, let
S be a simple trivial source module over kG and define Sand S as above. The
most important special case is that S is the trivial module. Then V and S are
defined over K, which is of characteristic 0, so the Hilbert series H(K[V]S, t)
can be calculated by Molien's formula. Now we have:

Theorem 3. In the above situation the formula

holds. In particular,
H(k[V]G, t) = H(K[V]G, t).
Proof. By assumption, there exist permutation modules P and F over kG and
RG, respectively, such that

where W and W are modules over kG and RG, respectively. For dEN, the d-th
symmetric power is
d
Sd(p) ~ EB (Si(V) Q9k Sd-i(W))
i=O

with the corresponding formula for Sd(F). Hence Sd(V) is a trivial source mod-
ule, and Sd(V) is a lifting. So by Benson [2, Corollary 3.11.4],

HOmRG(S,Sd(V))/pHomRG(S,Sd(V)) ~ HomkG(S,Sd(V)),

where p <J R is the maximal ideal. The dimension of the left hand side is equal
to

rank (HomRG(S,Sd(V))) = dimK (K Q9R HomRG(S,Sd(V)))

= dimK (HomKo(S,Sd(V)))
256 G. Kemper

by Landrock [15, Chapter I, Lemma 14.5]. We conclude

dimk (HomkG(S,Sd(V))) = dimK (HomKG(S,Sd(V))),

which completes the proof. o
If the order of G is not divisible by p (for which we say that G is a pi_groUp),
then every kG-module is a trivial source module by the theorem of Maschke.
Furthermore, if W is a trivial source module for a subgroup H :::; G, then the
induced module Ind~(W) is also a trivial source module (see Thevenaz [23,
Corollary 27.4]). Hence every module which is induced from a pi-subgroup is
a trivial source module. An important class of examples are monomial repre-
sentations, Le., modules induced from a one-dimensional module of a subgroup.
Examples of trivial source modules which are not induced from pi-subgroups
can be obtained by taking a permutation module P = EBf=l kei with p f nand
V = {aIel + ... + an en E Pial + ... + an = O}. Then the sequence

O-+V-+P-+k-+O

splits, so V is a trivial source module.

Example 2. We considered a representation of the above type in Example l(b),
where the group was A 5 • Lifting the representation to characteristic 0 and ap-
plying Molien's formula yields

A comparison with Equation (4) illustrates the differences and similarities be-
tween the ordinary and the extended Hilbert series.
Corollary 1. Suppose that V is a trivial source module. Then the degree of
H(k[V]G, t) as a rational function in t is bounded from above by -n, where
n = dim(V).
Proof. This follows from Theorem 3, since Molien's formula holds for K[V]G,
and the degree of each summand in Molien's formula is -no 0

In general, invariant rings of trivial source modules do not have any nice
properties such as the Cohen-Macaulay property or the property that they obey
Noether's degree bound (see Kemper [11, Corollary 2.4] and [12]). However, we
do get some degree bound for the invariants of trivial source modules. We write

,B(k[V]G) = min{d E N I k[V]G can be generated by invariants of degrees:::; d}.

Theorem 4. Suppose that V is a trivial source module, embedded as a direct
summand in a permutation module of dimension m. Then
m(m -1)
,B(k[V]G) :::; maxim, 2 }.
 Hilbert Series and Degree Bounds in Invariant Theory 257

Proof. We have a split epimorphism P --» V of kG-modules, where P is the

permutation module of dimension m. This induces an epimorphism k[P] --» k[V]
of the symmetric algebras, which is also split. Hence the induced map k[P]G -+
k[V]G is surjective, and the inequality
)3(k[V]G) ::; )3(k[P]G)
follows. But by Gobel [6], )3(k[P]G) is bounded from above by max{ m, m(m -
1)/2}, which yields the assertion. 0
Suppose that V is a monomial representation of dimension n, induced from
a linear character X whose values are m-th roots of unity. Then V is a direct
summand of a permutation module P of dimension nm, and Theorem 4 yields

)3(k[V]G) ::; max{ mn, mn(m2n - I)}.

In the next section we will show that we can obtain a much better degree bound.

3 A Degree Bound for Monomial Representations

In this section we assume the following situation: Let R be a commutative ring
with unity and J-L ::; R X a finite subgroup of exponent m of the units in R.
Further, for n E N, let

Sn = {7r' (0: 1
". 0) I 7r is an n x n permutation matrix, O:i E J-L} ::; GLn(R)
o O:n

and G ::; Sn a subgroup. G acts on the module V = Rn and also on the symmetric
algebra R[V], which is the polynomial ring R[Xl' ... ,xn ] in the standard basis
vectors Xi of V. Our goal is to establish the degree bound
G n(n + 1)
)3(R[V] )::; max{mn,m· 2 - n}
for the invariant ring. We introduce some notation. We write Si =
Si(xi", ... ,x~), where Si is the i-th elementary symmetric polynomial (i
1, ... ,n), and
M={x11···X~ I eiENo}, T={a·tIO#aER, tEM}
for the set of monomials and terms, respectively. For f E R[V] with f =
L:tEM at' t let T(f) = {at' t I at # O} CT. For t E T, set

orbG(t) = L t' E R[VJG.

t'E{<T(t)J <TEG}

Note that every element of the orbit enters only once into the sum.
The following lemma shows that the Si take the same role of a "universal
hsop" for subgroups of Sn as do the elementary symmetric polynomials for per-
mutation groups.
258 G. Kemper

LeInIna 1. R[V)Sn = R[Sl,'" , sn). In fact, the Si form a SAGBI-basis of

R[V)Sn (see, for example, Robbiano and Sweedler [iB}).

Proof. We obviously have R[V]Sn = R[xj", ... , x~]Sn. Thus the lemma follows
from the corresponding property of the elementary symmetric polynomials. 0

The lemma gives us a simple algorithm to represent any invariant of Sn as

a polynomial in the h We now come to a generalization of Gobel's concept of
"special" terms.

Definition 2. Let t = a . X~l ... x~n E T.

(a) We call t special if there is a k E ~ such that

{[el/m], ... , [en/m]} = {O, 1, ... , k},

where [z] denotes the greatest integer::; z. The set of all special monomials
in M is denoted by M. pec '
(b) Generally, obtain a special term t = a . Xfl ... x~n from t by applying the fol-
lowing step iteratively: Let k E ~ be minimal with k fJ. {[el/m] , ... , [en/m]},
and lower all ei with [edm] > k by m. Repeat this step until there are no
t
such ei. Then we write = Red(t).

Remark i. With the notation of Definition 2, Red(t) is special and

The (total) degree of a special term t is bounded by

n(n + 1)
deg(t) ::; (m - 1) + (2m - 1) + ... + (nm - 1) = m . 2 - n.

It follows that M. pec is a finite set.

LeInIna 2. For t E T and II E Sn we have:

(a) II(Red(t)) = Red(lI(t)),

(b) II(Red(t)) = Red(t) -<==> lI(t) = t.
Proof·

(a) Write II = 7r·diag( ai, ... , an) with 7r a permutation matrix and ai E 1-'. Since
the exponents of t and Red(t) are congruent modulo m, diag(a1, ... , an)
commutes with Red. The same is true for 7r by the definition of Red(t).
(b) By (a) we have II(Red(t)) = Red(lI(t)). Hence if lI(t) = t, then II(Red(t)) =
Red(t). If, on the other hand, II(Red(t)) = Red(t), then Red(lI(t)) = Red(t),
so lI(t) and t have the same coefficient a. As the application of Red does not
change the ordering of the exponents (Remark 1), we conclude lI(t) = t. 0
 Hilbert Series and Degree Bounds in Invariant Theory 259

Definition 3. We define a relation >- on T as follows: For t = axr' ... x~n and
t' = a' x~~ ... x~~ choose permutations 7r and 7r' E Sn such that e"'(l) :::: e,..(2) ::::
... :::: e,..(n) and e~'(l) :::: ... :::: e~'(n)' Then we say that t >- t' if there exists a
k E {I, ... ,n} with

e,..(i) = e~'(i) for i <k and e,..(k) > e~'(k)'

We write t :::; t' if t >- t' does not hold.

Remark 2. Clearly, the relations >- and :::; are transitive, and for t E T there
exists no infinite sequence 81, S2, .•. E T with

But :::; is not an ordering even when restricted to M, since t :::; t' and t' :::; t fail
to imply t = t'.
We can come to the central lemma now (compare Lemma 3.10 in Gobel [6]).

Lemma 3. Let t E T be a term and set u = t/Red(t) EM. Then we have

(a) t>- 8 for all s E T(orbsn (U) . Red(t) - t),

(b) t>- s for all 8 E T (orbSn (U) . orba(Red(t)) - orba(t)).

Proof.

(a) Obviously t lies in T(orbs n (u) . Red(t)). We have to show that t >- s for all
other s E T(orbs n (u) . Red(t)). So take such an 8 and assume that t :::; 8.
Clearly 8 = 7r(U) . Red(t) with 7r E Sn. If we can show that 7r(u) = u, then
8 = t and (a) is proved.
Let t = axr' ... x~n, Red(t) = axf' ... x~n and U = xt, ... x~n, where we may
assume by renaming the Xi thatel:::: e2 :::: ... :::: en. Then the construction of
Red(t) and Remark 1 imply el :::: ... :::: en and d l :::: ... :::: d n. The exponents
of 8 are el + d,..(l) , ... ,en +d,..(n)· Let k be maximal with dl = d2 = ... = d k •
Then t :::; 8 implies that 7r must permute the set {Xl,'" ,xd, since the
greatest exponents of t and 8 must coincide. Proceeding analogously for
the second-highest degrees dk+1, ... ,dz, we conclude that 7r also permutes
{Xk+l,'" ,xt}, and finally arrive at 7r(u) = u.
(b) For a E G we have by (a)

a(t) >- 8 for all 8 E T (orbsn (Re:(~(t))) . Red(a(t)) - a(t)) ,

hence also t >- 8 for these 8. But by Lemma 2(a)

a(t) )
orbsn ( Red(a(t)) . Red(a(t)) = orbsn (a(u)) . a(Red(t))
= orbsn(u) . a(Red(t)),
260 G. Kemper

where the last equation follows since u acts on u by permuting the Xi because
the exponents of u are divisible by m. We obtain

t >- s for all sET (orbs n (u) . u(Red(t)) - u(t)) .

Now by Lemma 2(b) the u E G fixing t are the same that fix Red(t), so
summation over coset representatives u of Stab(t) ~ G yields the result. D
We obtain the reduction algorithm listed on the current page.

Input: An invariant j E R[V)G.

Output: For each t E Mspec a polynomial Pt in n indeterminates such that

j= L Pt(81, ... ,8 n )·orba(t).

tEMspec

Begin
for t E Mspec set Pt := 0;
while j =f. 0 do
choose t E T(J) that is maximal w.r.t. >-;
compute Red(t) =: a· t with t E Mspec;
set u:= tf Red(t);
calculate a polynomial P such that orbsn (u) = p( 81, ... , 8n );
set pt:= pt + a . P;
set j := f - orbs (u) ·orba(Red(t))
n

end while
end.
Algorithm!. Write an invariant in terms of special orbit sums and 8i

It is clear that this algorithm is correct if it terminates. For the proof of its
termination we need the following observation.
Lemma 4. If j E R[V)a is an invariant andt E T(J), then T(orba(t)) C T(J).

Proof. This follows from the fact that G acts on T. D

Proposition 5 Algorithm 1 terminates after a finite number of steps.

Proof. Each pass through the while-loop replaces j by

j - orba(t) + (orba(t) - orbsn (u) . orba(Red(t))) .

By Lemma 4, all terms in orba(t) are also terms in j, and by Lemma 3(b),
all terms in (orba(t) - orbsn (u) . orba(Red(t))) are strictly smaller than t. So
 Hilbert Series and Degree Bounds in Invariant Theory 261

there are some maximal terms removed from f, and only strictly smaller terms
are added. Hence after a finite number of steps the maximum of T(J) w.r.t. >-
decreases strictly, and iterating further eventually yields f = 0 by Remark 2. 0
Theorem 6. The following degree bounds hold independently of the choice of
R:
(a) The invariant ring R[V)G is generated as a module over A = R[Sl, ... ,sn)
by homogeneous invariants gl, ... ,gr satisfying

n(n + 1)
deg(gi) ~ m . 2 - n.

(b) R[V)G is generated as an algebra over R by invariants whose degrees are

bounded from above by

n(n + 1)
max{mn,m· 2 -n}.

Proof. Part (a) follows from the algorithm and the degree estimate in Remark 1,
and (b) follows since deg(si) ~ mn. 0

The following remark shows that the bound from Theorem 6(a) is very nat-
ural and in many cases sharp.

Remark 3. Consider the special case that R is a field k whose characteristic does
not divide the group order IGI. Then k[V)G is Cohen-Macaulay. Let el, ... ,e r be
the degrees of the secondary invariants. Using Molien's formula for the Hilbert
series of k[V)G, Stanley obtained the equation [21, Proposition 3.8)

~ n(n+ 1)
max{el, ... ,e r } = L.,,(deg(si) -1) -I = m· 2 - n -I,
A

i=l
where I is the least degree of a homogeneous f E k[V) with a(J) = det(a)-l . f
for all a E G. This implies the bound from Theorem 6(a), and we see that in
our special case the bound is sharp if and only if G ~ SLn(k). Hence what we
have done is the generalization of a long-known result of non-modular invariant
theory to the case of arbitrary ground rings.

4 Some Conjectures
Since faithful monomial representations are induced from cyclic subgroups of
order not divisible by the characteristic k, it is natural to ask for a further
generalization to the case of a representation which is induced from any p'-
subgroup. More precisely, suppose that H is a finite group, k a field of char-
acteristic p not dividing IHI, and let W be a kH-module of dimension m.
Fix n E N, then the wreath product Sn = H I Sn has a natural action on
V = Efl7=1 Wi with Wi ~ W. Now we consider subgroups G ~ Sn. Let Xl, ... ,X m
262 G. Kemper

be a basis of Wand Xi,1, ... ,Xi,n the corresponding basis of Wi. Fix an hsop
!I(X1, ... ,xm),· .. ,im(Xl>'" ,Xm) of k[W)H and write J;,j = h(Xi,1,'" ,Xi,m)
E k[W;)H. Then, as in the previous section, we obtain a "universal hsop" for all
subgroups G ~ Sn by taking

ii,j = sd!I,j,'" ,In,j) (i = 1, ... ,n, j = 1, ... ,m),

where Si are the elementary symmetric functions. In the previous section, it was
essential that G acted by permutations on the set of terms. This feature can
be generalized to the situation considered here by assigning to Xi,j the multi-
degree (0, ... ,0,1,0, ... ,0) with 1 in the i-th position. This yields a direct sum
decomposition of k[V) into multi-homogeneous components with the property
that every element of G maps each component into another one. The author
has been unsuccessful in his efforts to find an appropriate definition of special
multi-degrees and to generalize the arguments from Section 3. The goal would
be to prove

Conjecture 1. With the above notation, let G ~ Sn and take the ii,j as primary
invariants for G. Then for the secondary invariants 9i ofk[V)G we have

n(n + 1)
deg(9i) ~ 2 . (deg(!I) + ... + deg(fn)) - nm.

This conjecture would be an instance of a much more general conjecture

made by Harm Derksen at the Workshop on Computational Invariant Theory
held in April/May 1996 as part of the DFG-Schwerpunkt:

Conjecture 2. Suppose that G is a finite group, k a field and V a finitely gen-

erated kG-module. If !I, ... ,in is an hsop of k[V)G then the degrees of the
secondary invariants are bounded from above by :2:7=1 (deg(j;) - 1).

There is a lot of computational evidence for this conjecture. For the case
where k[V]G is Cohen-Macaulay, it would be a consequence of yet another con-
jecture on the degree of the Hilbert series:

Conjecture 3. Under the hypotheses of Conjecture 2, we have the bound

for the degree of the Hilbert series as a rational function in t.

For the special case that V is a trivial source module, this is Corollary 1, and
if the Hilbert series is replaced by the extended Hilbert series, the conjecture
follows from Theorem 1. The degree of the Hilbert series is also called the a-
invariant and has some connection to local cohomology (see Bruns and Herzog [4,
p. 169]).
 Hilbert Series and Degree Bounds in Invariant Theory 263

References
1. Dave Bayer, Mike Stillman, Computation of Hilbert Functions, J. Symbolic Com-
putation 14 (1992), 31-50.
2. David J. Benson, Representations and Cohomology I, Cambridge studies in ad-
vanced mathematics 30, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 1991.
3. David J. Benson, Polynomial Invariants of Finite Groups, Lond. Math. Soc. Lec-
ture Note Ser. 190, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 1993.
4. Winfried Bruns, Jiirgen Herzog, Cohen-Macaulay Rings, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge 1993.
5. Charles W. Curtis, Irving Reiner, Methods of Representation Theory, vol. 1, J.
Wiley & Sons, New York 1981.
6. Manfred Gobel, Computing Bases for Rings of Permutation-invariant Polynomials,
J. Symbolic Computation 19 (1995), 285-291.
7. David M. Goldschmidt, Lectures on Character Theory, Publish or Perish, Inc.,
Berkeley 1980.
8. Christoph Jansen, Klaus Lux, Richard Parker, Robert Wilson, An Atlas of Brauer
Characters, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995.
9. Gregor Kemper, Calculating Invariant Rings of Finite Groups over Arbitrary
Fields, J. Symbolic Computation 21 (1996),351-366.
10. Gregor Kemper, Calculating Optimal Homogeneous Systems of Parameters,
Preprint 97-08, IWR, Heidelberg, 1997, submitted.
11. Gregor Kemper, On the Cohen-Macaulay Property of Modular Invariant Rings,
Preprint 97-38, IWR, Heidelberg, 1997, submitted.
12. Gregor Kemper, Lower Degree Bounds for Modular Invariants and a Question of
1. Hughes, Transformation Groups (1998, to appear).
13. Gregor Kemper, Gunter Malle, Invariant rings and fields of finite groups, this
volume.
14. Gregor Kemper, Allan Steel, Some Algorithms in Invariant Theory of Finite
Groups, in: P. Drfuder, G.O. Michler, C. M. Ringel, eds., Proceedings of the Euro-
conference on Computational Methods for Representations of Groups and Algebras,
Progress in Mathematics, Birkhiiuser, Basel 1998 (to appear).
15. Peter Landrock, Finite Group Algebras and their Modules, Lond. Math. Soc. Lec-
ture Note Ser. 84, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 1983.
16. Emmy Noether, Der Endlichkeitssatz der Invarianten endlicher Gruppen, Math.
Ann. 77 (1916), 89-92.
17. David R. Richman, Invariants of Finite Groups over Fields of Characteristic p,
Adv. in Math. 124 (1996), 25-48.
18. Lorenzo Robbiano, Moss Sweedler, Subalgebra Bases, in: W. Bruns, A. Simis, eds.,
Commutative Algebra, Lecture Notes in Math. 1430, pp. 61-87, Springer-Verlag,
New York 1990.
19. Larry Smith, Polynomial Invariants of Finite Groups, A. K. Peters, Wellesley,
Mass. 1995.
20. Larry Smith, Polynomial Invariants of Finite Groups: A Survey of Recent Devel-
opments, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 34 (1997), 211-250.
21. Richard P. Stanley, Invariants of Finite Groups and their Applications to Comb i-
natorics, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 1(3) (1979), 475-511.
22. Bernd Sturmfels, Algorithms in Invariant Theory, Springer-Verlag, Wien, New
York 1993.
23. Jacques Thevenaz, G-Algebras and Modular Representation Theory, Clarendon
Press, Oxford 1995.
 Invariant Rings and Fields of Finite Groups

Gregor Kemper and Gunter Malle

IWR der Universitat Heidelberg
1m Neuenheimer Feld 368
69120 Heidelberg
Germany

Abstract. We consider polynomials and rational functions which are

invariant under the action of a finite linear group. The aim is to give a
survey over the knowledge on some structural properties of such rings
and fields of invariants. Particular emphasis lies on the modular case,
where the characteristic of the ground field divides the group order.

1 Introduction
The study of rings and fields of invariants of linear groups has a long history. In
classical invariant theory, which had its golden age before and around the turn
of the century, the focus was on continuous groups such as SL 2 (C) and their
representations. Recently invariant theory has undergone a renaissance, which is
due to the emergence of better algorithms and machinery for the computation,
and a new interest in the modular case, which in some aspects parallels modular
representation theory.
In this paper we restrict our attention to invariants of finite groups, but the
ground fields will be arbitrary. We look at various structural properties which
rings or fields of invariants can have, and ask for connections between these
properties and properties of the group or the representation in question. For
example, it is a natural question whether the ring of invariants is isomorphic
to a polynomial ring, or whether the field of invariants is purely transcenden-
tal. Weakening the condition of polynomiality, we get a hierarchy of properties
which rings of invariants can have. In particular, we will address the complete
intersection property, the Gorenstein property and the Cohen-Macaulay prop-
erty. When writing the paper we were inspired by the beautiful survey article
of Stanley [29], who 20 years ago considered the same properties of rings of
invariants but focused on the non-modular case.
The first section of this paper is intended as an account of the present-day
knowledge on these question, with special emphasis on the peculiarities in the
modular case. In the course of the paper we will particularly stress the exam-
ple of groups generated by pseudo-reflections for which recently a number of
new results could be shown. These groups are interesting since in characteristic
zero they are exactly the groups whose rings of invariants are polynomial rings.
On the other hand, they provide good examples to illustrate the differences be-
tween the modular and the characteristic zero theory, since over fields of positive

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
266 G. Kemper, G. Malle

characteristic there exist reflection groups whose invariants are not even Cohen-
Macaulay. As general reading on invariant theory we refer to the books [2,27,
30] of Benson, Smith and Sturmfels.
Pseudo-reflection groups make another appearance in the second section of
this paper, where we consider fields of invariants and ask whether they are purely
transcendental ("Noether's problem"). As it turns out, the fields of invariants of
irreducible pseudo-reflection groups are always purely transcendental, even in the
modular case. This illustrates how different the behavior of fields of invariants
and rings of invariants can be. Noether's problem is a natural and interesting
question on the structure of fields of invariants, but it also has applications in
the construction of so-called generic polynomials for certain Galois extensions.
We will explain this connection to Galois theory and give a few examples.

2 Rings of Invariants
Let k be a field and V a finite dimensional vector space over k. Let G :::; GL(V)
be a finite linear group on V. Then G also acts in a natural way on the symmetric
algebra k[V] of V. We are interested in the structure of the ring of invariants

k[V]G = {f E k[V] I a I = I for all a E G}

of G in this action. By choosing a basis {Xl, ... , xn} of V we may identify

the symmetric algebra k[V] with the polynomial ring k[XI' ... ,xn]. Putting the
generators Xi in degree 1 this endows k[V] and hence k[V]G with the structure of
a graded k-algebra. Moreover by the theorem of Hilbert-Noether k[V]G is finitely
generated as k-algebra. In the following section we recall some general notions
and results for finitely generated graded k-algebras (which can be found in [2],
for example) before looking more closely at invariant rings.

2.1 Properties of Graded Algebras

Let A be a finitely generated commutative graded k-algebra, so
00

A=E9 A
i=O
i with Ao = k.

By the Noether normalization theorem there exist algebraically independent

homogeneous elements Jr, ... , In E A such that A is a finitely generated mod-
ule over k[Jr, ... , In], where n = dim A is the Krull-dimension of A. Such a
set {fl,"" In} is called a homogeneous system 01 parameters for A. The al-
gebra A is called Cohen-Macaulay if A is a free module over k[JI,"" In] for
some (and then for all) homogeneous systems of parameters {fl,"" In}. An
equivalent definition is the following: A is Cohen-Macaulay if there exist homo-
geneous Jr, ... , In E A of positive degree such that Ii is not a zero divisor in
Aj(fl,"" !;-r), for i = 1, ... , n. Such a sequence Jr, ... , In is called a regular
 Invariant Rings and Fields of Finite Groups 267

sequence, and it turns out that if A is Cohen-Macaulay, then every homogeneous

system of parameters is a regular sequence.
We shall now introduce some further properties of graded algebras which are
more special than the Cohen-Macaulay property. Consider the Hilbert series of
A, which is by definition the formal power series

L dim(A;) t; .
00

H(A, t) :=
;=0

By the theorem of Hilbert-Serre, for any choice {It, . .. , f n} of a homogeneous

system of parameters, this power series can be written in the form

with d; = deg(f;),
for some Laurent polynomial get) with integer coefficients. It is not surprising
that H(A, t) contains a lot of information about the structure of A. For example,
one can define the Gorenstein property by saying that A is Gorenstein if it is a
Cohen-Macaulay domain and its Hilbert-series as a rational function in t satisfies

(1)

for some 1 E Z. By the "original definition" of the Gorenstein property, a Cohen-

Macaulay algebra A is said to be Gorenstein if the canonical module for A is
isomorphic to A. It is a theorem of Stanley that this definition coincides with ours
for domains, see [28J. We will say that A is strongly Gorenstein if 1 = dim (A)
in (1). One can check that our notion of strongly Gorenstein coincides with
Benson's notion of graded Gorenstein, which imposes a condition on the degree
of the isomorphism between A and its canonical module.
A k-algebra A is called a complete intersection if it has a presentation as

(2)
for some m ~ 0, where n = dim(A). Let us explain why this property im-
plies the Gorenstein property. Indeed, take polynomials gm+1, ... ,gm+n E R :=
k[It, ... , fn+mJ whose images in A form a homogeneous system of parame-
ters of A. Then Rj (gb ... ,gm+n) is finitely generated as a k-vector space,
which by Nakayama's lemma (as stated in [27, Cor 5.2.5], for example) implies
that R is finitely generated as a module over k[g1, ... ,gm+nJ. In other words,
{g1, ... , gm+n} form a homogeneous system of parameters for R. But choosing
{it, ... , f n+m} as a homogeneous system of parameters shows that R is Cohen-
Macaulay, hence 91, ... , 9m+n is a regular sequence. Therefore, the images of
9m+!, ... ,9m+n are a regular sequence in A, hence A is Cohen-Macaulay. Now
we must verify Equation (1) for the Hilbert series of A. A slight generalization
of what we said about the Cohen-Macaulay property (see [27, Cor 6.2.8]) al-
lows us to conclude from the regularity of g1, ... ,gm that R is free as a module
over k[91,'" ,9mJ. If S is a minimal set of homogeneous generators for Rover
268 G. Kemper, G. Malle

k[gl, ... , gm] and H(S, t) is the formal power series whose i-th coefficient is the
number of generators in S of degree i, then we obtain the equation

H(S t) = H(R, t) = rr~l (1 - t e,)

, H(k[gl" .. , gm], t) rr~~lm(l - t d ,),

where deg(fi) = di , deg(gi) = ei. On the other hand, the image of S under the
canonical map R -r A is a basis of A as a vector space over k by Nakayama's
lemma, hence H(A, t) = H(S, t). Together with the above equation we obtain
that the Hilbert series of a complete intersection A is of the form

H(A t) = rr~l (1 - t e ,) (3)

, rr~~lm(l- t d ,)'
so indeed it satisfies Equation (I).
We remark that a complete intersection with m = 1 is also called a hypersur-
face. The geometric idea behind this term is obvious. Finally, the most special
property that we consider is that A is (isomorphic to) a polynomial ring, or, in
other words, a complete intersection with m = O. In summary, we have reached
the following hierarchy between the properties:

polynomial => complete intersection => Gorenstein => Cohen-Macaulay.

Invariant rings of finite groups. Much of the theory of graded algebras was
prompted by the study of rings of invariants, and indeed it seems that rings
of invariants are not very much better behaved than graded algebras which
are domains in general. We will however mention a few special features here
before coming to the one-by-one investigation of the above properties for rings
of invariants.
Most importantly, the study of rings of invariants subdivides naturally into
two quite different cases. Either the characteristic of k divides the order of G
(the modular case), or it does not (the so-called coprime characteristic case). In
the latter case, much more is known about the structure of k[V)G. For example,
it is known that then k[V)G is always Cohen-Macaulay (see Th. 2.1O). This is
no longer true in the modular case. Furthermore, in the coprime characteristic
case the Hilbert series of the ring of invariants may be calculated by Molien's
formula: for any linear character X of G the Hilbert series for the module of
relative invariants

k[V)~ = {! E k[V) I a(f} = x(a}f for all a E G}

is given by
G 1" x(a- 1 }
(4)
H(k[V]x' t} = TGT G detv(l - at}'
L.J
uE

In the modular case, there is no such simple formula for H(k[Vf,t} (but see
the paper [13] of the first author in this volume).
 Invariant Rings and Fields of Finite Groups 269

We note that in the situation where A = k[V]G is a ring of invariants (and G

finite), the Krull dimension of A is equal to the k-dimension of V. Furthermore,
a homogeneous system of parameters for A is also called a system of primary
invariants. Given primary invariants II, ... , f n, a system of generators g1, ... , g.
of k[V]G as a module over k[II, ... , fn] is called a system of secondary invariants
ofG.
m

2.2 Polynomial Rings

We first consider the question under which conditions the ring of invariants
k[V]G of a finite group is a polynomial ring.

General criteria. In characteristic 0 the question of polynomiality has found

a beautiful complete answer. The criterion for polynomial invariant rings can
be given in terms of certain types of elements of the linear group G. In order
to describe this we introduce the following notation. An element CT E GL(V) is
called a (pseudo-}reflection if dim(ker(CT - 1)) = dim(V) - 1, Le., if CT fixes a
hyperplane pointwise and CT "# 1. Note that all elements in finite linear groups
G over a field of characteristic 0 are diagonalizable. Diagonalizable reflections
will also be called homologies, while non-diagonalizable reflections are called
transvections.

Theorem 2.1. (Chevalley, Serre, Shephard/Todd) Let G ~ GLn(k) have order

prime to the characteristic of k. Then the ring of invariants of G is polynomial
if and only if G is generated by pseudo-reflections.

This theorem was first proved by Shephard/Todd [26] for the field k = C of
complex numbers. For one direction of the proof they needed to classify all ir-
reducible finite groups generated by complex pseudo-reflections. (The reduction
to the irreducible case is trivial here, since all complex representations of finite
groups are completely reducible.) Later, Chevalley [5] gave a conceptual proof
avoiding the classification. The statement for arbitrary, but coprime character-
istic was given by Serre [25]. In that same paper, he also showed a necessary
condition in the case that the characteristic divides the order of G. Here the
centralizers
GG(W) = {CT E G I CTW = w for all wE W}
of subspaces W ~ Venter the picture:

Theorem 2.2. (Serre) Let G ~ GL(V) be a finite group such that k[V]G is poly-
nomial. Then G is generated by pseudo-reflections, and the point-wise stabilizer
of any subspace of V has polynomial ring of invariants {and thus is generated by
pseudo-reflections} .

A necessary and sufficient criterion, which is useful in studying explicitly

given examples, was proved by the first author in [11]:
270 G. Kemper, G. Malle

Proposition 2.1. (Kemper) Let G :::; GL(V) be finite. Then k[V]G is polyno-
mial if and only if there exist n = dim(V) homogeneous invariants h, ... , In E
k[V]G such that the Jacobian determinant det«81;f8xj);'j) is nonzero and IGI =
07=1 deg(f;).
Irreducible groups. By the Theorem of Serre (Theorem 2.2) a finite group
with polynomial invariants is necessarily generated by reflections. In the case
of irreducible linear groups, the authors also found a sufficient criterion. Note
that an irreducible linear group generated by reflections is already absolutely
irreducible.
Theorem 2.3. (Kemper/Malle) Let V be a finite-dimensional vector space, G :::;
GL(V) a finite irreducible linear group generated by pseudo-reflections such that
the pointwise stabilizer in G of any nontrivial subspace of V has a polynomial
ring of invariants. Then k[V]G is a polynomial ring.
The proof of Theorem 2.3 in [14] is similar in spirit to the one of Shep-
hard/Todd in the complex case, in that it uses the classification of finite ir-
reducible linear groups generated by pseudo-reflections. This classification was
achieved by Kantor, Wagner and Zalesskii/Serezkin (see [14] for a precise state-
ment of this classification). As a by-product of the proof of Theorem 2.3 we
obtained a complete list of the irreducible reflection groups with polynomial
ring of invariants. This is reproduced in the form of Table 2.4.

As a corollary of the proof we can also verify the following assertion, which
is in partial confirmation of a conjecture of Kac [9]:
Corollary 2.1. Let G :::; GL(V) be a finite irreducible linear group containing
no transvections. Then k[V]G is polynomial if and only if the pointwise stabilizer
in G of any subspace of V is generated by pseudo-reflections.
The example of the transvection group Sp4(2) in its natural 4-dimensional
representation over lF2 shows that the assumption that G contains no transvec-
tions is necessary in Corollary 2.1 (see [14, Ex. 2.2]) .
The following example shows that even when a complex linear group and its
p-modular reduction are isomorphic and both have polynomial invariants, the
degrees of generating invariants and hence the corresponding Hilbert series need
not coincide:
Example 2.1. Let G :::; GL 3(iC) be the primitive complex reflection group of
order 648 denoted G25 by Shephard and Todd [26]. Its ring of invariants is
polynomial with algebraically independent generators in degrees 6,9,12. Let L
be a G-invariant Z2[R]-lattice in ca and consider its 2-modular reduction.
This yields a 3-dimensional reflection representation of G in characteristic 2.
According to [14, Table 6.2] this identifies G with the 3-dimensional unitary
group GU 3(2) :::; GL3(4). Here, the ring of invariants is also polynomial, but the
generators are in degrees 3,9,24.
 Invariant Rings and Fields of Finite Groups 271

Table 2.4 The irreducible reflection groups

G ~ GLn(k), char(k) =p k[V]G polynomial K[V]G not polynomial

G imprimitive all -
n = dim(V) ~ 2 all -
SLn(Pf) ~ G ~ GLn(pf) all -
n~±)(pf) <G ~ GO~±)(pf), G03(Pf), R+03(Pf), all other
G =F SO~±)(pf) G0 4 (pf)
SUn(Pf) ~ G ~ GUn(pf) GU3(Pf) all other
G = SPn(Pf), n 2: 4 even - all
G=6n+l,pl(n+l) all -
G = 6 n+2, pl(n + 2), - all
n2:5
G = Wp(G i ) W7(G 24 ), W3(G28), W3(G30 ),
= 23, ... ,37),
(i all except -t W5(G30 ), W3(G31), W 5(G32),
G = EJa(5),G = J4(4) W3(G33), W2(G34 ), W3(G36 ),
W3(G37), W 5(G37)

Nilpotent groups. The rings of invariants of p-groups generated by reflections

where p is the characteristic of k, (Le., by transvections), have been studied by
Nakajima. The question of polynomiality of the ring of invariants could only be
settled completely for pseudo-reflection groups over the prime field IF'p. In fact,
the following result covers a larger class of groups, which includes all nilpotent
groups:

Theorem 2.5. (Nakajima) Let G ::; GLn(IF'p) be the direct product of a p-group
P with a pi -group H. Then k[v1G is polynomial if and only if
i) H is generated by pseudo-reflections, and
ii) there exists a basis {Xl, ... , xn} of V = JF; such that
n
II IP.xil = IFI
i=l

and the E9{=1 kXi are kP-submodules of V for 1 ::; j ::; n.

This was proved in [21, Th. 1.4].

Unique factorization domains. An obvious question to ask about a ring of

invariants is whether it is a unique factorization domain. This property does not
272 G. Kemper, G. Malle

fit into the hierarchy stated in Section 2.1, but it has a strong connection to
pseudo-reflections, as the following theorem by Nakajima shows.

Theorem 2.6. (Nakajima) Let G be a finite group. Then k(V]G is a unique

factorization domain if and only if any non-trivial homomorphism G ~ P is
non-trivia I on some reflection of G.

A proof can be found in [2, Cor. 3.9.3]. The theorem implies that rings of in-
variants of pseudo-reflection groups and of p-groups, where p is the characteristic
of k, are always unique factorization domains.

2.3 Complete Intersections

Let us say that a linear group G ~ GL(V) is a CI-group if the ring of invariants
k[V]G is a complete intersection. The following example shows that there are
CI-groups whose ring of invariants is not polynomial

Example 2.2. Let k be a field of characteristic different from 2 and G = Z2 the

cyclic group of order two acting by scalar matrices on V = k 2 • Then

with /I = xi, h = x~, hI = XIX2, is a complete intersection, but not a polyno-

mial ring by Theorem 2.2. Here, this can also be seen from the Hilbert series

1 + t2
H(k[V]G, t) = (1 _ t 2)2 .
In view of the fact that Theorem 2.1 fails in the modular case, it seems
interesting to determine which modular reflection groups are at least CI-groups.
This question is still open at present, even the irreducible case has not been
settled. The following partial results have been obtained:

Theorem 2.7. (Carlisle/Kropholler) The transvection groups G = SP2n(Q) in

their natural matrix representation are CI-groups.

A proof can be found in [2, Thm. 8.3.11]. All exceptional irreducible pseudo-
reflection CI-groups are known (by what we said above, they must be among
the groups in the lower right-hand corner of Table 2.4):

Proposition 2.2. (Kemper/Malle) Let G be an exceptional complex reflection

group such that its p-modular reduction Wp(G) is isomorphic to G, still acts
irreducibly, and is not isomorphic to a classical group. Then Wp(G) occurs in
Table 2.8 and k[V]Wp(G) is a complete intersection but not a polynomial ring if
and only if the corresponding entry is 'CI'.
 Invariant Rings and Fields of Finite Groups 273

Table 2.8 Non-polynomial invariant rings for exceptional reflection groups

G dim IWp(G)1 2 3 5 7
G24 3 336 - pol pol CI
G 28 4 1152 - CI pol pol
G 30 4 14400 - CI ROt(5) pol
G 3l 4 46080 - CI pol pol
G32 4 155520 - - nCI pol
G 33 5 51840 - R-Os(3) pol pol
G 34 6 19595520 CI - - -
G 36 7 2903040 - nCI pol pol
G37 8 696729600 - nCI nCI pol

The entries - indicate that either Wp(G) is strictly smaller than G, or it acts
reducibly. An entry 'nCI' signifies that the ring of invariants is not a complete
intersection. In two cases, the p-modular reduction W p ( G) in Table 2.8 is isomor-
phic to a classical group. For these, the question of when they are CI-groups is
not yet settled. The proof relies on computer calculations as well as on the sub-
sequent Theorem 2.9 and will be published elsewhere. See also Proposition 2.6
for a related statement.
Kac and Watanabe have proved a necessary condition for CI-groups very
similar to Serre's criterion (Theorem 2.2) for polynomiality. It uses the following
generalization of the notion of pseudo-reflection. An element a E GL(V) is called
m-special if it centralizes a subspace of codimension m, Le., if dim(ker(a -1)) ~
dim(V) - m. Thus pseudo-reflections are I-special. Elements which are 2-special
but not I-special are also called bi-reflections.
Theorem 2.9. (Kac/Watanabe) Let G ~ GL(V) be a finite CI-group. Then G
is generated by 2-special elements and the point-wise stabilizer of any subspace
of V is again a CI-group (and thus is generated by 2-special elements).

This is proved in [9] (see also [8] for fields of characteristic 0).
Theorem 2.9 focuses attention on groups generated by bi-reflections. In char-
acteristic 0 the irreducible ones among these groups were classified around 1980.
Up to imprimitive groups and groups of low dimension, these are just the alter-
nating and symmetric groups in their natural representation. Using this classi-
fication, Gordeev [8] and independently Nakajima ([22] and the references cited
there) determined the CI-groups G ~ GLn(lC). They show that the question for
reducible groups can be answered if the irreducible and the abelian CI-groups
are known. Their result consists of a list of those linear groups over IC which
are CI-groups, which we will not reproduce here. (The irreducible imprimitive
CI-groups of dimension 4 are not classified completely.) The problem of finding
a nice structural criterion for CI-groups is still open even in characteristic O.
274 G. Kemper, G. Malle

2.4 Gorenstein rungs

Recall that a Cohen-Macaulay ring of invariants k[V]G is Gorenstein if and only if
for some I E Z its Hilbert series satisfies the symmetry property H(k[V]G, C 1 ) =
(_l)dim(V)t l H(k[V]G, t) . The following gives a simple example for a Gorenstein
non-CI-group.
Example 2.3. Let k be a field of characteristic different from 3 and G = Z3 the
cyclic group of order three acting by scalar matrices on V = k 3 • Then Molien's
formula (4) gives
H(k[V]G t) = 1 + 7t 3 + t 6
, (1 - t 3 )3 '
hence the ring of invariants is (even strongly) Gorenstein, but since the zeros of
the numerator are not roots of unity, it is not a complete intersection by (3).
Assume that the characteristic of k is prime to IGI. Comparing with Molien's
formula (4) one sees that the Laurent expansion at t = 1 of the Hilbert series
starts as follows
H(k[V]G t) = ~(1- t)-dim(V) + _r_(l_ t)-dim(V)+1 +
'IGI 21GI ... ,
where r is the number of pseudo-reflections in G (see for example [2, 2.6]). Thus,
if k[V]G is Gorenstein then the exponent I above equals I = dim(V) + r. In
particular, in coprime characteristic a Gorenstein ring of invariants k[V]G is
strongly Gorenstein if and only if G contains no pseudo-reflections. On the other
hand, since
det(l - uri) = (-t)- dim(V) det(u) det(l - u- 1t)
Molien's formula (4) gives
1 ~ 1
= jGf L...J det(l _ ut)
G -1
H(k[V] , t )
uEG
= (_t)dim(V) ~ det(u) = (_t)dim(V) H(k[V]G t)
IGI L...J det(l - ut)
uEG
det- 1 , •

Hence we have obtained Watanabe's characterization of groups whose invariants

are strongly Gorenstein:
Proposition 2.3. Let G ::; GL(V) have order prime to the characteristic of k.
Then k[V]G is strongly Gorenstein if and only if G ::; SL(V).
Indeed, G ::; SL(V) is equivalent to k[V]~et-l = k[V]G, thus by our above
calculations to

Not much is known about the Gorenstein property in the modular case. The
following proposition obtained in [3] shows that it is a useful property.
 Invariant Rings and Fields of Finite Groups 275

Proposition 2.4. (Campbell/Geramita/Hughes/Shank/Wehlau) If the ring of

invariants k[V]G is Gorenstein, then it can be generated by invariants of de-
grees at most dim(V) . (IGI-I). Moreover, if k[V]G is a hypersurface, it can be
generated by invariants of degrees at most IGI.

2.5 Cohen-Macaulay Rings

It is easy to find linear groups whose rings of invariants are Cohen-Macaulay but
not Gorenstein:
Example 2.4. Let k be a field of characteristic different from 3 and G = Z3 the
cyclic group of order three acting by scalar matrices on V = k 2 • Then Molien's
formula gives
G 1 + 2t 3
H(k[V] , t) = (1 _ t 3)2 '

hence the ring of invariants is not Gorenstein. On the other hand it is clear that
k[V]G is generated by XiX2, X1X~ as a free module over k[xr, x~], hence k[V]G is
Cohen-Macaulay.
In the coprime characteristic case, all rings of invariants are Cohen-Macaulay
(see for example [2, Th. 4.3.6]):

Theorem 2.10. (Hochster/Eagon) Let G :s; GL(V) be a finite group and k a

field whose characteristic is zero or coprime to the order of G. Then k[V]G is
Cohen-Macaulay.

It is perhaps the most outstanding deficiency of modular invariant theory

that Theorem 2.10 is not true in the modular case.

Example 2.5. One of the simplest example of an invariant ring which is not
Cohen-Macaulay is given by the action of the cyclic group Z2 of order 2 on
k[V] = F2 [X1,X2,X3,Y1,Y2,Y3] by Xi ~ Yi ~ Xi. In fact, if k[V]G were Cohen-
Macaulay, then the sequence It = Xl + Y1, 12 = X2 + Y2, h = X3 + Y3 would have
to be regular, since it is the beginning of a homogeneous system of parameters.
But the relation

Ithh
o = It 12 h = u231t + u31h + u12h with Uij = XiYj + XjYi
Xl X2 X3

shows that h is a zero divisor in k[V]G 1(/1, h).

A characterization of those linear groups whose rings of invariants are Cohen-

Macaulay is still missing. The following result was proved in [12].

Proposition 2.5. (Kemper) Suppose that for an integerr > 0 the r-th cohomol-
ogy group Hr(G, k[V]) is nonzero, and that no element in G of order p =char(k)
is (r + I)-special (see page 273). Then k[V]G is not Cohen-Macaulay.
276 G. Kemper, G. Malle

Example 2.5 arises as an application of the theorem, since HI (Z2, IF'2) =f. o.
As a corollary, we obtain the following converse of Theorem 2.10.

Theorem 2.11. If G is a finite group and k a field such that for every finite
dimensional kG-module V the invariant ring k(v1G is Cohen-Macaulay, then the
characteristic of k is zero or coprime to the order of G.

For further examples, we take another look at the Table 2.4 of irreducible
reflection groups and ask if the rings of invariants are at least always Cohen-
Macaulay. As it turns out, this is not the case. The groups 6 n +2 appearing
in the table are the symmetric groups on n + 2 symbols with the following
representation: Let W = k n +2 be the natural permutation representation and
suppose that the characteristic p of k divides n + 2. Then the I-dimensional
invariant subspace WI = (Xl + ... + Xn+2) is contained in the n + I-dimensional
invariant subspace

Thus we obtain a representation of 6 n +2 on the n-dimensional space V .-

Wn+1/WI as a group generated by reflections. The following is another applica-
tion of Theorem 2.5 (see [12, Ex. 2.6]).

Proposition 2.6. (Kemper) Let n > 3, G = 6 n +2 in its n-dimensional reflec-

tion representation over a field k of characteristic pl(n + 2), p ~ 5, constructed
above. Then k[VjG is not Cohen-Macaulay.

Another series of pseudo-reflection groups whose rings of invariants are not

Cohen-Macaulay was discovered by Nakajima [201. This series consists of ~
groups (which hence are not irreducible).
The role of reflections and bi-reflections is also emphasized by the following
result proved in [121.

Theorem 2.12. (Kemper) Suppose that G is a p-group, with p the characteris-

tic of k, and k[V1G is Cohen-Macaulay. Then G is generated by elements which
are 2-special.

3 Fields of Invariants
So far we have been looking at properties of polynomials f E k[V1 invariant
under a finite group G. Instead one could study invariant rational functions, Le.,
the field of invariants of G

k(V)G := Quot(k[V1 G) = {/ E k(V) := Quot(k[V]) I u f = f for all u E G}

which is equal to the field of fractions of k[V1G since G is finite. This will lead
us to Noether's problem and the notion of generic polynomials.
 Invariant Rings and Fields of Finite Groups 277

3.1 Noether's Problem and Generic Polynomials

Let G ~ en be a permutation group and assume that the field of invariants

k(Xl, . .. , xn)G is purely transcendental over k. In 1918, Emmy Noether [23]
showed that in this case we have a parametrization of the polynomials with
Galois group G in the following sense: there exists a polynomial g( t l , ... , tn, X)
in X whose coefficients are rational functions in k(t l , ... , tn) such that the Galois
group of g(X) is G, and every polynomial f(X) E k[X] with Galois group G
whose coefficients avoid a certain Zariski-closed subset can be obtained by a
suitable specialization of g(X): f(X) = g(al' ... ,an, X) with ai E k. This raises
the question, now known as Noether's problem, whether the field of invariants
k(V)G is always a rational function field. Of course this question can also be
generalized to the situation where G ~ GL(V) is a (finite) linear group. We
explain the significance of this question to Galois theory below.
The property that the field of invariants of a linear group is purely transcen-
dental is the field-theoretic analogue to the property that the ring of invariants is
polynomial. If k[V]G is polynomial, then k(V)G clearly is purely transcendental.
A look at Example 2.2 shows that the pure transcendence if k(V)G is (strictly)
weaker than the polynomiality of k[V]G. Indeed, we have h = hi! h in that
example, hence k(V)G = k(h, hl) is purely transcendental.
Not much is known about Noether's problem. Already Noether observed
that k(V)G is purely transcendental if dim (V) ~ 2 or if dim(V) = 3 and k is
algebraically closed. This follows by theorems of Liiroth and Castelnuovo (see
the references in [23]). The field of invariants is also purely transcendental if
G is abelian and the ground field k is algebraically closed [7]. It was shown by
Swan [31] and Voskresenskii [32] that this need not be true any longer if the
condition on k is dropped. Indeed, for G = Z47 the cyclic group of order 47
in its faithful permutation representation on qt7 the field of invariants is not
a rational function field, which gives a negative answer to Noether's problem.
More generally Lenstra [16] gave a criterion when the field of invariants of an
abelian group is purely transcendental over k by using Galois descent. Later
Saltman found counter examples where the ground field is algebraically closed.
Among these examples are certain nilpotent groups over k = C. Apart from the
case of abelian groups and small dimensions, Noether's problem remains wide
open. Positive answers are known for just a few groups, which include A4 and
A5 in their natural permutation representation over Q [17].
One reason for the interest in this question is the connection to generic poly-
nomials, which we now explain. Let k be a field and G a finite group. A polyno-
mial f (tl' ... , t m, X) E k( tl, ... ,tm)[X] is said to be a generic polynomial for G
over k if Gal(f(X)) ~ G and secondly for every infinite field K ~ k and every
Galois extension N / K with group G there exist al, ... , am E K such that N
is the splitting field of f(al, ... ,am, X). Notice that only every field extension
but not every polynomial with Galois group G can be obtained by specializing
g(X). In this sense, generic polynomials are weaker than the parametrizations
introduced by Noether, but on the other hand generic polynomials are a more
satisfactory notion since no Zariski-closed subset must be excluded. It is also
278 G. Kemper, G. Malle

worth noting that if we have a generic polynomial f for G over a Hilbertian field
k, then G occurs as a Galois group over k. An obvious example is the generic
polynomial f = xn + tn_lX n- l + ... + to for the symmetric group 6 n . Other
examples are polynomials for Artin-Schreier and Kummer extensions.
Now let G ::; GL(V) be a finite group such that the field ofinvariants k(V)G is
purely transcendental, generated by Sl, ... , Sn, say. Let B be a finite G-invariant
subset of V which generates V and define

f(X) := IT (X - v).
vEB

Then the coefficients of fare G-invariant, hence can be expressed in Sl, ... , Sn, so
f(X) = f(Sl, ... ,Sn,X) E k(Sl, ... ,Sn)[X]. Clearly, by construction, Gal(f) =
G. But we even have (see for example [10, Satz 1.7]):
Proposition 3.1. The polynomial f constructed above is generic for Gover k.

The first author has recently shown that the polynomial f has even the
following stronger property: if K :::: k is an infinite field and N / K a Galois
extension whose Galois group is a subgroup of G, then N is the splitting field of
f(al, ... , an, X) with suitable al, ... , an E K.
Example 3.1. Let G = GLn(q) in its natural representation on V = ~. Dickson
has shown that the ring of invariants is polynomial (see Table 2.4, generated by
the non-vanishing coefficients eo, ... , Cn-l of the polynomial
n

f(X) = IT (X - v) = :L:>i Xqi - l E IFq [eo, ... , cn-d(X).

O#vEV i=O

In particular, f as above is the generic polynomial for GLn(q) over IFq for the
subset B = V \ {a}. Note that all exponents of X in f are divisible by q - 1. The
polynomial f(Xl/(q-l) now has Galois group PGLn(q) (and is generic for those
PGLn(q)-extensions embeddable into a GLn(q)-extension). A simple argument
shows that the invariant eo is a (q - I)st power. Dickson shows that the ring of
invariants of SLn(q) is also polynomial, generated by u := ~/(q-l), Cl, ... , Cn-l.
Thus, considered as a polynomial over IFq [u, Cl, ... , Cn-l], f is generic for SLn (q)
over IFq and similarly as above we obtain a polynomial with group PSLn(q).
This example also shows why families of polynomials such as the ones found by
Abhyankar (see [1] and the papers cited there) have to exist.
Example 3.2. The previous example did not yield generic PSLn(q)-polynomials.
At least for n = 2 these can be obtained as follows. Let V = Sym2 (W) be
the symmetric square of the natural module W for SL2(q). Since the center of
SL 2(q) acts trivially on V, this defines a faithful representation of G = PSL2(q)
on V. It can be shown that G leaves invariant a quadratic form on V, and
is even isomorphic to the derived group 03(q) of the special orthogonal group
S03(V) with respect to this form. By a result of the first author [10, Satz 3.14]
the field of invariants k(V)03(q) is purely transcendental, and this yields generic
 Invariant Rings and Fields of Finite Groups 279

polynomials for G = PSL2(q). In the cases q = 5,7 one obtains the following
two generic polynomials gq(tl' t2, X) E lFq (h, t2)[X] with two parameters:
9S(X) = X I2 - 2 u 2 X 8 + 2 (tl + 1)u4 X4 + 2t2 US X2 + (tl _ 2)2U 6

with u = t~ + (tl - 2)2 (tl + 2)3, respectively

97(X) = X24 - 3u3 X I8 + (iJ + 1)u6 X I2 - 3(t~ + iJ _ 1)u9 x 6 + u ll X 3 - (tl _ 2)3 u 12

with u = t~ + (tl - 2)3 (tl + 2)4.

It should be noted however that not all generic polynomials arise from the
construction sketched above. Indeed, Saltman has shown that the cyclic group
G = Zn has a generic polynomial over any field k of characteristic prime to n
for which k((n)/k is cyclic [24]. This cannot be constructed as indicated above
since the field of invariants of Z47 is not purely transcendental over Q by [31].

3.2 Fields of Invariants of Reflection Groups

By the result of Shephard/Todd and Chevalley, the field of invariants of a reflec-
tion group is always purely transcendental in characteristic 0 since the ring of
invariants is polynomial. This simple argument fails in positive characteristic by
Theorem 2.3. The authors recently showed that at least in the irreducible case
the result nevertheless remains true [15]:
Theorem 3.1. (Kemper/Malle) Let G be an irreducible pseudo-reflection group.
Then the invariant field k(V)G is a purely transcendental extension of k.

Notice that the classical groups GO~±)(q), GUn(q), SUn(q), and SPn(q) ap-
pear among the irreducible reflection groups (Table 2.4). Thus Theorem 3.1 to-
gether with Proposition 3.1 gives generic polynomials for these groups in defining
characteristic. For the proof, only those groups occurring in the right-hand col-
umn of Table 2.4 have to be considered. Most of them could be handled by the
following criterion (see for example [10]):

Proposition 3.2. (Kemper) Let /I, ... ,fn E k[V]G, n = dim(V), be homoge-
neous invariants such that I1?=1 deg(fi) < 21GI and the Jacobian determinant
det({)/;/{)Xj) is non-zero. Then k(V)G = k(/I, ... , fn) is purely transcendental.

In the case of classical groups this can be applied to invariants found by

Carlisle/Kropholler [4] respectively the first author. No generating set of invari-
ants is known for the symmetric groups 6 n +2 in their n-dimensional represen-
tation over lFp (see page 276). Here, we are able to apply a theorem of Endo and
Miyata (see [18]), which is of some interest in itself.

Proposition 3.3. (Endo/Miyata) Suppose G :::; GL(V) is a finite linear group

and U :::; V is a faithful kG-submodule. Then k(V)G is purely transcendental
over k(U)G. In particular, if k(U)G is purely transcendental over k, then so is
k(V)G.
280 G. Kemper, G. Malle

No reduction principle of this sort exists for the polynomiality of the ring of
invariants. In fact, G does in general not act as a reflection group on V even if
it does on U :::; V. This illustrates how different the behavior of fields and rings
of invariants are: while the structure of rings of invariants very heavily depends
on the linear representation of the group, the field of invariants is in some sense
much less dependent on the representation.
It should be noted that one side effect of our case-by-case approach to the
proof of Theorem 3.1 is the fact that minimal bases for the fields of invariants
are explicitly known in each case (except for the symmetric groups 6 n +2 ), so
that generic polynomials can be computed from this at least in principle. (We
have the obvious generic polynomials for the symmetric groups.)
It would be interesting to know whether Theorem 3.1 continues to hold for
reducible reflection groups. In the extreme case of p-groups, where p is the char-
acteristic of k, we have the following result which is not restricted to reflection
groups:

Theorem 3.2. (Miyata) Let k be of characteristic p and G < GLn(k) be a

p-group. Then k(V)G is purely transcendental.

See [18] for a proof. We see how different the behavior of rings and field s
of invariants can be by comparing to the examples of Nakajima [20] of p-groups
whose ring of invariants is not even Cohen-Macaulay.

References
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1643-1650.
2. D.J. BENSON, Polynomial Invariants of Finite Groups, LMS Lecture Notes Series,
vol. 190, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.
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WEHLAU, Non-Cohen-Macaulay vector invariants and a Noether bound for a
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 Computing Versal Deformations with
SINGULAR

Bernd Martin

Brandenburgische Technische Universitat Cottbus

Abstract. The algorithm for computing a miniversal deformation of

an isolated singularity using Massey products and its implementation in
SINGULAR is explained. For completeness the cotangent cohomology and
the obstruction calculus is described in concrete terms as well.

1 Introduction
Consider the deformation functor of a geometric object. Under certain conditions
as given in, e.g., [6], it has a hull, i.e., a formal miniversal deformation. The
corresponding cohomology theory carries a graded Lie Algebra structure that
allows to recover by Massey products the complete local ring of the base space
of the formal miniversal deformation.
We are dealing with deformations of isolated singularities. They always have
an algebraic miniversal deformation, see [2]. Hence, if a degree by degree com-
putation of Massey products stops after a finite number of steps, the resulting
polynomial deformation represents a miniversal deformation. Although there is
no degree bound in general and the computation produces only a power series
representation, the procedure often finishes with a complete answer. For ex-
ample, in case of singularities with good (C* -action and only negative graded
infinitesimal deformations.
To find and to implement such an algorithm for computing the Massey prod-
ucts is one of the open problems in Computer Algebra listed by Eisenbud, see
[1] p. 367. We need a Computer Algebra System which offers standard basis
computations, resolutions in (complete) local rings and flexible programming
facilities. An implementation in SINGULAR [5] is explained in this paper. The
corresponding files can be found in deform.lib distributed with the SINGULAR
libraries. Because of a very high complexity of the procedures complete results
are not to expect by very complicated singularities. Nevertheless, a long list
of non-trivial examples is computable in acceptable time. This library contains
procedures that compute a versal family of a module over a local ring. For ex-
ample all versal deformations of maximal Cohen-Macaulay modules over the
E6-singularity are obtained.
For a detailed discussion of deformation theory and interesting applications,
cf. [9]. Moreover, MACAULAY-Scripts of J. Stevens for the cotangent cohomology
modules Tl(X O) and T2(XO) became an initial point for our implementation,
which includes zero characteristic and non-graded singularities. We shall not give

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
284 B. Martin

an abstract introduction of Massey products, cf. [3], but we shall explain how to
use and how to compute them. Here, a slightly different construction of Massey
products series is given, that allows to obtain in one step all Massey products of
a given degree. This implementation, is much more efficient than a one-to-one
translation of the Massey product calculus descriped in [4] and implemented in
the case of modules, cf. [8].
Acknowledgement: the author was supported by the Deutsche Forschungs-
gemeinschaft through the Schwerpunkt "Algorithmische Zahlentheorie und Al-
gebra".

2 Fixing the Problem

Given an isolated singularity Xo C ((J}n, 0) defined by polynomial equations
f = it,···,jk from On := (J}{X}, X = Xl, ... , X n, the ring of formal or
convergent power series in X. We are looking for a miniversal deformation of Xo.
Recall that a flat family of germs F : X --+ T with special fibre Xo is called
a deformation of Xo. It is versal, if any other deformation F' : X' --+ T' of Xo is
induced up to isomorphism from F by base change, i.e., F' = <p*(F), <p : T' --+ T.
If T is of minimal dimension, it is called miniversal. The embedding dimension
of the base space T of a miniversal deformation is given by the rank T of the
first cotangent cohomology module TI(XO), T is the Tjurina number of Xo.
Because any deformation may be embedded, we represent X by equations
F = FI, .. ,Fk from OT{X}, such that F == f mod mT. Then F is flat if and
only if any syzygy r E O~ of f lifts to a syzygy R E OT{X}k of F, e.g. [9], p.
7. We will use the notation from [9], that the equations f are identified with
a row matrix and a syzygy with a column matrix. Any matrix is considered as
map between free modules as well as submodules of a free one spanned by its
columns. In paticular f means the ideal generated by it, ... , fk, too. Consider
the first terms of a free resolution of Ox.:

f
o +-- Ox. +-- O n +-=-- Ok
n
r
+-- otn +--
r Oi
n

The On-module of syzygies is generated by the £ columns of r = syz(f).

A miniversal deformation exists, cf. [2], hence we may write: OT = (J}{T}/J,
T = T I , ... ,TTl T = dim TI(XO), Ox = OT{X}/F = (J}{T,X}/(F, J), where
F denotes representatives in ON := (J} {T, X}, too. Choosing coordinates of OT
is equivalent to fix a basis of TI(XO). Because F defines a flat family, a lifting
R E Mat(k, £; OT{X}) of r exists, such that FR = o. Consider developings with
respect to T of representatives of F and R in ON:

a a

then F\T=O = Fo = f, R\T=O = Ro = r and F R == 0 mod T. Denote by Fd and

Rd the d-th homogeneous parts with respect to T of F and R respectively. The
problem of finding a miniversal deformation is equivalent to determine a minimal
 Computing Versal Deformations with SINGULAR 285

ideal J E a'{T}, such that liftings F and R exist that fulfil F R == 0 mod J.
The main steps of the algorithm are:
1. Compute infinitesimal deformations F l , Rl and the obstruction space T2(XO)
(initial step),
2. compute the obstruction map and Massey products in degree d ~ 2,
3. determine the ideal Jd of obstructions up to degree d,
4. lift the equations and syzygies to the next degree,
5. test if we are done, otherwise go back to step 2 and replacing d by d + 1.
After the loop we obtain a versal deformation up to d-th order.

3 Computing Infinitesimal Deformations

(3.1) Recall the well known fact, e.g. [9], that all classes of infinitesimal de-
formations of Xo, definend as Tl(XO, form an Oxo-module of finite vectorspace
dimension T.
Lemma 1. Tl (Xo) = coker (B(Cn 121 OXo -+ NXol(Cn).
(Here B(Cn denotes the tangent sheaf and Nxo l(Cn means the normal bundle.
Proof. Check this as follows: To an infinitesimal deformation / + c/', c 2 = 0,
a matrix r' exists, such that (J + c/')(r + cr') = 0 or, equivalently, trt /' =
_tr,t / == 0 mod /. Hence t l' E syz(tf), where - denotes the class in the cor-
responding Oxo-module. We have r = ker(J) , hence / = im(J) = coker(r)
and NXol(Cn := Homoxo (J//2,Oxo) = Homon(J,Ox') =:: f* = coker(r)* =
ker(tf) = syz(tf). Here • denotes the Oxo-dual of a module. Therefor, every
infinitesimal deformation is induced by a section of the normal bundle.
An infinitesimal deformation / + cf' is trivial if and only if a vectorfield
o= ~i h i 8/ 8Xi E B(Cn ,0 exists, corresponding to an infinitesimal automorphism
cpo : Xi t---+ Xi + chi over id(Cn,o, such that cpo (J) and / + cf' generate the same
ideal in Oxo[c], that means f' E jac(J) := spanoxo(8f/8X) and f' belongs to
the image of B(J) : B(Cn 121 OXo -+ NXol(Cn. Hence Tl(XO) ~ coker(B(J». 0
(3.2) In order to represent Tl (Xo) as Oxo-module, look at the first terms of a
free resolution of the Oxo-module coker (No), No := tf:

o +-- coker (N,o) +-- 0 1Xo /!!!- OkXo t!=- vXo

//'Ikl /!.!- vXo
mk2

jac(J) t )'I jac'

Thereby Nx. = ker(No) is given by Nx and B(J) is induced by the Jacobi

matrix of /, hence Tl(XO) is represented by sbTl := im(Nx)/im(jac(J» =
coker(Nl + jac'). To obtain a vectorspace basis of Tl(XO) represented by a k-
column vector, we have to multiply a basis of coker(sbTl) by Nx. For details
look at the procedure T1 from library sing. lib.
(3.3) Scetch of SINGULAR procedure for computing Tl(XO):
286 B. Martin

//----- T1 -------------------------------------------------------
def On = basering;
list resf = res(f,2);
matrix r = resf[2]; //columns are syzygies of f
matrix jacf jacob(f); //jacobi matrix of f
qring Ox std(f); //create local ring of x_a
matrix No transpose(fetch(On,r»;//ker(No) = normal bundle
matrix jacf fetch(On,jacf); //fetch to Ox-modules
list resN = res(No,3); //resolution of No
matrix Nx = resN[2];
matrix N1 resN[3];
matrix jac' lift(Nx,jacf); //lifting of jacobi matrix
matrix sbT1 std(N1,jac'); //SB representing T-1
int tau vdim(sbT1); //Tjurina number
matrix kbT1 = Nx*kbase(sbT1); //columns give a basis of
//infinitesimal deformations

4 Obstruction Calculus
(4.1) By the general theory of liftings, e.g. [3), it is known that T2(Xo) is the
obstruction space and the cup product u : Tl(XO) x T 1 (Xo) --t T2(XO) induces
an obstruction map. To any small extension of an Artin algebra A': 0 --t K --t
A --t A' --t 0, mAK = 0, an obstruction map OA,A' : Defxo (A') --t K 0T2(XO)
is defined, such that a deformation ~ E Defxo(A' ) is liftable to A if and only if
OA,AI(~) vanishes. Moreover, in case of A = <C[cl,c21/(ci,c~) and A' = A/clc2
we obtain OA,A'(~) = pri(~) Upr2(~), pri: A' -t A'/ci. We shall understand
by a small extension only those which do not increase the embedding dimension,
that is, K C m~.
(4.2) Recall a construction of T2 (Xo) and of the obstruction map.
Lemma 2. The matrix No, whose kernel induces the normal bundle N xo , defines
an OXo -module homomorphism into the dual of non-trivial syzygies S' .
Proof. The trivial syzygies are formed by the submodule of r generated by the
columns of the Koszul matrix of f:

kos(f) t /' kos'

The quotient of non-trivial syzygies is represented as cokernel of s, the concati-

nation of f and kos', which is - as Oxo-module - independent of the choice of
defining equations f. Hence the OXo -dual S* is the kernel of the transposed ma-
trix: S* := Hom (r/Kos(f), OXo) = ker(So), So := t s. Consider again the first
 Computing Versal Deformations with SINGULAR 287

terms of a free resolution of coker (So):

o +-- coker (So) +-- (ylXo tE- (:JlXo ~ Oll

Xo !2- Ol2Xo
No t

Obviously No induces a map into S' = ker (So), because r s = r f + r kos' =

0+ kos(f) == 0 mod j, that is So No = 0 as Oxo-homomorphism. 0

Definition 1. T2(XO):= coker(Hom(O~,Oxo) ~ S·).

In a smooth point all syzygies are trivial, hence T2(XO) is concentrated at the
singular locus of Xo and has finite rank T' for an isolated singularity.
(4.3) Scetch of SINGULAR procedure for computing T2(XO):

11----- T2 -------------------------------------------------------
list resf = res(f,3)j
matrix r = resf[2]j
matrix kosf = koszul(f,2)j
matrix kos' lift(r,Kosf)j
matrix s = concat(kos',resf[3])j II represents non-trivial syz
qring Ox = std(f)j
matrix No = transpose(fetch(On,r))j
matrix So = transpose(fetch(On,s))j
list resS = res(So,3)j
matrix Sx = resS[2] j II Sx=ker(So) represents dual
matrix S1 = resS[3] j II of non-trivial syzygies
matrix sbT2 = std(Sl,lift(Sx,No))j II presents T~2
int tau' = vdim(sbT2)j II dimension of T~2
matrix kbT2 = resS[2]*kbase(sbT2)j II columns represent basis of
II T~2 in Ox~l-quotient

Note, both procedures Tl and T2 use the same resolution, hence they are put
together in one procedure T12 of the library sing. lib that gives back a list of such
objects used in further computations.
(4.4) Next we shall show that the obstruction for lifting a deformation by a
small extension lives in T2(XO)' A local Artin algebra (A, m) is called of order d,
if md =1= 0, but md +1 = O. We may restrict our considerations to small extensions
from order d-l to order d, so the kernel of an extension given by K = m d .
Lemma 3. Let A -t A' be a small extension from order d-l to order d,
FE Mat(l, k; A{X}) a represention over A of a deformation ~ E Def x.(A') and
REMat(k, l; A {X}) a lifting of syzygies, i. e. F R = 0 mod md , then we obtain
(il) F R mod j induces an element cup(F) := t flt P E m d ® O~o'
(i2) cup(F) belongs to md ® S', hence it defines a class 0(0 E md ® T2(Xo),
(iB) ~ has a lifting to A if and only if o(~) = O.
288 B. Martin

Note, that the map 0 : { f-t o({) is depending on the choice of the deformed
equations and of the syzygies over A', but not on their representatives with
coefficients from A.

Proof. We will compute with coefficients in A. Consider On as a subring of

A{X}. Denote F. := F - f, R.:= R - r having coefficients in m.
ad (il) Let R' be another lifting of r with respect to F. By assumption: md+l =
0, fr = 0 and F R = F R' = 0 mod md , hence f R = f R. = -F.R mod md •
By induction on d we will check: A matrix L E Mat(f,fj m ® On) exists, such
that
R' == R+RLmod md • (1)

From this equation we obtain modulo f: F R' = F. R' = F. R + F. RL =

F. R - f R. L = F. R = F R, i.e. cup(F) is well defined.
Checking equation (1) by induction we may assume R' = R+RL mod md - 1 .
Now modulo md we have feR' - R) = -F.(R' - R) = -F. RL = f RL, hence
feR' - R- RL) == 0 mod md and therefor we find a matrix L E Mat(l,lj md ®
On), such that R' - R - RL == r L == RL mod md . Replacing L by L + L we
proved (1).
ad (i2) Because of S' = ker (So), we have to check So cup(F) = 0, that is
F R (1' + kos') == 0 mod f, where l' = syz(r) and kos(f) = r kos'. Similarly to
(il) we find by induction a matrix L, such that

R(f + kos') == RL + kos(F) mod md . (2)

Using this we obtain (i2) computing modulo f: F R (1' + kos') F. R L +

F.kos(F) = - f RL - F.kos(f) == 0 mod f. Note, the class of cup(F) in T2(X O)
, that is t fl t F mod No, does not depend on the degree d part of F.
ad (i3) A lifting of { to a deformation over A exists if and only if we can mod-
ify the equations F and the syzygy matrix R by terms Fd and Rd of degree
d with coefficients in m1, such that (F + Fd)(R + Rd) = O. By construc-
tion F.Rd = 0 = FdR., hence we have to solve in m1 ® O~o the equation
tft Fd + cup(F) = 0 for Fd. This is possible if and only if cup(F) belongs to
the image of No = tf, that means o({) = O. Choose any representative Fd in
m1 ® O~o' then FR + Fdr == 0 mod f and we obtain Rd E m1 ® O~! as a
lift of -(FR + Fdr) by f. Note, both steps are done simultaniously by lifting
-FR E Hom(A{XV,A{X}) by Hom(r, -) x Hom(-,f) over A{XV:

A{XV ~A{X}k

(3)

A{X}k -4 A{X}

o
 Computing Versal Deformations with SINGULAR 289

5 From Massey Products to a Versal Deformation

(5.1) For a fixed vectorspace basis of Tl (Xo) represented by elements h, ... , IT
of O~, cf. (3.3), we obtain a versal family of first order deformations F(1) =
1+ 2::;=1 liTi over A(I), A(i) := a'{T}j(T)i+l. The maximal possible small
extension of embedding dimension T is A(2) --+ A(1). The corresponding ob-
struction map

02 : Defx.(A) --+ W 2 0 T2(XO)' W2:= (T? j(T)3,

can be expressed by the cup product, d. (4.1), 02(F(1» = 2::i,j(Ji U fj)TiTj

and is obtained by (4.4) as follows: Let Rl be the solution of FIr + Rtf = 0 in
A(I) 00~, where F(1) = I +Fl . Then fiUh correspond to the class in T2(XO) of
the coefficient of t(FIRl) at TiTj. Fix a vectorspace basis of T2(XO) represented
by elements VI,"" v T ' of O~, d. (4.3). Write the obstruction with respect to
this basis 02(F(I» = 2:: hj(T)vj, then J 2 := (h~2), ... , h~~» C W 2 C A(2) is
the obstruction ideal for F(I) with respect to the extension A (2) --+ A (1). The
collection of all coefficients at monomials in T of the (quadratic) polynomials
hy) are called a Massey product series of order 2.
(5.2) By Lemma 4 8(2) --+ A(1), 8(2) := A(2)jJ2 is the maximal small ex-
tension of A(1) with the property that the first order deformation family F(I)
is liftable to 8(2). Hence, there exist F2 E Mat(l, kj m2 8(2) {X}) and R2 E
Mat(k,lj m2 8(2){X}) such that (F(1) + F 2)(R(1) + R 2) = 0 over 8(2), that is
I R2 + F2r + FIRI = O. F2 and R2 are computed in the same lifting opera-
tion (3) simultanously. Here we identify A(I) as subvectorspace of 8(2) using the
canonical section of the extension. Moreover, F(2) := F(I) + F2 is a versal family
of second order deformation and R(2) := R(I) + R2 a corresponding lifting of the
syzygy matrix r to 8(2).
(5.3) Higher order Massey product series are construtced inductively, but de-
pending on all choises made in the previous steps. They give the higher order
terms of the obstruction equations hI, ... h T ,. The possibility of extending the
given T' equations to higher order follows from the construction.
All different rings in consideration are quotient rings of ON = a' {X, T} and
we do not differ between elements in a quotient ring and their representatives
in ON. Recall the situation from (5.1) and (5.2) handled as induction assumtion
with d = 1 and d = 2, respectively, and put J 1 = O.
Assumption.
Given a versal family F(d-l) of order d-J of Xo defined over 8(d-l) =
Aj h-l +
(T)d, A := O{T}, Jd-l = (h~d-l), ... , h~~-I» and R(d-l) a lifting of syzygies r
of f to 8(d-l), that is F(d-l) R(d-l) == 0 mod Jd-l + (T)d.

Proposition 1. (Existence of Massey-products)

Under the above assumtion liftings h;d) of h;d-I), j = 1, ... T', exist, that is
m;d) := h;d) _h;d-l) E (T)d, such that a lifting of F(d-l) to 8(d) := AjJd+(T)d,
Jd = (h~d), . .. , h~~» exists, which is versal of order d.
290 B. Martin

Note, the leading forms of m;d),j = 1 ... ,7', are uniquely determined and the
collection of its coefficients are called a d-order Massey product series.

Proof. The proposition is correct for d ::; 2. Let d 2:: 3 we obtain from the
assumtion the following equation

with a fixed set of representatives VI, ... , VT' of a basis of T2 (Xo). The obstruction
of lifting F(d-2) to (d-1)-st order is represented by t(F(d-2)R(d-2»). Consider
the maximal small extension of S(d-l):

The obstruction for lifting the deformation to B is given by Od_l(F(d-I»), cf,

lemma 4. The smallest ideal K C Bthat kills the obstruction defines the base ring
S(d) of the d-th order versal family. Hence, we obtain a commutative diagramme,
whose rows and columns form short exact sequences:
S(d-l) S(d-l)

t t
S(d) +-- B +--K
t t II
K +-- Wd +--K
Compute K as ideal generated by the coefficients of the obstruction with respect
to the fixed basis of T2(XO). We want to show that an ideal basis of K may be
represened by some liftings ofthe basis of Jd-l. Look at the unique repesentation
of the obstruction in Wd 0 T2(XO):

(5)

Then K is generated by the coefficients hj. Choosing representatives in ON we

obtain an equation

(6)

of type (4). Moreover, the relative (d-1)-jet with respect to T of (6) is just (4),
hence any representative hJd) is a lifting of hJd-l) automatically. The element
Fd and Rd from (6) are the correction terms of F(d-l) and R(d-l), respectively,
to obtain liftings to S(d) of the versal family and its syzygies. 0
 Computing Versal Deformations with SINGULAR 291

(5.4) What is the connection between Massey product series and the original
algrithm from [3] and [7], where the Massey products of order d ~ 2 are sym-
metric multilinear and partially defined maps md : Tl(XO) x ... X Tl(XO) ... -+
T 2 (Xo) and m2 is the cup product?
Beginning with assumtion (5.3), determine a monomial basis Ed of Wd, called
a defining system for the d-th order Massey products. Ed is choosen with the
additional property that all monomials are multiples of monomials from the
previous step:
(7)
Because E2 = E~ is the set of all quadratic monomials, the elements of Ed
have all degree d. Any occuring monomial T OI E Ed corresponds to an element
(fOIl' ... , fOlJ E Tl(XO)$d and these elements span the subspace of definition of
md·
For any element TOI E Bd compute the obstruction 001 E T2(XO) for the small
si
extension <CTOI --+ d- l ) --+ S(d-l). Summing up all 001 • TOI and applying the
relations in Ed, we obain a representative of od(F(d-l), whose support belongs
to Ed. Its T-coefficients are used to define md. Representing od(F(d-l) with
respect to a given basis of T2(XO) we obtain Sed) as described in proposition 5.
Finally choose a monomial basis Ed C Ed of md S(d).
Note, that the support of this representation of od(F(d-l) and therefor the
supports of all obstruction equations h;d) fulfil property (7). Our Massey prod-
uct series constructed in (5.3) have this property, too, because the condition is
fulfilled automatically by using representaions of elements of quotient rings that
are in normal form with respect to a standard basis of the quotient ideal in a
fixed ordering, which must be local.

6 On the Implementation
(6.1) The first part of the procedure computes the infinitesimal versal family
F(l) and a representation of a basis of T2(XO) as explained in (3.4) and (4.3).
An infinitesimal lifting R(1) = r + Rl of the syzygy matrix r of f is obtained by
lifting -Flr by f. In the algorithm we need the ring extension ON = On@<C{T}
and its quotient rings Ox. @ <C {T} = 0/ f and OT @ On = ON / Jd. The last one
has to be replaced in every loop by the next approximation. The corresponding
objects in these rings are denoted by the same letters and have to be fetched
freely beteen the rings and after a modification.
(6.2) The main loop starts with d(~ 2) in the ring ON/f. From F(d-l) and
Re d - l ) we compute the obstruction 0d and its representation with respect to a
basis of T2(XO):
11---- compute obstruction --------------------------------------
obs = transpose(jet(Fd*Rd,d,rel_vec»;
II relative d-jet w.r.to T
obs = reduce(ideal(obs),std(maxT*Jd»;
II normal form w.r.t. max. small exten.
292 B. Martin

11---- compute Massey product series ----------------------------

obs' reduce(obs,std(Sx»;
obs obs-obs'; II find correct representation
mass lift(Sx,obs); II its T-coeff. induce Massey products
mass lift_rel_kbase(mass,sbT2,kbT2,X_s);
II representation in basis of T-2
11---- next jet of ideal of base space --------------------------
Jd = transpose(mass); II polynomials only in T

Note, the procedure is speeded up essentialy in the case of a non-obstructed

singularity or if T2(XO) is annulated by the maximal ideal as Oxo-module.
(6.3) Next replace the quotient ring ON/Jd and lift the equation and syzygy
matrix to the new ring:

11---- lifting equations and syzygies ---------------------------

obs transpose(Fd*Rd);
obs = reduce(ideal(obs),null); II represent in normal form
tetl = simplify(ideal(osb),10);
if (tetl[l]==O) {break;} II first test: finished?
obs (-l)*jet(obs,d,jvec); II take relativ T-jet
HOM transpose(r); II matrix for simultanous
HOM concat(kohom(f,l),HOM); II lifting
obs' reduce(obs,std(HOM»;
obs obs-obs' ; I I find correct representation
F'_R'= lift(HOM,obs); II simulatanous lifting
Fd Fd+F'; I I next approximations of F
Rd Rd+R'; I I andR
tet2 reducue(ideal(Fd*Rd),null);
tet2 simplify(tet2,10);
if (tet2[1]==O) {breeak;} II second test: finished?
11---- end of loop ----------------------------------------------
Note, the matrix HOM corresponds to Hom(j, -) ffiHom( -, r), cf. (3), and has
to be computed only once for all loops as well as the standard bases of Sx and
of HOM. If the Massey product vanishes in some order, the so far computed
family is not nessecarily versal. The correct test is: p(d) R(d) == 0 mod Jd. Also,
we can stop if md+l C Jd: then no small extension (W = 0) exists and we are
finished with a fat point as versal base space.
(6.4) Special options are implemented in the main procedure. In case of a quasi-
homogeneous singularity the weights of the infinitesimal deformations (or eqi-
valently of the Ts) are shown. You can decide to compute only the negative
weighted part of the versal family, which has a degree bound. In general, you
can restrict the computation to any subfamily of the first-order infinitesimal
family, e.g. to obtain partial results, to find a smoothing or to look for unob-
structed curves in the versal base and so on. For more details look at the files
contained in deform.lib.
 Computing Versal Deformations with SINGULAR 293

In the appendix of the library you will find a list of computable and non-
trivial examples including:
cones over generic points,
cones of rational normal curves,
cones over an elliptic curve,
- determinantal surface singularities,
- a cone over a del Pezzo surface, having a fat point as miniversal base (an
example of K. Altmann),
- several space curve singularities, which are always unobstructed,
- zero-dimensional sigularities.

References
1. Eisenbud, D.: Commutative Algebra with a View Toward Algebraic Geometry.
Springer Verlag (1996)
2. Grauert, H.: Uber die Deformationen isolierter analytischer Mengen. Inventiones
math. 15 (1972), pp. 171-198
3. Laudal, O.A.: Formal Moduli of Algebraic Structures. Lecture Notes in Mathematics
754, Springer Verlag (1979)
4. Laudal, O.A.: Matric Massey Products and Formal Moduli I. In Lecture Notes in
Mathematics 1183, Springer Verlag (1985), pp. 218-240
5. Greuel, G.-M., Pfister, G., Schonemann, H., et.al.: SINGULAR, a Computer Alge-
bra System for Singularity Theory, Algebraic Geometry and Commutative Algebra.
http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de
6. Schlessinger, M.: Functors of Artin rings. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 130 (1968), pp.
208-222
7. Siqveland, A.: Matric Massey Products and Formal Moduli local and global. Thesis,
Univ. of Oslo (1995)
8. Siqveland, A.: Implementing the Algorithm for Computing Formal Moduli. Prep.
Series Math., Univ. of Oslo, No 1 (1997)
9. Stevens, J.:Deformations of Singularities. Habil. 1995, Univ. Hamburg
 Part C

Algorithmic Group and

Representation Theory
 Algorithms for the Computation of Free
Resolutions

Thomas Siebert

Brandenburgische Technische Universitat Cottbus

Institut fUr Mathematik
PF 101344, D-03046 Cottbus
[email protected]

Abstract. This article gives an overview over recent developments of

algorithms for computing free resolutions based on Grabner basis tech-
niques. These developments realize the following main ideas:
1. Minimization of resolutions are integrated as much as possible into
the standard basis algorithm.
2. Hilbert functions are used to avoid reductions of useless pairs.
3. Special orderings and strategies are used to increase the computa-
tional efficiency.

1 Introduction
Given a set (!I, ... , Jp) of generators of a module M C Rn over a commu-
tative ring R, an important problem is to compute all relations (syzygies) of
(!I, ... , Jp ). Among others, syzygies provide a general description of any mod-
ule as factor of some free module. Moreover, iterations of syzygy computations
can be used to compute free resolutions of ideals and modules which is the base
for computations of homology and cohomology groups, of Betti numbers and of
various other invariants.
Thus, the computation of syzygies of ideals or modules is a basic tool for
computational approaches to algebraic geometry and singularity theory.
In recent years, several methods were developed to expedite computations of
syzygies. In this paper, we give an overview of the essential ideas behind these
methods, and of our practical experience with their realization.
Main contributions to that development have come from W. Trinks, G.
Zacharias, D.A. Spear, F.O. Schreyer, M. Stillman and D. Mumford, T. Mora
and H.M. Moeller. Recent improvements to compute minimal resolutions have
been contributed by C. Traverso, M. Caboara [11), R. La Scala [6), by myself
[10) and A. Capani, G. DeDominicis, G. Niesi, L. Robbiano [3).
The paper is organized as follows: in Section 2, the two basic algorithms
for computing syzygies are presented. Section 3 discusses various improvements
of these algorithms. Section 4 summarizes these improvements into a sugges-
tion of a hybrid algorithm for computing syzygies. Finally, Section 5 reports of
our implementation of the discussed methods in SINGULAR which includes an
evaluation of comparative timings.

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
296 T. Siebert

Along the way (in subsection 2.2), we prove the previously unestablished fact
that the so-called STZS-algorithm applies not only to polynomial rings but also
to quotients of polynomial rings.
Acknowledgments: I should like to thank G. Pfister for the many fruitful
discussions about this work and O. Bachmann for proofreading the manuscript.
This work has in part been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG).

2 The Basic Algorithms

2.1 The Naive Algorithm
What we call here the "naive" algorithm for computing syzygies has gradually
developed over the years and is now considered common folklore. The main
idea of the naive algorithm is to store the reduction process of a standard basis
computation and to obtain in this way a basis for the module of syzygies: assume
that an R-module M C Rk is given by the columns of a matrix:

an a12 ... a1n)

a21 a22 ... a2n
A= ( ... ..' . . ' ...
akl ak2 ... akn
To store the reduction process, we add a new module component to each element
of the given basis:

I
A I
A' I 0
I
I
1 0 0 ... 0 ===> - - -- (1)
o 1 0 '" 0 I
I
o0 1 B' I G'
0 I
o 0 ... 0 1 I
After a standard basis computation, we obtain a matrix like the right one: A'
corresponds to the standard basis of Aj B' is the transformation matrix, i.e.,
A' = A * B' j and G' is a basis of the syzygy module of A. In fact, every syzygy
constitutes a certain way to obtain 0 as linear combination of the given genera-
tors. In this way, we find a basis of all syzygies. Otherwise a syzygy which is not
included produces elements with new leading terms.
The algorithm can be implemented in a straight-forward way as illustrated
by the following pseudo-code:
 Algorithms for Free Resolutions 297

(8', W') := Syz(S)

INPUT: 8, a basis of an ideal
OUTPUT: (8', W'): where 8' is a (minimal) set of generators; W' the module of
syzygies of 8'
W := { }
T := initSyz(S)
T' := std(S)
setRegularity(T')
WHILE T' <> { } DO
IF t e is syzygy W := W U it}
T' := T' \ it}
END DO
(S',W') := minimize(S,W).
T := initSyz(S)
INPUT: 8, a basis Vb ••• , VB
OUTPUT: T, a set [v~, 1,0, ... ,01, ... , [v~,o, ... ,0, 11 of interreduced elements
equipped with extra components
i := r; T := { }
S := interReduce(S)
WHILE S <> { } DO
s := the first element from S
i := i+l
S := S \ is}
s := s + ei
T := TU is}
END DO
setSyzygyOrder(r)
(W',8') := minimize(W, S)
INPUT: 8, a basis, W, its syzygies
OUTPUT: (8', W'), a minimal system of generators, W', its syzygies

W' := W
S' := S
WHILE searchUnit(W',i,j) DO
W' := Gauss(W' ,i,j)
S' := S'\ {sd
END DO
In the procedure inter Reduce we subtract multiples of elements from others
as long as any leading term divides another one. The inter-reduction of the
input should always precede the adding of new module components. Otherwise
the resulting syzygy module would have a much more complicated structure.
The procedure set8yzygyOrder sets a block ordering for the module com-
ponents to separate the standard basis part from the syzygy part, so that all
298 T. Siebert

monomials of S (which are concentrated in the first r components) are greater

than the monomials with higher components.
The procedure setRegularity computes the Castelnuovo-regularity via the
resolution of the initial ideal. It furthermore calculates an upper bound for the
degree of pairs in the standard basis computation. See Subsection 3.1 for details.
In the procedure minimize we first determine all units of the ground ring
among the elements of the matrix C'. With every such unit we then perform a
Gaussian elimination to eliminate the superfluous generators, as is illustrated by
the following scheme:

... S~j, .. ) ... S~j",)

(
S~l ===} (S~l
Sil ... Ul .,. 0 ... Ul 0
.
. , .
.. .
.,,

S:-lj-l S:-lj+1
S:+1j-l S~+Ii+l

Notice that after each Gaussian elimination all the remaining columns are mul-
tiplied with the unit Ul. This implies that the length of all polynomials grows at
least by the number II = length(Ul) of monomials of Ul. Of course, if the chosen
monomial ordering is a well-ordering then units are just constants (with length
1). Hence, there is no growth. However, for local orderings units are polynomials
in the non-global variables. Hence, the lengths of the polynomials growth during
n Gaussian elimination is given by

where Ii = length( Ui) is the number of monomials in the ith unit counted at the
begin of the minimization. To decrease this growth, the Bareiss algorithm might
be used which, on the other hand, requires additional polynomial divisions.
Our experience agrees with this observation: in the non-global case it is often
the minimization which is the really hard computational part, whereas in the
global case it is usually the standard basis computation.

2.2 The Schreyer-Trinks-Zacharias-Spear (STZS) Algorithm

Before describing the STZS-algorithm, we have to fix the following notations:
Let S = {gl,'" ,gq} be a standard basis of I S;; K[xr· For K[x]q = 2:;=1 K[x]ei
we choose the following monomial-weighted ordering < 1 (depending on S):
x"ei <1 x{3ej if and only if either L(X"gi) < L(x{3gj) or L(X"gi) = L(x{3gj) and
i > j.
 Algorithms for Free Resolutions 299

For gi,gj, having the leading term in the same component, that is L(gi) =
x""ek,L(gj) = x"'iek we consider spoly(gi,gj) := mjigi - mijgj with mji
c(gj) Icm(L(:~,' L(9;)) .
Because S is a standard basis we obtain ([5], Corollary 1.11)

(1 + hij ) (mjigi - mijgj) = 'Le:!gJl

with L(hij) < 1 if hij =1= 0 and L(e:!gJl) < L(mjigi).
For j > i such that gi, gj have leading term in the same component, let

Let ker(K[x]q -t K[xjT, E Wiei I-t E wigi) denote the module of syzygies,
syz(I), of {gl,'" ,gq}.
The STZS-algorithm is based on the following proposition which was proved
independently by F.O. Schreyer, W. Trinks, G. Zacharias and D.A. Spear be-
tween 1977 and 1980:

Proposition 1. With respect to the ordering <1 the following holds:

(1) L(7ij) = mjiei.

(2) {7ij Ii < j s.t. L(gi),L(gj) are in the same component} is a standard basis
for syz(I).

For a proof see, for example, [9] or [5].

This proposition can be straight-forwardly translated into the following al-
gorithm:
W:= STZS(S)
INPUT: S = {gl, ... , gq}, a standard basis
OUTPUT: W, the module of syzygies of S

W:= { }
T := initSTZS(S)
L:= ini tPairs (T)
WHILE L <> { } DO
P := (a, b, s) the last element from L
L := L \ {(a, b, s)}
s := spoly(a,b)
h := NF(sIT)
W := W U {h}
END DO
W := cancelWeightMonomials(W).

T := initSTZS(S)
INPUT: S = {gl,'" ,gq}, a standard basis
OUTPUT: T = ([gl,lm(gl),O, ... ,0], ... , [gq,O, ... ,O,lm(gq)]}
300 T. Siebert

i := r; T := { }
S := reOrderDegRevLex(S)
WHILE S <> { } DO
s := the first element from S
i .= i+i
S := S \ {s}
s := s + lm(s)ei
T := T U {s}
END DO
setSyzygyOrder(r)
In the procedure initPairs we compute the leading term of the syzygy for
all admissible pairs of elements of T and apply to these initial terms the criteria
which follows from the divisibility check (statement (2) of proposition 1).
Since the monomial-weighted orderings are implemented by simply multi-
plying with the leading terms, we have to divide out these monomials from the
whole resolution at the end of the computation. This is done in the procedure
cancelW eightM onomials.
Notice that the regularity (see 3.1) can not be applied in the STZS-algorithm,
since a STZS-resolution is not a minimal one.
The main advantage of this algorithm is that the s-polynomials always reduce
to zero and hence the sets of elements and of pairs do not change during the
computation. It also allows us to consider only pairs built from one fixed element
at the same time which results in much smaller pair sets. The knowledge of the
leading terms of the syzygies is used to avoid useless pairs: syzygy having a
leading term divisible by the leading term of another syzygy can be canceled.
The run-time behaviour of the STZS-algorithm is dominated by monomial
comparisons. Using the definition of <1, each monomial comparison requires two
additional monomial multiplications to the base ordering <. However, if the base
ordering is such that the exponents dominate the module component then we
can avoid these additional multiplications:
Let F = {J} be a basis of a module, and let F be the transformation of F
obtained by multiplying all monomials of the ith component with the monomial
lm(gi). Then the following holds:
Lemma 1. F is a standard basis of a module w.r.t. the monomial-weighted or-
dering <1 if and only if F is a standard basis in the given ordering <.

Proof. Points to observe are that the map assigning i to the module compo-
nent of lm(gi) has to be monotone, i.e., it must not disturb the ordering of the
monomials and that for monomial-weighted orderings the comparison of expo-
nents precedes that of module components. Therefore, the Lemma applies only
to these orderings.

Hence, for an implementation of <1, we only have to replace the "l"--entries

in the additional module component rows (see 1) by the leading term of the
corresponding generator.
 Algorithms for Free Resolutions 301

We also observed that the efficiency of the STZS-algorithm strongly depends

on the base ordering < and on the ordering of the polynomials within the input
ideal/module. However, our experience shows that for homogeneous inputs, the
degree reverse lexicographical base ordering and, w.r.t. <, decreasingly sorted
ideals/modules work best for most cases.

2.3 Extending the STZS-Algorithm to Quotient Rings

In this subsection we show that the STZS-algorithm does not only work for
polynomial rings or their localizations, but also for quotient rings:
Let A = k[;!:]/I be the quotient of a polynomial ring w.r.t. I = (II,··· ,fm),
and assume I to be a standard (Grabner) basis.
We define the normal form with respect to I of an element of an arbitrary
module to be the component-wise normal form:
Definition 1. A subset G of a module MeAn is called a standard basis for
M if
- the elements of G are given by representatives in normal form with respect
to I and
- the leading term It(m) of any element m E M in normal form with respect
to I is divisible by some leading term It(g) for 9 E G.
Assume g; E G and It(gi) = m * ei. Denote by lcmij the lowest common multiple
of m and It(h). Then (lcmij/m) * gi - (lcmij/lt(h)) * hei EM and, therefore,
(G is standard basis!):
(1 + h;j) ((lcmij/m) * gi - (lcmij/lt(h)) * h) = L hk * gk mod I,
with hk E k[;!:] and It(hk * gk) < lcmij * ei. Now, set
Vij = (1 + hij) (lcmij/m) Hi - L hk * ek·
Proposition 2. With respect to the ordering <1 the following holds:
1) It(v;j) = (lcm;j / m )ei.
2) It(Tij) = mjiei·
3) {Tij} U {Vij} is a standard basis for syz(M) as A-module.
Proof. The main thing to show is that the leading term of an arbitrary syzygy in
normal form is divisible by that of a certain STZS-syzygy. Assume s = L:~=1 hi *
el to be the chosen syzygy of M. Then L:~=1 hi * gl E I * An. Let It(s) = m * ei
be the leading term of (the normal form of) s with respect to the ordering <1
on k[;!:r. We distinguish two cases:
1. m * It(gi) E In(I). Let fj be an element of I dividing m * It(gi). Then also
lcmij divides m * It(gi) and, hence, It(Vij) divides It(s).
2. m * It(gi) ¢ In(I). There exists at least one other monomial n * ei' with
m * It(gi) = n * It(gi') and, following the arguments of the proof of the
general theorem, it is clear that It(Tii') divides It(s).
Based on this proposition, the STZS-algorithm can immediately be applied to
ideals or modules over quotient rings.
302 T. Siebert

3 Improvements of the Algorithms

3.1 The Regularity
The Casteluovo-regularity (for short: regularity) is an integer invariant assigned
to arbitrary (quasi-)homogeneous ideals or modules which gives us a degree
bound for critical pairs contributing to the minimal resolution. We denote the
regularity of a submodule I c k[;!<:r by r(I).
Definition 2. Assume that the ith module of syzygies of I is generated by ele-
ments fj with j = 1, ... ,nj then r(I) is the minimum of all integers such that
for each i:
maxj{deg(fj)} :$ r(I) + i.
This following statement was established by D. Mumford and D. Bayer [2]:
Proposition 3. The regularity is an upper semi-continuous function on flat
families of modules. Hence,

r(I) :$ r(in(I)),

where in(I) denotes the ideal of leading terms of I.

Our experiences with the regularity have convinced us that the usage of the
regularity bound is advantageously in almost all cases (except those which are
very close to monomial ideals); even, if this requires an additional computation
of a resolution of the initial module or ideal. Therefore, we use the regularity by
default for (quasi-)homogeneous computations over well-orderings.

3.2 Direct Minimizations

By "direct minimizations" we refer to a method that uses information from
the standard basis computation directly (Le., without Gaussian elimination) to
compute a minimimal resolution of an ideal or module.
During a standard basis computation we can find all elements not belonging
to a minimal basis: they are multiplied only with a constant, but not with a
proper monomial somewhere in the reduction. If kind of reduction occurs there
are two elements of the module or ideal with the same leading term. We proceed
with them as follows: First, we exchange both elements, Le., the new (reduced)
element replaces the superfluous generator. Secondly, if the reduction of the s-
polynomial of the actual pair yields zero, we discard the corresponding syzygy.
Otherwise, we consider the remaining polynomial as a new generator. This way
we produce a set of competely reduced generators (Le., every generator is in
normal form w.r.t. the generators of lower index) and the syzygies of these gen-
erators.
The direct minimization method was developed and implemented in the SIN-
GULAR project. Our implementation was done by rewriting the normal form
procedure in the following manner:
 Algorithms for Free Resolutions 303

9 =NF(J,F)
INPUT: F = {gl, ... , gn} generators of the given ideal, f an s-polynomial
OUTPUT: the normal form of f with respect to F
exchanged:=FALSE
while S:={f i E FI1t(f i ) Ilt(g)} <> { }
i f (3 fi E input: It(fi)=c*lt(g)) and not exchanged
h:=fi
fi:= g
input:=input\ {fi}
exchanged: =TRUE
else choose h E S w.r.t. the strategy
g:=spoly(g,h)
if exchanged
if g E syz(input)
g:=O
else
renew (g)
F:=F\ {filfi was reduced with h}
In the case of (quasi-)homogeneous input it is easy to organize the algorithm
in such a way that no conflicts result from the use of the generator in different
degrees: simply compute degree by degree.
A somewhat more sophisticated strategy is necessary for local computations.
We compute again degree by degree with respect to the leading terms. However,
if the degree changes, we use a lazy strategy. That is, we continue with the other
pairs of same degree before going to higher degreees. To our experience direct
reductions have to precede all other kinds of reductions, even with bad ecarts.

3.3 The Algorithm of LaScala

The so-called LaScala-algorithm connects the advantage of direct reductions
with the very controlled behaviour of the STZS-algorithm. It was developped
by R. LaScala [6].
Assume that we start with a resolution of the initial ideal of some (quasi-
)homogeneous ideal. If we try to lift this resolution to a resolution of the full
ideal we are free to proceed first along the same degree in the higher modules
or to compute the complete lower module first. Using the first of these possi-
bilities R. LaScala and M. Stillman obtain a remarkable improvement of the
STZS-algorithm. The main difference of their algorithm in comparison with
other algorithms is that every admissible (Le. is not cancelled by a criterion)
pair yield a syzygy. The improvement is based on the observation that a syzygy
computed in a higher module as reduction of some s-polynomial cancels also the
corresponding pair (with the same leading term for its syzygy) from the module
below. This observation can be interpreted as a new criteria for avoiding useless
pairs in standard basis computations: We have found examples where this algo-
rithm is faster than the usual standard basis algorithm which computes only the
304 T. Siebert

standard basis (and not the whole resolution). Of course, the algorithm applies
also to modules.
For an (quasi-)homogeneous input, the algorithm of LaScala produces all
information about the minimal resolution inside the full STZS-resolution:

- In the first module, a set of minimal generators is obtained from elements

not reducing to zero with respect to those of smaller degree.
- In the higher modules minimal generators are the syzygies computed from
pairs the s-polynomial of which reduce to zero.

H we simply count the minimal generators we obtain the graded Betti numbers
without any additional computation and it is possible to take out the minimal
resolution in a very efficient way.
We have implemented LaScala's algorithm for computing the standard basis
of the input and the resolution simultaneously as follows:
=
Let S be a basis of I S;; K[xr E;=l K[x]ei.
W. := StLaS(S)
INPUT: S, the basis of a module
OUTPUT: W., the modules of syzygies of S

W:= { }
L := initPairs(S)
WHILE LDext : = choseNextPairs (L) <> { } DO
WDev := { }
FOR (a, b, s) IN Lnext DO
(red,syz) : =reduce ( (a, b,s) ,W ,WDev )
WDev:=WDevU {red,syz}
END DO
L : = updatePairs (L, W, WDe.)
W. : =W.U WDev
END DO
W. := cancelWeightMonomials(W.)
W. := minimize(W.,L) //optional

In the procedure choseNextPairs the specific selection strategy is chosen:

possible candidates are a degree by degree strategy beginning with the higher in-
dexed modules or a strategy using slanted degrees, which means, deg = monomial-
deg+index. The procedure reduce computes the normal form of the s-polynomial
w.r.t. the corresponding truncated standard basis and the syzygy. Note that the
pairs (a,b,s) are either of the form (a,b,O) in the higher modules or of the
form (0,0, s). In the procedure updatePairs the criteria are applied to avoid the
computation of useless pairs: These criteria are the divisibility check for leading
terms of syzygies, the Moller-Mora criteria and the LaScala-criteria described
above.
 Algorithms for Free Resolutions 305

3.4 Hilbert-driven Algorithms for Resolutions

The Hilbert function has become an important tool for computations of Grabner
bases of (quasi-)homogeneous ideals or modules. For a detailed discussion of the
use of Hilbert functions in that context see [4]. Here, we only discuss the use of
the Hilbert functions for the computation of free resolutions.
Let the k[!!i.]-module M be given by a standard base mi, ... , mn with respect
to a degree compatible ordering <.
Lemma 2. If we resolve the initial module In(M) = (It(mi), ... , It(m n )) by the
STZS-method, we obtain the Hilbert series, the numbers of generators and their
degrees of the STZS-resolution of M.

Proof. Of course, the STZS-resolution of leading terms can be continued to a

resolution of M = (mi, ... , m n ) (see [7]). The Hilbert functions are invariants
of the initial modules (see [4] Theorem 1) and from the properties of the STZS-
resolution follows Syzi(In(M)) = In(Syzi(M)).
The minimization of the STZS-resolution Syzi(M), i = 1, ... ,p is computed
as follows (compare [6], Chapter 4): We have to find constant entries in the
syzygies of level i and have to cancel the corresponding element mi, E SYZi-i.
Then, with the component il in Syzi(M) we perform Gaussian elimination,
delete the syzygy with constant entry and cancel its component in SYZi+1.
Now let us apply the invariants of the STZS-resolution to the minimization
process: Denote by Sh-i the set of superfluous generators in SYZi-i (M). By the
Lemma above we get:
Lemma 3. The Hilbert function Hi of the ith module in the minimal resolution
is given by:
E
r
Hi = Hs llz , - HkIilTdeg(m).
mEB/;_l

Remark 1. To compute the exact Hilbert function ofthe ith module in the min-
imal resolution it is not necessary to know all generators. It suffices to know
the number and degree of a minimal set of generators. However, we have to be
careful while counting explicit generators. They may vanish during the Gaussian
elimination or by cancellations of components for syzygies which are deleted!

Theorem 1. By resolving the initial module (or ideal) of the input and by de-
tecting the direct reductions in SYZi-i (M) we obtain the Hilbert function Hi of
the module Syzi(M). The Hilbert functions Hi(Syzj) for j > i are upper bounds
for the Hj.

Proof. IT we apply the technique of direct reductions we obtain a minimal set

of generators for the actual module within the minimal resolution. By com-
paring this minimal set with the generators in the STZS-resolution we find all
superfluous elements in the STZS-resolution. Thus, we can compute the Hilbert
functions of the minimal resolution according to the lemmas above.
306 T. Siebert

The interpretation of Hilbert functions in the context of syzygies differs from

that in the context of Grobner bases: The Hilbert function determines the num-
ber of critical pairs in a fixed degree for a fixed module. If that number of new
generators was computed all remaining pairs of the same degree will yield syzy-
gies. Now, these pairs could yield a real syzygy or might be reduced to zero in
the syzygy module as well. Thus, we have to apply the Hilbert function a second
timer: now, to the syzygies. But, of course, this time we use the Hilbert function
of the syzygy module.
For the implementation it seems to be a good idea to wait with the reduction
of all the pairs until the critical pairs of the syzygy module are handled. This
gives us an up-front complete knowledge of the Hilbert function of the syzygy
module. Hence, we can decide how many critical pairs of the original module
must be reduced to obtain the right Hilbert function of the syzygy module up to
the current degree. Then, the rest of the pairs yield superfluous generators and
their computation can be skipped. Thus, we make optimal use of the Hilbert
function if we compute degree by degree over the whole resolution, starting with
the highest syzygy module.
Another way to use the Hilbert function was developed by A. Capani, G. De-
Dominicis, G. Niesi and L. Robbiano. The approach uses a degree by degree
computation beginning with the higher modules of syzygies. The main ingre-
dient of their technique is the following formula. Denote by cfd(M;d) the dth
coefficient of the submodule M<d of M generated by elements of degree < d
computed via the (d - I)-truncated standard basis of M<d. Let G(M)d be the
number of pairs of degree d in M which yields a new element in the standard
basis and let Smin(M)d be those pairs of M that gives minimal generators of
the module of syzygies.

Theorem 2. (See [3J Theorem 18). If we compute syzygies of a graded module

M with a degree-by-degree strategy reducing new generators completely w.r.t.
the truncated basis it holds:

This number is called the dth discriminant of M. It counts the number of critical
pairs as the Hilbert function does in the ordinary standard basis computation.
From the left-hand side of the formula we see that it is determined by the
(d - I)-truncated computation.

3.5 The Algorithm of Traverso/Caboara

This algorithm represents an elegant way to put all the different algorithms to
compute standard bases of ideals or modules and of their syzygies in a common
hull. For that purpose, we consider the algebra k[;r)[y] as an infinite module over
k[;r] and handle all computations within k[;r)[y] by interpreting module compo-
nents, membership in minimal systems of generators and other information as
new variables. Of course, this information does not admit algebraic structures
 Algorithms for Free Resolutions 307

and, hence, can not be interpreted like a "real" variable. Thus, the normal form
procedure has to be rewritten to distinguish "variables" of different types. How-
ever, the main advantage we obtain is an "automatic" treatment of additional
information. For a detailed description see [11].

4 Summary and Suggestion for a Hybrid Algorithm

The development of algorithms for computing free resolutions goes nowadays in
several directions and uses a lot of ideas for improvements. There are basically
two kinds of algorithms: the naive algorithm, which has no additional structures,
and the STZS-algorithm, which is strongly determined by the frame of the reso-
lution of the initial terms. Both allow several improvements using invariants like
the regularity or the Hilbert functions and other tools like monomial-weighted
orderings. But, up to now, neither of them is surely better than the other. That
is, there exists a wide range of possible implementations and, by choosing the
right examples, any of them can be proved to be the best (for these examples)!
See also R. LaScala and M. Stillman [6].
Nevertheless, by computing and analysing a lot of examples we, and other
developers (like the CoCoA- and the Macaulay-team), obtained some rules for
the efficiency of an algorithm which can be summarized as follows:

1. The usage of the regularity speeds up the algorithm.

2. The Hilbert function yields a better invariant than the regularity (if its
computation is implemented efficiently).
3. For problems equipped with additional structures (like group actions or even
a graduation) the STZS-algorithms work better, whereas the general case is
(in tendency) better handled by the naive algorithm.
4. For non global monomial orderings the minimization of a resolution is the
difficult computational part (compared with the standard basis computa-
tion).
5. The monomial-weighted orderings are the natural (and best) choice for the
computation of free resolutions.

For global (quasi-) homogeneous ideals or modules we would like to go one

step further, and propose in more detail the following hybrid algorithm which is
based on the ideas of the Sections 3.2 and 3.4.
S = Res(F)
INPUT: F = {91, ... ,9n} generators of the given ideal,
OUTPUT: S = {Sl,"" Sn} the resolution of F,

(F',SyzF)=computeFirstSyzygies(F)
S'=resolve(In(F'))
hilb.=computeHilbertFunctions(S')
L=buildPairs (SYZF)
i=1
WHILE ( L <> { } )
308 T. Siebert

h=O lithe Hilbert function of the actual module Si

L'={ }
deg=degmin
WHILE (isNotComplete(h,hilbi»
G=reduce(L',deg,hilbi,h)
L'=buildPairs(G)
h=computeHilbertFunction(G)
WHILE (isNotComplete(h,hilbi,deg»
G=GU reduce(L,deg,hilbi,h)
h=computeHilbertFunction(G)
checkForDirectReductions(L,Si_1,deg,hilb i )
deletePairs(L,deg)
deg=deg+1
Si=G
L=L'
i=i+1
The main content of the above procedures is

computeFirstSyzygies is the usual algorithm with direct reductions.

resolve resolves the initial ideal of the input.
computeHilbertFunctions computes the Hilbert functions of the resolution
of the leading terms.
buildPairs constructs the pair set from the given generators.
isN otComplete checks whether the Hilbert function given by
the computed generators is just complete
(in general or up to the degree deg, de pending on
the circumstances).
reduce reduces as many pairs as are prescribed by the
Hilbert functions.
checkForDirectReductions tries to find the remaining possibilities to
minimize the set of generators.
deletePairs cancels superfluous pairs.

5 Implementation in Singular and Timings

The actual state of our SINGULAR implementation is as follows:

- The naive algorithm is implemented for all types of SINGULAR rings (global,
local or quotient). It always uses the given ordering for its computations.
That is, even though SINGULAR-orderings dp and Is are usually far superior
for computations of resolutions with this algorithm, no ordering changes are
performed.
- The STZS-algorithm is implemented for all types of SINGULAR rings, as
well, using the monomial-weighted-orderings based on the given ones. The
optimal orderings are (c, dp) and (c, Is) .
 Algorithms for Free Resolutions 309

- The LaScala-algorithm is implemented for the graded homogeneous case. It

maps, independently from the chosen ring, all input to a (dp , c)-ring and
computes the (dp, c)-standard basis and the resolution simultaneously.

- For algorithms which do not compute a minimal resolution there is a proce-

dure to minimize (i.e., to factor out free summands) any exact complex.

The timings compare the standard algorithm res, the STZS-algorithm STZS,
the LaScala-algorithm with- (LaScala\_min) and without (LaScala) minimiza-
tion, and for a SINGULAR independent comparison the plain resolution com-
mand of MACAULAY-2 mac which is more or less algorithmically identical with
LaScala.

The algorithm of R. LaScala uses lazy computations, i.e., it computes only

the resolution within a (dp, c)-ring and stores all information about minimal
generators, degree, etc. After such a lazy computation, numerical information
such as the shape of the minimal resolution and the graded Betti numbers are
available. To see the differentials of either the minimized or non-minimized com-
plex in the actual ring additional calculations need to be performed. They are
initiated by the minres-command of SINGULAR or by result conversions to list
type.

All of the implementations benefit from the improved monomial representa-

tions developed by O. Bachmann and H. SchOnemann [1]. This does not hold
for the implementation of the algorithm with direct minimization and, hence,
its timings are omitted. However, our experimental data showed timings which
lie between STZS and res. Its benefit might be to give a good basis for Hilbert-
driven algorithms. These implementation still have to be done.

To demonstrate the advantage of the new criteria within the LaScala-algorithm

a column std with the time to calculate the dp-standard basis is included.

Comparisons with CoCoA are not included since no current and documented
version was available. As some of the examples are very extensive (random cubics
and quintics) we do not give a complete list of the examples. They can be
downloaded (as well as SINGULAR itself) via anonymous ftp from
ftp://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de:/pub/Math/Singular
There are files test...syz.mac and test...syz.sing containing a MACAULAY and a
SINGULAR version of the tested rings and ideals. All examples are global and
homogeneous.

The timings were obtained on a AMD K6 with 200Mhz and 64MB RAM
running under Linux, kernel version 2.0.32. Timings smaller than 0.5 seconds
are set to zero.
310 T. Siebert

res STZS LaScala LaScala..min mac std

Alex4 5.0 5.6 0 0 0 0

standard 1.4 0.5 0 0 0 0
f(11,10,3,1) 1.8 0.7 0 0 0 0
h(6) 1.1 0.6 0 0 0 0
h(7) 2.1 0.7 0 0 0 0
g(6,8,1O,5,5;0) 0.7 1.5 0 0 0 0
f(19,19,4,1) 43.6 4.7 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.9
(max5)2 1.1 48.1 11.5 18.8 9.8 0
randomSyzl 2.6 2.0 1.4 1.4 2.2 0
randomSyz2 37.6 104.4 17.1 30.4 24.4 0
cyclic roots 5 2.6 0 0 0.8 0.6 0
cyclic roots 5 homog 184.3 1.4 0.8 1.8 1.2 0
Schwarz6 2.1 4.1 0.7 0.7 0.9 0
Kahn4 55.2 231.6 102.3 157.3 184.3 1.8
Iarrobino1 10.1 0 2.8 5.5 4.5 0
Random5,3 7.1 7.1 1.8 1.8 2.6 2.8
Alex1 Mora 43.8 109.3 1.2 1.2 2.9 1.7
Alex 6 65.1 63.5 3.3 3.3 13.2 2.6
cassou 565.2 24.9 4.2 11.4 6.0 0
katsura5 25.9 12.9 13.5 15.0 25.4 0

Evaluating the given timings we observe that, in general, the LaScala-algorithm

seems to be best choice for the homogeneous case - in three cases it is even
better than the normal standard basis computation which is the reason to think
of it as a new criterion for the std-algorithm.

References
1. O. Bachmann and H. Schonemann, Monomial representations for Grabner bases
computations, Preprint (1998), Center for Computer Algebra, University of Kaiser-
slautern.
2. D. Bayer and D. Mumford, What can be computed in algebraic geometry?, Pro-
ceedings of Computational algebraic geometry and commutative algebra Cortona
1991, Cambridge, (1993), 1-48.
3. A.Capani, G. DeDominicis, G. Niesi, L. Robbiano, Computing minimal finite free
resolution, Preprint (1996), Universita di Genova, 1-15.
4. P. Gianni, T. Mora, L. Robbiano and C. Traverso, Hilbert functions and Buch-
berger algorithm, Preprint, (1994).
5. H. Grassmann, G.M. Greuel, B. Martin, W. Neumann, G. Pfister, Th. Siebert, W.
Pohl and H. Schoenemann: Standard bases, syzygies and their implementation in
SINGULAR, Preprint 251 (1994), University Kaiserslautern.
6. R. LaScala and M. Stillman, Strategies for computing minimal free resolutions, to
appear in J. Symb. Compo
7. H. M. Moller and T. Mora, New constructive methods in classical ideal theory, J.
of Algebra 100, 138-178 (1986).
8. H. M. Moller and T. Mora, Computational aspects of reduction strategies to con-
struct resolution of monomial ideal, ???
9. F.O. Schreyer: Die Berechnung von Syzygien mit dem verallgemeinerten Weier-
strasschen Divisionssatz. Diplomarbeit, Hamburg (1980).
10. Th. Siebert, On the strategy and implementations for computations of free resolu-
tions, Preprint 8 (1996), Centre for Computeralgebra, University Kaiserslautern.
11. C. Traverso and M. Caboara, The powerful Buchberger algorithm for modules,
Preprint Pisa, (1996).
 Computational Aspects of the Isomorphism
Problem

Frauke M. BIeher\ Wolfgang Kimmerle 2 , Klaus W. Roggenkamp2, and

Martin Wursthorn 2

1 Department of Mathematics, University of Pennsylvania, 209 S 33Rd Street,

Philadelphia, PA 19104, U.S.A.
2 Mathematisches Institut B, Universitat Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 57,
D-70550 Stuttgart, Germany

1 The Questions

R. Brauer posed in his famous lectures on modern mathematics 1963 more than
40 problems, questions and conjectures about the representation theory of finite
groups, cf. [10]. These questions have had a big influence on the development
of the theory since then. Most of the problems may be summarized under the
following central question.
Question. Which properties of a finite group G are determined by its rep-
resentations.
One basic task is to find information about a finite group G additional to its
character table in order to determine G up to isomorphism. Even R. Brauer indi-
cated that the integral group ring 7!..G is in this direction the canonical candidate.
This is in fact a topic which was considered for the first time in G. Higman's
thesis 1939 [57, p.100]. The question is the following.
(IP) Let G and H be groups. Assume that 7!..G and 7!..H are isomorphic as
rings. Does it follow that G and H are isomorphic as groups.
It is a result of G. Glauberman that finite groups G and H with isomorphic
integral group rings 7!..G and 7!..H have the same character table [22, (3.17)]. Thus
the isomorphism problem fits well into the context of Brauer's problems. On the
other hand it is a first question on the group of units U(7!..G) of a group ring.
Denote by V(7!..G) the subgroup of U(7!..G) consisting of units of augmentation
1. If G is finite then the finite subgroups of maximal order of V(7!..G have just
the order of G. Such subgroups have also the property that they from a 7!.. -
basis of 7!..G and thus they are called group basis of 7!..G. A positive solution to
the isomorphism problem shows that group bases of 7!..G are up to isomorphism
unique.
An important result on IP is the following recently announced counterexam-
ple of M. Hertweck.
Theorem 1. f19} There are non - isomorphic groups of order
97 28 x 221
with isomorphic integral group rings.

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
314 F.M. Bleher, W. Kimmerle, K.W. Roggenkamp, M. Wursthorn

In a first moment one might think that the construction of such huge groups
certainly involves the use of computers. A second thought indicates however
that the order of the groups may be already too big in order to check their
isomorphism by a simple test with GAP. In fact Martin Hertweck's construction
is purely theoretical. It is along the lines developed for the isomorphism problem
within the last ten years and we discuss this in the sequel. Our main aim in this
article however will be to exhibit computational methods which may be used to
get results on (IP) and related questions.
An important remark which has to be made at this point is that the answer
to (IP) is not as negative as one might think. In fact it is justified to say that
(IP) almost has a positive answer and this may be summarized in the following
result.
Theorem 2. A finite group G is determined up to isomorphism by the category
of finitely generated ZX - modules, where X is the semi-direct product of G with
lFpG, p a prime not dividing IGI.
Theorem 2 is mainly a consequence of the following Theorem 3 which is
according to a remark in [46] a result due to L. Scott, see also [61], [45]. We like
to mention that the original proof as sketched in [45] had to be revised in the
case when p = 2, cf. [20]. The following holds with respect to a prime p.
Theorem 3. Let G be a finite group. Assume that F*(G) is a p - group. Then
group bases of ZG are conjugate within QG.
The content of Theorem 3 may be also given by saying that the second
Zassenhaus conjecture (ZC 2) is valid. The conjectures of Zassenhaus concerning
the structure of torsion subgroups of V(ZG) are as follows [64, p.497-98]
1. (ZC 1) Let u be a unit of finite order of V(ZG). Then u is conjugate within
QG to an element of G.
2. (ZC 2) Let H be a subgroup of V(ZG) with the same order as G. Then H
is conjugate to G by a unit of QG.
3. (ZC 3) Let U be a finite subgroup of V(ZG). Then U is conjugate within
QG to a subgroup of G.
While as the integral isomorphism problem may nowadays be regarded as
solved the so - called modular isomorphism problem is still wide open.
(MIP) Let G be a finite p - group. Assume that lFpG and IFpH are isomorphic
as algebras. Does it follow that G and H are isomorphic?
This is clearly a finite problem and may be attacked by computer programs.
In fact the problem may be reduced algorithmically to linear algebra over IFp,
which is of course always a desirable aim for computer applications.
In Section 3 we shall have a closer look at (MIP). Section 4 deals with simple
and almost simple groups and variations of the Zassenhaus conjectures. Finally in
Section 5 we discuss briefly related questions about Hecke algebras and Burnside
rings.
Our first section however will be devoted to the study of automorphisms of
groups in connection with group rings and vice versa. Several aspects of this
played a major role in the development of the whole theory.
 Computational Aspects of the Isomorphism Problem 315

2 Automorphisms and Normalizers

Let R be a commutative ring. Denote by Autn (RG) the R - algebra auto-

morphisms of RG which preserve the augmentation and put Out n (RG) =
Aut n (RG)/Inn (RG). Each group automorphism of G induces by R - linear
extension an R - algebra automorphism of RG. This leads naturally to a group
homomorphism
CPR : Out (G) -+ Out n (RG).
Let G be a finite group and let S be an integral domain of characteristic zero.
We say that S is G - adapted if no prime dividing the order of G is invertible in
S.
The normalizer problem for integral group rings is as follows, d. [65, Problem
43J.
NC Let G be a finite group. Assume that S is G - adapted. Then

NV(SG)(G) = centre(V(SG)) x G.
Assume that u E V(SG) normalizes the group basis G. Then conjugation
by u induces a group automorphism of G and obviously the normalizer problem
may be rephrased in the following way.

NC holds for SG if and only if CPs is injective.

Coleman showed that CPs is injective provided G is a p - group and S is

G - adapted. Then Jackowski and Marciniak proved using a result of Krempa
that cpz is injective if G has a normal Sylow 2 - subgroup. The relevance of the
normalizer conjecture to the isomorphism problem becomes transparent by the
following construction of M. Mazur.

TheoreUl 4. fB7} Let H be a group and let (3 E AutH. Denote by Coo the
infinite cyclic group generated by c. Let c act on H as (3 and form via this action
the semi-direct product H{3 := H >4{3Coo . Then

(i) H x C ~ H{3 if, and only if, (3 E InnH.

(ii) Assume that CPR«(3) = 1. Then RH x C ~ RH{3.

Denote by Z"'(G) the intersection of the local rings Zp,p E 7r(G). In [52J it
was shown that cpz~(G) is in general not injective. Moreover the semi-local ring
Z"'(G) may be replaced by a suitable ring of algebraic integers of an algebraic
number field. 1 The structure of the groups G is as follows. G has minimal
normal subgroups Ml and M2 of order p2, q2 resp. p and q are different odd
primes. H = G /(M1 • M2 ) has order 27 and is a pullback of the following form.

1 M. Hertweck however pointed out that for the examples given in [52]l/>z is injective,
cf. [19].
316 F.M. Bleher, W. Kimmerle, K.W. Roggenkamp, M. Wursthorn

1- Cs - HI --+ Aut (Cs) x (0") - 1

II r r
1 - Cs - - H - Qs x (0") - 1
Here Cs denotes as usual a cyclic group of order 8. Let a be a generator of
Cs . Qs is the quaternion group of order 8. HI is the iterated semi-direct product
obtained by the action of Aut (Cs ) ~ C 2 x C 2 on Cs and the action of 0" on
Cs ~ Aut (Cs ). 0" is a conjugacy class preserving automorphism of Cs ~ Aut Cs
which is not inner. Note that 0" is unique up to inner automorphism and has
order 2.
Let R = Z,,(G). Using Clifford theory and Frohlich's exact sequence of Picard
groups the construction of an automorphism a of G which becomes inner on RG
may be carried out by the following computational process.

(i) Construct a conjugacy class preserving group automorphism a of G such

that a is not inner but induces on H an inner automorphism.
(ii) Put M = Ml . M 2 • Compute for each non-trivial irreducible character of M
its inertia group.
(iii) Compute for each non-trivial irreducible character of Ml its inertia group.
(iv) Compute for each non-trivial irreducible character of M2 its inertia group.
(v) Determine for each of the various inertia groups a transversal in G.
(vi) For each inertia group I with transversal {gl, ... ,gB} check whether a fixes
I and whether Ci := a(gi) . gil E centre (I) for each i. If this is the case then
a is inner on RG.
Summarizing this leads to the following counterexample.
Theorem 5. [53} There are non - isomorphic polycyclic by finite groups of the
structure H x Coo and H ~ o:Coo such that their integral group rings over Z,,(H)
are isomorphic.
We remark that conjugacy class preserving automorphisms play also an impor-
tant role in the obstruction theory to the validity of (ZC 2), cf. [28]. For a
discussion of this we refer to [46] and [26].

3 The Modular Isomorphism Problem

The isomorphism problem for fields was solved in general by E. C. Dade [13] in
1971 who provided a series of pairs of non isomorphic finite metabelian groups
with isomorphic group algebras over all fields. The order of the groups in each
pair is p3q6 for distinct primes p and q with q == 1 (P2). Dade's counterexamples
left open the question whether there exist two non isomorphic p-groups with
isomorphic group algebras over a field of characteristic p. What seemed to be
just a matter of diligence turned out to be a really hard problem that is "still far
from a solution" ([2]). Nevertheless there are two points that make the modular
isomorphism more accessible than the integral isomorphism problem:
 Computational Aspects of the Isomorphism Problem 317

- p-groups of small order are classified and the classification is available in a

form usable by computers.
- The field can be taken to be the prime field of characteristic p and this means
that the group algebras are finite.
The first point suggests to work through the lists to find either a counterex-
ample or settle the problem for a specific group order. In fact many authors have
followed this approach. The second point directs towards the use of computers
especially if one combines it with the first point. This is the approach chosen
by M. Wurst horn already with the groups of order 26 , using a computer pro-
gram to compute isomorphisms and automorphisms of modular group algebras
of p-groups over lFp. An improved and amplified version of this program has also
been used to solve the case of groups of order 27.

3.1 The State of the Problem

Up to now no counterexamples have been found. For the following classes of
groups the isomorphism problem has been found to have a positive answer:
- G abelian ([14])
IGI ~ p4 ([40])
IGI = 25 ([36])
IGI = p5, p odd (Kovacs/Newman, [55], [56])
IGI = 26 ([71])
- G metacyclic ([1] (p > 3), [59])
- Gof maximal class, p = 2 ([11]) or p odd, IGI ~ pP+1, Ghas abelian maximal
subgroup ([2])
With the improved version of the program SISYPHOS M. Wurst horn could
show the following theorem to prolong the above list:
Theorem 6. The groups 0/ order 27 are determined by their modular group
algebras over lFp •
Moreover large subsets of groups of order 36 and 28 have been investigated
with the program with respect to the isomorphism problem and related questions
and conjectures (see 3.4). No counterexamples were found.

3.2 Invariants of Modular Group Algebras

Given a list of groups, the problem of distinguishing them with respect to their
modular group algebras can be carried out in two steps: The first step is to
compute invariants determined by the group algebras. Most of these invariants
are of a purely group theoretical nature and can be calculated using a group
theory program like GAP . Other invariants, mainly of cohomological nature,
rely on the ring structure of lFpG and can be computed using SISYPHOS. All
these invariants give an equivalence relation on the given set of groups. The
second step consists of direct calculations of isomorphisms between the groups
318 F.M. Bleher, W. Kimmerle, K.W. Roggenkamp, M. Wursthorn

lying in the same equivalence class using the main algorithm implemented in
SISYPHOS.
The following theorem lists the group theoretical invariants used in the case
of groups of order 27 :
Theorem 7. For a p-group G the following objects are determined by FpG
1. G 1if>(G) {[15}}.
2. The center (G) of G and GIG' {[67}, [63}).
3. The sections Mi(G)IMi+1 (G), Mi(G)IMi+2(G) and Mi(G)IM2i+1 (G) for
all i ;::: 1 {[38}, U3}}.
4· Gh2(G)P'Y3(G) ([58}).
5. The numbers of conjugacy classes of maximal elementary abelian subgroups
of given rank {f42}}.
6. The number of conjugacy classes of G and the number of conjugacy classes
of all pn_th powers of elements of G ([71}).
7. Ei=l, ... ,t logp I
ICa(gi) / if>(Ca(gi)) (Roggenkamp, see [71}).
Here Mi(G) denotes the i-th term of the Brauer-Jennings-Zassenhaus series,
defined recursively by Ml(G) = G,Mn(G) = [Mn-1(G),Gj.Min/p)' where (nip)
is the smallest integer satisfying (nip)· p ;::: n. T = {gl, ... ,gt} is a set of
representatives of the conjugacy classes of G
It should be noted that invariant 3. usually does not distinguish any more groups
that share all of the other invariants. Omitting invariant 5. on the other hand
leads to approximately twice as many equivalent classes. Nevertheless this addi-
tional classes have also been checked on the computer.

3.3 The Groups of Order 27

There are 2328 groups of order 27. Using the invariants of theorem 7 leads to a
division into equivalence classes which looks like this:
Irk(G)I#groupsl#classeslmax. class lengthl#testsl
2 162 23 3 27
3 833 104 5 201
4 1153 50 9 62
5 169 0 0 0
6 9 0 0 0
total number of tests 290 1
If one omits invariant 5. the situation is as follows:
Irk(G)I#groupsl#classeslmax. class lengthl#testsl
2 162 24 3 28
3 833 136 5 332
4 1153 108 9 154
5 169 2 3 4
6 9 0 0 0
total number of tests 518 1
 Computational Aspects of the Isomorphism Problem 319

On a modern PC (200MHz) the CPU time needed to test one pair of groups dif-
fers from a few seconds to several hours, the sizes of the automorphism groups
Aut (IFpG / Ia) can be as large as 2192 . With the old version of the program
and older hardware several pairs could not be checked at all. For these groups
a different test was used: Let Hi ::; Z(G i ), i = 1,2 be a subgroup such that
Gd HI ~ G 2/ H 2. Compute the number of epimorphisms from lFpG i to IFpGi/ Hi
and compare these numbers. SISYPHOS can carry out also this kind of computa-
tions.

3.4 Related Questions

The ample amount of data produced by the tests, especially the possibility to
compute Aut (IFpG) completely rendered by the new version of SISYPHOS leads
to several interesting questions, the answers to which would give new insight
into the structure of lFpG.
Question 1. 1. Let n be the smallest integer such that M n+1 (G) = 1. Is it true
that in this case
JF G/I(2n+1) ci!.JF H/I(2n+1)? (1)
p G r PH·

Does (1) hold under the additional assumptions that Mn(G) ~ Mn(H) is
cyclic and G/Mn(G) ~ H/Mn(H)?
2. For a E Aut (lFpG) let a be the induced automorphism on IFpG / lb. Does
there exist a group automorphism (J" E Aut (G), such that the induced auto-
morphism (J"' E Aut(IFpG) satisfies

(2)

Only a small number of pairs of groups of order 27 and no pairs of groups of

order 26 reach the bound in 1(1).

3.5 The Algorithm Used by SISYPHOS

Let IG be the augmentation ideal of IFpG, i.e. the kernel of c: IFpG -+ IF with
lFpG :3 E9EG a(g)g f-t E9EG a(g). Note that IG = rad(IFpG), IFpG has a filtra-
tion

IFpG J IG J Ib J ... J I~-1 J Ib = O.

The problem can be solved inductively, by computing Hom(IFpH, IFpG / In)
from Hom(IFpH,IFpG/lm), n > m ,cf. [50].

Define

IFpG ~ IFpG/l m
J~f r/l m ,
320 F.M. Bleher, W. Kimmerle, K.W. Roggenkamp, M. Wursthorn

Then the following sequence is exact

and the following lifting problem has to be solved

- 7r -
0 - - J-lFpG-lFpGIJ - 0

II 3e?!
- 7r -
e!
0 - - J-lFpG -lFpGIJ- 0

For J2 = 0, i.e. m ::; 2n the problem leads to a system of linear equations.

The short exact sequence of lFp H - lFp H - bimodules (*) gives rise to the long
exact sequence of cohomology

H~(lFpH, J) --t H~(lFpH,lFpG) --t H~(lFpH,lFpGIJ) ~

He (lFpH, J) --t He (lFpH, lFpG) --t He1 (lFpH, lFpG
1 1 - -
1J) --t ...

Here the subscript e indicates that the modules are considered as G-modules
via e.
Proposition 1. Let L{I be the set of all liftings of e : lFpH -4 lFpG 1 J modulo
conjugation with elements of 1 + J and let eo :
lFpH -4 lFpG be a fixed lifting,
then
1. Le = eo
+ H~(lFpH, J).
2. If J = 10110+1 then the set of allliftings of e modulo inner automorphisms
e
of lFpG is given by L~ = + H~ (lFpH, J) /Im 8•.
3. H~ (lFp G, J) corresponds to liftings of the identity lFp G 1 J --t lFp G 1 J
4. G~+1 = {e' I e' = a, 0: E Out(G), a == id mod J} is a subspace of
H:(lFpG, J)
5. The obstruction of e to be liftable is an element of H;(lFpH, J). e is liftable
if this element is actually in B;(lFpH, J).

This proposition can be used to construct a generating system for Aut (lFpG),
namely by constructing a stabilizer chain for Aut (lFpG) consisting of the sub-
groups En = {e E Aut (lFpG) I e == id mod la}· Then Enl En+1 is elementary
abelian and can be parameterized by a subspace of 101/0+1. Moreover, by the
proposition, G~+1 is a subgroup of Enl En+1 as is the set of inner automorphisms
(modulo 10+1) that are trivial modulo 10 . Both sets can be precomputed. This
means that the backtrack search to compute En can be restricted to a comple-
ment of the associated subspaces within 10110+1.
 Computational Aspects of the Isomorphism Problem 321

4 Simple Groups

In this section we want to look at the conjecture (ZC 2) and some variations of it
with respect to simple and almost simple groups. By [49] the conjecture (ZC 2)
is not true in general, but there exist metabelian counterexamples. Nevertheless,
it is still an open question whether (ZC 2) holds for the chief factors of a finite
group. Note that this will be the case if (ZC 2) is valid for all simple groups. On
the other hand it is an obvious task to develop variations of (ZC 2) which hold
for wider classes of groups and which still provide a positive answer to (IP).
By Noether-Skolem, the conjecture (ZC 2) is equivalent to the statement:
There exists a group isomorphism T : X -t Y whose Z-linear extension preserves
all class sums of ZG.
If p is a rational prime then we call the following modification the p-variation
of (ZC 2).
(ZCp ) For any two group bases X, Y of ZG, there exists a group isomorphism
T : X -t Y whose Z-linear extension preserves all class sums of ZG corresponding
to p-elements.
Note that the p-variation still implies that (IP) has a positive solution. If
one wants to drop this implication the p-variation represents just a Sylow-like
statement and may be phrased as follows.
(p-ZC) If X is a finite subgroup of V(ZG) then the Sylow p-subgroups of
X are conjugate to a subgroup of G.
In case that X is a group basis and G is a finite soluble group, this vari-
ation has been verified in [28]. Further investigations are due to Juriaans and
Dokuchaev, see [16]. Note that so far no counterexample to (p-ZC) is known.
If (IP) has a positive solution then (ZC 2) is equivalent to the following
description of the group Aut n (ZG) of augmentation preserving ring automor-
phisms of ZG.
(AUT) Every U E Aut n (ZG) can be written as u = aT where a is the
Z-linear extension of a group automorphism of G and T E Aut n (ZG) preserves
all class sums of ZG.
For semi-simple groups and their automorphism groups, (IP) is valid by [27].
Thus, in particular for simple groups, the structure of ring automorphisms of
ZG can be used to study the group of units V(ZG).
(AUT) is first reformulated as a criterion which only uses the ordinary char-
acter table CT( G) and its character table automorphisms. A character table
automorphism of CT( G) is a permutation 7r which operates on the rows and on
the columns of CT(G) such that 7r(X)(C) = X(7r(C)) for all conjugacy classes C
and for all ordinary irreducible characters X. Since U E Aut n (ZG) permutes the
central primitive idempotents of m and since u induces a so-called class sum
correspondence, which means that u maps class sums to class sums, u induces
a character table automorphism of CT(G). Thus we get the following criterion:

Proposition 2. (AUT) is valid for G if and only if for all u E Aut" (ZG) there
exists a group automorphism a of G such that u and a induce the same character
table automorphism of eT(G).
322 F.M. Bleher, W. Kimmerle, K.W. Roggenkamp, M. Wursthorn

Studying the character tables of finite simple groups which are given in the
Atlas of finite groups shows that many character table automorphisms come from
Galois automorphisms. Such automorphisms can be avoided if one considers
instead of CG the rational group algebra IQ'G. This leads to the following Q-
variation of (ZC 2).
(ZCQ) For any two group bases X, Y of ZG, there exists a group isomor-
phism 7 : X ~ Y whose Z-linear extension fixes all blocks of the Wedderburn
decomposition of IQ'G.
(ZCQ) is usually easier to establish than (ZC 2). A typical example is the
case of the alternating groups. Here the proof of (ZCQ) [24] is analogous to the
proof of (ZC 2) for symmetric groups [41]. However, it seems to be difficult to
establish whether (ZC 2) is valid for alternating groups. So far (ZC 2) is known
to hold for degrees n :::; 10 and n = 12, see [4].
For the verification of (ZC 2), it is in most of the cases not enough to look
only at CT(G} to show that the character table automorphisms which are not
induced by Aut G are also not induced by Aut n (ZG). Thus we have to find
further obstructions to analyze this criterion. The main tool which is used here
is modular representation theory, since this often reflects better the connection
between the conjugacy classes than ordinary representation theory does.
Let now (K, R, k) be a p-modular system with K sufficiently large relative
to G. Then a E Aut n (ZG) induces an augmentation preserving K-algebra auto-
morphism of KG and also an augmentation preserving k-algebra automorphism
of kG, which we both denote again by a. Thus a permutes the blocks of kG, and
since a is augmentation preserving, it fixes the principal block Bo of kG. There-
fore a induces an autoequivalence of the category Bo-mod of finitely generated
Bo-modules. In case that Bo has cyclic defect groups, a fixes the isomorphism
class of every finitely generated Bo-module [8, Theorem 3.6]. For other blocks
with cyclic defect the same holds provided a fixes at least one simple module
in this block. For related results concerning conjugacy of cyclic defect groups in
the unit group of blocks see [62] and [34]. For blocks with non-cyclic defect, we
do not get such a strong result. However, a induces an operation on the decom-
position matrices and on the socle series of projective indecomposable modules.
These observations show that (ZC 2) is valid for 16 of the 26 sporadic simple
groups:
Theorem 8. The conjecture (ZC 2) is valid for the sporadic simple groups M l l ,
M 12 , M 22 , M 23 , M 24 , COl, CO 2 , C03 , J1 , h, J3 , H'S, H'N, Th, B, Ru.
With respect to the variations of (ZC 2) we get the following result:
Theorem 9. (i) The conjecture (ZCQ) is valid for all sporadic simple groups
and for all their automorphism groups.
(ii) The conjecture (ZCp ) is valid for all p for all sporadic simple groups and
their automorphism groups which are not isomorphic to McL, McL.2, Fi23,
J4 , Ly.
Theorem 8 is mainly proven in [4] and can also be found together with The-
orem 9 in [9]. The proofs use the character tables and decomposition matrices
 Computational Aspects of the Isomorphism Problem 323

provided by the computer algebra system GAP [60]. For the Janko group J3
we also use the socle series of the projective indecomposable modules modulo 3
which were computed by K. Lux [35].
For finite simple groups of Lie type, different methods have to be developed
for the examination of (ZC 2). Here the description of the simple kG-modules
as tensor products [66], when char(k) is the defining characteristic, plays the
most important role. We have the following action of (J E Aut n (ZG) on tensor
products of characters:
Lemma 1. [5, Prop. 2.1] Let eand ( be two ordinary or two Brauer characters,
respectively. Then

The proof uses mainly the fact that (J also induces a character table auto-
morphism of the p-modular character table of G.
The strategy to prove the validity of (AUT) for some series of finite groups G of
Lie type is now the following: Let p be the defining characteristic of G.

Strategy:
(A) Show that for every (J E Aut n (ZG) there exists a E Aut G such that (J and a
induce the same character table automorphism on the p-modular character
table of G. Then (J operates as a on all ordinary irreducible characters which
are non-exceptional for p. Note that a character X is called exceptional for p,
if there exists another character X' such that X and X' have the same values
on the p-regular conjugacy classes of G.
(B) Look at the action of (J on the ordinary irreducible characters which are
exceptional for p.
For step (B), we use the generic ordinary character tables of CHEVIE [17]
to determine the exceptional characters.
The strategy leads to the following result:
Theorem 10. [5,6] The conjecture (ZC 2) is valid for the finite groups of Lie
type
SL(2, q), PSL(2, q), SL(3, q), PSL(3, q), SU(3, q2),
PSU(3, q2),Sp(4, q), PSp(4, q), G 2(q), 3 D4(q3),
2B2 (2 2m +1 ), 2G 2 (3 2m +l), 2F4(22m+l),

where q is an arbitrary prime power.

Thus (ZC 2) is valid for all simple groups of Lie type of rank 1 and of rank
2, which are not of type 2 A3 or 2 A4 •
This leads to the validity of (ZC 2) for a relatively large class of finite simple
groups:
Theorem 11. The conjecture (ZC 2) is valid for all minimal simple groups,
for all simple Zassenhaus groups and for all simple groups with abelian Sylow
2-subgroups.
324 F.M. Bleher, W. Kimmerle, K.W. Roggenkamp, M. Wursthorn

5 Related Topics

5.1 Iwahori - Heeke Algebras

For integral group rings of finite Coxeter groups the following holds.

Theorem 12. [7, Theorem 1.6} (ZC 2) is valid for finite Coxeter groups W.

Note that the special case when W is the symmetric group of degree n has
been proved by G. Peterson and the case for Coxeter groups of type B is covered
by the results in [18].
Let (W,8) be a Coxeter system. Then the generic Iwahori - Hecke algebra
H can be viewed as a deformation of the integral group ring of W over the ring
A = Z[v, V-I] of Laurent polynomials in one indeterminate. The algebra H is a
free A-module with basis {Tw I w E W}, and the multiplication is given by the
rules

TwTw' = Tww' if l(ww' ) = l(w) + l(w ' ),

T; = UTI + (u - l)Ts for s E 8

where u := v 2 and 1 denotes the usual length function on W.

The specialization u = 1 shows that the Hecke algebra H maps onto ZW.
Moreover each A - algebra automorphism of H induces a ring automorphism
of Z W. Thus Theorem 12 is one main ingredient in the proof of the following
classification of the A - algebra automorphisms of H.

Theorem 13. If u is an A-algebra automorphism of the Hecke algebra H, then

either u or the composition of u with the Alvis-Curtis duality is normalized, i.e
commutes with the index representation of H . Moreover, if u is normalized, then
u is the composition of a graph automorphism and a central automorphism.

A graph automorphism of H is by definition an automorphism such that

Tw I-t Ta(w), where 0: is a graph automorphism of W. It is clear that for Hecke
algebras, Theorem 13 is the analogue to (ZC 2) fro Z W. The specific set of
generators {Tw, w E W} plays precisely the role which W does for Z W.
Observe however that Theorem 13 also says that certain outer automor-
phisms of W, e.g. the well known outer automorphism of 8 6 , do not exist on the
level of H. This shows that Theorem 12 is not the only ingredient for the proof
of Theorem 13. For further details we refer to [7].
The group of outer graph automorphisms of H is trivial if, and only if, H is
of type An, E 6 , E 7 , E 8 , H 3 , H 4 , Bn with n 2: 3, Dn with n odd or I2(m) with m
odd. In this case all normalized A - algebra automorphisms of H are central and
this justifies to call such Hecke algebras rigid. In the case when 8 consists of two
conjugacy classes H is usually regarded as algebra over Z[VI' vt I , V2, v2"I]. For a
similar classification of the algebra automorphisms in this situation we refer to
[7, Proposition 6.11].
 Computational Aspects of the Isomorphism Problem 325

5.2 Burnside Rings

Another Z - order closely related to the structure of a finite group G is the
Burnside ring il(G). Usually one defines il(G) via the so - called table of marks,
which determines the multiplication of the elements of the Z - basis consisting of
the isomorphism classes [G /U] of the transitive G - sets. It is a natural question to
ask how unique this table of marks is or in other words the question whether each
normalized automorphism of il( G) fixes the Z - basis consisting of the transitive
G - classes. An automorphism of il(G) is called normalized if it commutes with
the augmentation of il(G). Equivalently a E Aut (il(G» is normalized if, and
only if, a([G/1]) = [G/1].
It is not difficult to see that for non - abelian groups in general there are au-
tomorphisms which do not fix the Z - basis of the transitive G - classes. Already
il(Ds) permits such automorphisms. But each normalized a E Aut (il(G» in-
duces a permutation a. of the set V (G) of conjugacy classes of subgroups of G
with the following properties in case when G is soluble, d. [30, §3].
For U. E a. ([U]) the following holds.

(pI) IU.I = lUI, (p2) INo(U.)1 = INo(u)I, (p3) II q= II q.

Moreover a. respects the following special partial ordering of V(G), which is

defined as follows.
Let V be a maximal subgroup of U, then [V] j [U], if (#([V], [U]), IU :
VI) = 1, where #([V], [U]) denotes the number of G - conjugates of V con-
tained in U. For arbitrary subclasses we define [V] j [U], if there is a chain
[V] = [Uo], ... ,[U] = [Un] such that lUi] is maximal in [Ui+l] and lUi] j [Ui+1].
Note that for soluble groups for each subgroup U there is at least one maximal
subgroup V with [V] j [U].
It is now a natural question when such a poset automorphism which satisfies
the properties (p1), (p2) and (p3) is realized by an automorphism of il(G).

Theorem 14. [30} Assume that G is soluble. Let T be a poset automorphism

of (V(G), j) satisfying (pi), (p2) and (p3). Then there exists a E Autn (il(G»
with a. = T if and only if
L (IWI/IUI)· #([V], [U]) . ( L 1L(W, V.»
(Vl:S[Ul WE[Wl

is a rational integer for each pair ([U], [W]) with [W] :::; [V.] for some [V] < [U].
Here 1L denotes the Mobius function of the subgroup lattice of G and U. and V.
are representatives of T[U] and T[V] respectively.

The answer also gives an algorithm for the calculation of Aut (il(G». As
observed by M. Wursthorn this may be easier done via the following algorithm.
Let gh(G) = I1[U]EV(O) Z[ul denote the ghost ring of il(G). Using fixed point
vectors il(G) can be viewed as a Z-suborder of gh(G), the embedding is just
326 F.M. Bleher, W. Kimmerle, K.W. Roggenkamp, M. Wursthorn

given by the table of marks T. Now every automorphism a of n(G) induces an

automorphism 7r of gh( G) which is just induced by a permutation of idempotents.
If IV(G)I = n, a and 7r can be described by matrices A, P E GL(n, Z) where P
is a permutation matrix. The following commutative diagram

n(G) ~ n(G)

r
gh(G)
7r
-+
r
gh(G).

leads to the matrix equation

T·A=T·P, (3)

which has to been solved for a given permutation 7r E Sn. The properties (pI),
(p2) and (p3) allow to divide the elements of V(G) into equivalence classes which
must be stabilized by 7r. Making use of this fact one can compute a stabilizer
chain for Aut (n(G)) and thus find a generating set for this group.

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 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite
Groups of Lie Type

Richard Dipper!, Meinolf Geck2, Gerhard Hiss 3 , and Gunter Malle 4

1 Mathematisches Institut B
Universitat Stuttgart
Postfach 801140
70550 Stuttgart
Germany
2 U.F.R. de Mathematiques de
l'Universite Paris 7
2 Place Jussieu
75251 Paris Cedex 05
France
3 Lehrstuhl D fiir Mathematik
RWTH Aachen
Templergraben 64
52062 Aachen
Germany
4 IWR der Universitat Heidelberg
1m Neuenheimer Feld 368
69120 Heidelberg
Germany

1 Introduction
The aim of this article is to lead the reader on a journey through the representa-
tion theory of finite groups of Lie type and Hecke algebras. We will present some
basic results obtained in recent years, explain the ideas behind them, and give
lots of examples; proofs are usually omitted but we provide explicit references
to an extensive bibliography.
Let G be a finite group of Lie type. Examples are G = GLn(q), where q
is a prime power, or any finite classical group. Hecke algebras arise naturally
as endomorphism algebras of certain induced modules for G. This shows their
importance for studying representations of G. By a result of Iwahori [82], they
can be obtained as deformations of group algebras of finite Coxeter groups. Here,
the standard example is the symmetric group 6 n .
The group G is defined over a finite field, whose characteristic we call the
defining characteristic of G. The case of representations over an algebraically
closed field of characteristic 0 is relatively well-understood. The irreducible rep-
resentations are classified by Lusztig [95], and Lusztig's subsequent work on
character sheaves has provided the framework in which the problem of comput-
ing the corresponding character values can be attacked; see Shoji [117].

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
332 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

Therefore, the emphasis in this article will be on modular representations over

a field of positive characteristic, which is different from the defining characteristic
of G. The overall aim of the theory, as we present it here, is to find a classification
of the simple modules and to determine properties of the simple modules such
as their degrees, their Brauer characters, projective covers etc.
On our journey, we will see our group G comes along with a number of
rich additional structures (like 'generic' objects and 'Hom-functors'). It is the
interplay between these structures which is responsible for most of the progress
made in recent years. It should also be pointed out that explicit computations
played an important role in 'guessing' the correct form of a result or providing
hints for further research.
Let us now describe in somewhat more detail the contents of this article.
Chapter 2 introduces two basic principles for studying modular represen-
tations of G: Harish-Chandra philosophy and Brauer's theory of blocks. The
Harish-Chandra philosophy, i.e., the idea of inducing representations from sub-
groups and studying their endomorphism algebras, has been successfully applied
to the classification problem. It may look surprising that, as far as the formu-
lation of the statements is concerned, this theory bears many similarities with
that in characteristic 0, but a number of new features do arise. The main results
are stated in Corollary 2.1 (classification of irreducible representations of G by
certain triples) and Theorem 2.3 (structure of endomorphism algebras). The un-
known quantities in this set-up are the representations which are not covered
by the induction process; these are the cuspidal representations. We do not yet
have a satisfactory theory for them; however, explicit results have been obtained
in various examples, see Section 4.7.
A basic part of Brauer's theory is the idea of relating modular representations
with those in characteristic 0 via the process of modular reduction. In this way
it is possible to define a partition of the representations in characteristic 0 into
blocks. In the case of groups of Lie type the right approach to this question seems
to be via generalized Harish-Chandra theories of generic groups. We describe this
set-up in Section 2.2 and then state the main results in Section 2.3.
Chapter 3 deals with Hecke algebras. Recall that these algebras arise as en-
domorphism algebras of induced cuspidal representations. Up to possible twists
and extensions by automorphisms, they can also be described abstractly as de-
formations of group algebras of finite Weyl groups. The connections between the
representations of these 'Iwahori-Hecke algebras' and those of G will be explained
in Section 3.1 and, in a refined form, in Section 3.3. The remaining sections give
a survey on the known results about Iwahori-Hecke algebras. Conjecture 3.12
formulates in precise terms a conjectural 'generic' behavior of modular represen-
tations of Iwahori-Hecke algebras (originally due to James in type A). The most
striking recent result is Ariki's solution of the Lascoux-Leclerc-Thibon conjec-
ture, which we explain in Section 3.6.
In Chapter 4, we come back to Brauer's theory of modular representations.
Note that knowing the characters of the modular representations of G is equiva-
lent to knowing the characters in characteristic 0 plus the decomposition matrix
 Representations of Hecke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 333

determined by the process of modular reduction. Thus, the determination of

decomposition matrices (or, at least, certain properties of them) is of central
importance. All the known examples indicate that the decomposition matri-
ces we are looking at (i.e., the non-defining characteristic case) have a lower
uni-triangular shape. The results in this chapter can be seen to support this
observation. We introduce the notion of basic sets in Section 4.1. In Section 4.2
we formulate some general conjectures, in particular on a Jordan decomposition
of Brauer characters. The remaining sections give a survey on the present knowl-
edge about f-modular decomposition matrices of groups of Lie type, where f is
different from the defining characteristic. The general linear groups are consid-
ered in Section 4.3, without any restriction on f. Section 4.4 treats the other
classical groups under some restrictions on f. We give a short survey on the ex-
ceptional groups in Section 4.6. Our final Section 4.7 presents the known results
on the distribution of the irreducible Brauer characters into Harish-Chandra
series.

2 Harish-Chandra Philosophy
2.1 Finite Groups with BN-Pairs
Many important results of Harish-Chandra theory can be formulated and proved
within the framework of groups with split BN-pairs. Thus let G be a finite group
with a split BN-pair of characteristic p, satisfying the commutator relations
(cf. [16, §§ 65,69]). Without further notice we shall use the letters B and N
to denote the Borel subgroup and the monomial subgroup of G, respectively.
We also fix an integral domain R and work in the category mod-RG of finitely
generated right RG-modules.

Harish-Chandra induction and restriction. We begin by introducing the

functors Harish-Chandra induction, and Harish-Chandra restriction. There is
one pair of such functors for each Levi subgroup of G.
Let L be a Levi subgroup of G and P a parabolic subgroup with Levi com-
plement L, Le., P = UL, where U is the largest normal p-subgroup of P, and
Un L = {1}. Then the functor

RY"p: mod-RL ~ mod-RG, M I-t Ind~(Inflf(M)),

is called Harish-Chandra induction (from L to G), and the functor

'R~,p : mod-RG ~ mod-RL, M I-t Invu(M),

is called Harish-Chandra restriction (from G to L). Here, Ind~ is the usual

induction functor from P to G, and Inflf denotes inflation from L to P via the
epimorphism P -+ L. Furthermore, Invu(M) denotes the set of U-invariants of
the RG-module M, considered as RL-module.
334 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

Harish-Chandra restriction from G to L is right adjoint, and, in case p is

invertible in R, also left adjoint, to Harish-Chandra induction from L to G. The
collection of functors Rt and their adjoints satisfy a transitivity property and
a Mackey formula. For more details we refer to Dipper and Fleischmann [24],
where these functors are investigated in a much more general context.
The following result is of fundamental importance in Harish-Chandra theory.

Theorem 2.1. (Deligne, Dipper/Du, Howlett/Lehrer) Suppose thatp is invert-

ible in R. Let P and Q be two parabolic subgroups of G such that L is a Levi
complement in P and in Q. Then the two functors Rt,p and Rt,Q are naturally
isomorphic. The same is then true for their adjoint functors 'R~,p and 'R~,Q'

A proof of this theorem in the special case that R is a field of characteristic 0, was
given by Deligne (see Lusztig and Spaltenstein [97]). In the general case it was
proved independently by Dipper and Du [22] and by Howlett and Lehrer [81].
In the applications we have in mind, the assumption of Theorem 2.1 is always
satisfied. In these cases we may, and will, omit the subscript P from the notation
for Harish-Chandra induction and restriction.
Let us consider a simple example which shows that the assumption on the
characteristic of R cannot be omitted. Let G = SL 2 (P), where p is odd. For B
and N we take the upper triangular matrices and the monomial matrices in G,
respectively. Let R = k denote the prime field of characteristic p. Then the
group L of diagonal matrices in G is isomorphic to the multiplicative group of k.
Let M denote the I-dimensional kL-module affording this k-representation of L.
Then if B' denotes the subgroup of lower triangular matrices in G, the two kG-
modules Rt,B(M) = Ind~(Infif(M)) and Rt,B,(M) = Ind~,(Infif' (M)) are
not isomorphic. To see this, observe that B' = s-1 Bs where s is an element
in N \ L. Hence Ind~,(Infif' (M)) ~ Ind~(Infif(MS)). But Infif(MS) is not
isomorphic to Infif (M) and so, by Green correspondence, the induced modules
are not isomorphic either.
Definition 2.1. Suppose that p is invertible in R. An RG-module M is called
cuspidal, irR~(M) = {o} for all Levi subgroups L properly contained in G.

The notion of cuspidal modules was introduced by Harish-Chandra in [70, Sec-

tion 3] in the case that R is a field of characteristic 0, and by Dipper and
Fleischmann in general [24]. We remark that this notion only makes sense if p
is invertible in R. For example, if R = k is a field of characteristic p, then the
unipotent radical of every parabolic subgroup of G has non-trivial fixed points
on every non-zero kG-module M, in other words 'R~,p(M) =1= {o} for all Levi
subgroups L and all parabolic subgroups P with Levi complement L.
To'illustrate the importance of the concept of cuspidal modules let us assume
for the moment that R = k is a field of characteristic e =1= p. If M is a kG-
module, let P(M) denote its projective cover. Then a simple kG-module M is
not cuspidal if and only if there is a proper Levi subgroup L of G and a projective
kL-module Q such that P(M) is a direct summand of Rt(Q).
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 335

Harish-Chandra series. In this section we let k denote a field of characteristic

distinct from p. The following theorem gives some structural information about
modules which are Harish-Chandra induced from simple cuspidal modules.
Theorem 2.2. (Geck/Hiss/Malle, Geck/Hiss) Let L be a Levi subgroup of G.
Suppose that X is a simple cuspidal kL-module, and that Y is an indecomposable
direct summand of RY,(X). Then
(a) Y has a unique simple quotient and a unique simple submodule which are
isomorphic to each other.
If L' is another Levi subgroup, X' a cuspidal simple kL' -module and Y' an
indecomposable direct summand of RY,,(X'), then
(b) Y is isomorphic to Y' if and only if the simple quotient of Y is isomorphic
to the simple quotient of Y' .
(c) If Y and Y' are isomorphic, then the pairs (L, X) and (L', X') are con-
jugate in G.
Statement (c) follows from [74, Theorem 5.8]. Proofs of (a) (without the state-
ment on the socles) and (b) are given in [56, Theorem 2.4], based on Dipper's
theory of Hom-functors [19]. The full version of (a) and an alternative proof of (b)
is established in [53, Theorem 2.9], on the basis of the arguments of Sawada,
Green and Cabanes, see [12]. Dipper has now shown that the above theorem
holds in the general set-up of Hom-functors, see [20, Theorem 1.8, Lemma 2.2].
As a corollary we obtain a classification of the simple kG-modules.
Corollary 2.1. (Geck/Hiss/Malle [56, Theorem 2.4]) There is a bijection be-
tween the set of isomorphism classes of simple kG-modules and the set of equiv-
alence classes of triples (L, X, 'I/J), where L is a Levi subgroup of G, X is a sim-
ple cuspidal kL-module and'I/J a simple EndkG(Ry,(X))-module (where the pair
(L, X) has to be taken modulo conjugation in G and'I/J modulo isomorphism}.
This classification allows to partition the set of isomorphism classes of simple
kG-modules.
Definition 2.2. (Dipper/Du [22], Hiss [74]) Let M be a simple kG-module
labelled, via Corollary 2.1, by the triple (L,X,'I/J). Then L and X are called
semisimple vertex and semisimple source of M, respectively.
The Harish-Chandra series corresponding to L and X is the set of isomor-
phism classes of simple kG-modules labelled by the triples (L,X,'I/J), where 'I/J
runs through the simple EndkG(Ry,(X))-modules. Thus two simple kG-modules
are in the same Harish-Chandra series if and only if they have a common semisim-
pIe vertex and a common semisimple source.
In Section 4.7 we shall give examples in classical groups where the distribution
of the simple kG-modules into Harish-Chandra series is completely known.
There are alternative characterizations of Harish-Chandra series.
Remark 2.1. (Dipper/Du [22], Hiss [74]) (a) Let K denote the set of pairs

{(L, X) I L Levi subgroup of G, X a simple kL-module (up to isomorphism)}.

336 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

Define a partial order on K by (L, X) ::; (L', X') if and only if L ::; L' and X is
isomorphic to a composition factor of *Rf (X').
Then a pair (L, X) E K is minimal with respect to this partial ordering, if
and only if X is a cuspidal simple kL-module. In this case, the Harish-Chandra
series corresponding to (L, X) is the set of simple kG-modules M such that
(L,X)::; (G,M).
If M is a simple kG-module, there is a unique (up to conjugacy and isomor-
phism) minimal pair (L,X) with (L,X)::; (G,M).
(b) Let (L, X) be a minimal pair in K. Then the set of isomorphism classes of
simple kG-modules in the head of Rj;(X) equals the set of isomorphism classes
of simple kG-modules in the socle of Rj;(X). This set of simple kG-modules
equals the Harish-Chandra series corresponding to (L, X).
(c) Let (L, X) be a minimal pair in K and let M be a simple kG-module not
lying in the Harish-Chandra series corresponding to (L, X).
If M is a composition factor of Rj;(X) , the semisimple vertex of M' strictly
contains L. If P(M) is a direct summand of Rj;(P(X)), then the semisimple
vertex of M is strictly contained in L.
It may in particular happen that, in the notation of the above remark, some
composition factor of Rj;(X) is cuspidal, even is L is strictly contained in G.
Simple kG-modules which do not arise in this way are called supercuspidal.

Definition 2.3. (Vigneras [119]) A simple kG-module is called supercuspidal

if it is not contained as a composition factor in a kG-module which is Harish-
Chandra induced from a proper Levi subgroup.

Remark 2.2. (a) Let M be a simple kG-module. Then M is supercuspidal if and

only if P(M) is cuspidal. (This follows from the adjointness of Harish-Chandra
induction and restriction, see [75].)
(b) We may also order the set K of Remark 2.1(a) as follows. Define (L, X) ::;'
(L, X') if and only if L ::; L' and X' is isomorphic to a composition factor of
Rf (X). Then a pair (L,X) E K is minimal with respect to ::;', if and only if X
is a supercuspidal simple kL-module.

Endomorphism algebras. Again let R = k be a field of characteristic not

dividing p. We next turn to the question of finding the structure of the endo-
morphism algebras EndkG(Rj;(X)), where L is a Levi subgroup of G and X is
a simple cuspidal kL-module. We put H(L,X) := EndkG(Ri;(X)).
Let W(L) := (NG(L) n N)L/L denote the relative Weyl group of Land
let W(L,X) be the stabilizer of X in W(L). Then, by a result of Dipper and
Fleischmann [24], the dimension of H(L, X) equals the order of W(L, X).
Theorem 2.3. (Howlett/Lehrer, Geck/Hiss/Malle) The group W(L, X) has a
semidirect product decomposition

W(L,X) = R(L,X)C(L,X)
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 337

with normal subgroup R(L, X) and complement C(L, X) such that R(L, X) is a
Coxeter group and the following hold:
(a) 1-l(L,X) is a C(L,X) graded k-algebra, i.e., there are subspaces 1-lx
of1-l(L,X), x E C(L,X), such that

1-l(L,X) = E9 1-lx,
XEC(L,X)

1-l1 is a subalgebra of 1-l(L, X) and 1-lx 'Hy = 'Hxy for all x, y E C(L, X).
(b) 'H 1 is an Iwahori-Hecke algebra associated to the Coxeter group R(L,X),
with multiplication possibly twisted by a 2-cocycle.
(c) 'H(L, X) is a symmetric k-algebra.
For the definition of an Iwahori-Hecke algebra associated to a Coxeter system,
we refer the reader to Section 3.2.
Special cases of Theorem 2.3 for char(k) = 0 were proved by Iwahori, Harish-
Chandra, Lusztig and Kilmoyer. The general case was settled by Howlett and
Lehrer in characteristic 0 [80] and, building on their work, by Geck, Hiss and
Malle [56, Section 3] in positive characteristic. The fact that 'H(L, X) is sym-
metric was proved in [53].
If Rt(X) has an indecomposable direct summand with multiplicity 1, or if X
can be extended to its inertia subgroup in (NG(L) n N)L, then the 2-cocycle
appearing in Theorem 2.3(c) is trivial (see [56, Corollary 3.13]). In this case we
call 'H(L, X) an extended Iwahori-Hecke algebra associated to W(L, X).
In Section 4.7 we shall give some examples for the types and parameters of
Iwahori-Hecke algebras occurring in groups of Lie type as endomorphism algebras
of Harish-Chandra induced cuspidal modules.

2.2 Generic Finite Reductive Groups

In the case of finite groups of Lie type the Harish-Chandra theory introduced
in the previous section has a surprising generalization to a whole family of such
theories, at least in the case where the ground field has characteristic o. These
provide a powerful tool to determine the distribution into blocks of the irre-
ducible characters. The most convenient framework for explaining the theory
and to prove results is that of generic groups. This notion captures much of the
generic behavior of finite reductive groups in a series.

Generalized Harish-Chandra theories for groups of Lie type. Let G be

a connected reductive algebraic group over the algebraic closure of a finite field
of characteristic p. Assume that G is already defined over a finite field and let
F : G -+ G be the corresponding Frobenius morphism. The finite group of Lie
type G F then has a split BN-pair of characteristic p satisfying the commutator
relations. Thus the Harish-Chandra theory described in Section 2.1 applies to the
ordinary and modular representations of G F . In the particular case considered
here the Harish-Chandra theory for ordinary characters can be regarded as a
338 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

special case of a whole family of generalized Harish-Chandra theories, as will be

described in this section.
Let T ::; G be an F-stable maximal torus of G. Let X, Y be the character
and the cocharacter group of T with respect to some Borel subgroup, ReX the
set of roots and R V c Y the set of coroots. Then F acts as qif; on YIR := Y 0z IR,
where q is a power of p and if; is an automorphism of finite order. A different
choice of Borel subgroup containing T changes if; by an element of the Weyl group
W of G with respect to T. Hence if; is uniquely determined as automorphism
of YIR up to an element of W. Thus to (G, T, F) is naturally associated the
quintuple
(X,R,Y,R V, Wif;).
Here, X, Yare free Z-modules of equal finite rank, endowed with a duality
X x Y -+ Z, (x,y) r-t (x,y), ReX and RV c Yare root systems with a
bijection R -+ R V , 0 r-t oV, such that (o,OV) = 2. Moreover, W is the Weyl
group of the root system R V in YIR and if; is an automorphism of Y of finite
order stabilizing RV. A quintuple (X, R, Y, R V, W if;) satisfying these properties
is called a generic finite reductive group, or generic group for short.
Let G = (X, R, Y, RV, W if;) be a generic finite reductive group. Then for any
choice of a prime number p, G determines a pair (G, T) as above, up to inner
automorphisms of G induced by T. Moreover, the additional choice of a power
q of p determines a triple (G, T, F) as above. In this way G gives rise to a whole
series of groups G(q) := GF of groups of Lie type.
A generic Levi subgroup of G = (X, R, Y, R V, WGif;) is by definition a generic
finite reductive group of the form lL = (X,R',Y,R,v,WLWif;), where R'v is a
w¢-stable parabolic subsystem of R V with Weyl group WL. A generic torus is a
generic finite reductive group with R = R V = 0. Thus a generic torus of G has
the form (X', Y', wif;) where Y' is a w¢-stable direct summand of Y and X' is its
dual. For any choice of p and q (and hence of (G, T, F)) there exists a natural
bijection between the WG-classes of generic Levi subgroups of G and the GF_
classes of F-stable Levi subgroups of G, and similarly between the WG-classes of
generic tori of G and the GF -classes of F -stable tori of G ([7, Theorem 2.1]). This
result allows us to switch freely between the language of generic finite reductive
groups and that of actual groups of Lie type.
For any generic finite reductive group G there exists a polynomial IGI(x) E
Z[x] such that for any choice of a prime power q the order of the corresponding
finite group G(q) = G F is given by IG(q)1 = IGI(q). Moreover, IGI has the form

IGI(x) = xN IT Pd
d

for suitable integers ad 2: 0, where Pd denotes the dth cyclotomic polynomial

over Q. For any d such that Pd divides IGI we will define a d-Harish-Chandra
theory as follows. An F-stable torus S ::; G is called a Pd-torus if the order
polynomial 1§I(x) is a power of Pd. Here § denotes the generic finite reductive
group corresponding to the F-stable torus S of G. The centralizers of Pd-tOri of
G are called d-split Levi subgroups (they are F-stable Levi subgroups of G not
 Representations of Hecke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 339

necessarily contained in an F-stable parabolic subgroup). These notions were

introduced by Broue and Malle [7]. The set of F-fixed points of d-split Levi
subgroups L of G will replace the set of standard Levi subgroups in the set-up
of Section 2.1.
For any F-stable Levi subgroup L of G Deligne and Lusztig defined functors

Rr :ZIrr(LF) ~ ZIrr(GF ), "R~: ZIrr(G F ) ~ ZIrr(LF),

between the character groups of LF and G F , adjoined to each other with respect
to the usual scalar product of characters. In the case that L is contained in an F-

Rr
stable parabolic subgroup of G this is just ordinary Harish-Chandra induction
and restriction. In the general case is defined as an alternating trace on
£-adic cohomology groups of a certain algebraic variety attached to L and G
(see for example [15]). (In fact, the definition also depends on the choice of a

functors are independent of this choice.) We note that Rr

parabolic subgroup containing L, but in the situation considered below, both
takes characters
to generalized characters. This Lusztig induction will replace ordinary Harish-
Chandra induction in the set-up of the previous section.
The following generalization of Definition 2.2 first appeared in [9]:

Definition 2.4. An irreducible character, E Irr(G F ) is called d-cuspidal if

"Rr Cr)=: 0 for all d-split Levi subgroups L properly contained in G.

An irreducible character, E Irr(G F ) is called unipotent if there exists an F-

stable maximal torus S :::; G such that, is a constituent of R~(I). Let Uch(G F )
denote the set of unipotent characters of G F . It was shown by Lusztig that there
exists a set Uch(G) and a map

Deg: Uch(G) ~ Q[x], ,I-t Deg(f),

such that for any choice of p and q (and hence of G and F) there is a bijection
'ljJ~ : Uch(G) ~ Uch(G F ) such that 'ljJ~(,) has degree 'ljJ~(f)(I) =: Deg(,)(q).
Furthermore, it follows from results of Shoji that the maps
generic, Le., there exist maps
Rr
and "R~ are

R~ : ZUch(lL) ~ ZUch(G), "R~: ZUch(G) ~ ZUch(IL),

Rr
satisfying 'ljJ~ 0 R~ =: o'ljJ~ for all q (see [9, Ths. 1.26 and 1.33]). In this sense,
the set of unipotent characters and the functors Rr and "R~ are generic for a
series of groups of Lie type.
Therefore, and because the unipotent characters play a prominent role in
Lusztig's classification of the irreducible characters of G F (see Section 2.3), we
will now restrict our attention to the subset Uch(GF) C Irr(G F ), respectively
to its generic version Uch(G). In this case we have the following characterization
of d-cuspidality (see [9, Prop. 2.9]):
Proposition 2.1. A unipotent character, E Uch(G) is d-cuspidal if and only
if Deg(f)d =: IGBB Id.
340 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

Here, we write fd for the Pd-part of f E Qfx]. Also, G•• denotes the semisim-
pie quotient of G, i.e., the generic finite reductive group attached to G /Rad( G).
A pair (M, /1-) consisting of a d-split Levi subgroup M of G and a unipotent
character /1- E Uch(M) is called d-split. It is called d-cuspidal if moreover /1- is
d-cuspidal. We introduce the following relation on the set of d-split pairs:
Definition 2.5. Let (Ml' /1-1), (M2' /1-2) be d-split. We say that (Ml, /1-d $d (M2' /1-2)
if Ml is a d-split Levi subgroup of M2 and /1-2 occurs in R~ (/1-1).
For a d-cuspidal pair (1L, A) ofG we write Uch(G, (1L, A)) for the set of-y E Uch(G)
such that (1L, A) $d (G, 'Y)' We call Uch(G, (1L, A)) the d-Harish Chandra series
above (1L, A) because of the following fundamental result, which shows that for
any d we obtain a generalized Harish-Chandra theory:

Theorem 2.4. (Broml/Malle/Michel) Let G be a generic finite reductive group

and d 2: 1 such that Pd divides IGI.
(a) (Disjointness) The sets Uch(G, (1L, A)) (where (1L, A) runs over a system of
representatives of the WG-conjugacy classes of d-cuspidal pairs) form a partition
ofUch(G).
(b) (Transitivity) Let (1L, A) be d-cuspidal and (M, /1-) be d-split such that
(lL,A) $d (M,/1-) and (M,/1-) $d (G,'Y). Then (lL,A) $d (G,'Y).

This was shown in special cases by Schewe [115] and Fong/Srinivasan [40].

from obvious since Rr

The general statement is given in [9, Ths. 3.2 and 3.11]. Note that part (b) is far
does not necessarily take characters to actual characters.
For d = 1 we recover the ordinary Harish-Chandra theory for characters.
The statement of Theorem 2.4 has been checked case by case. In the ordinary
case d = 1, Harish-Chandra series may be indexed by irreducible modules of
endomorphism algebras of induced cuspidal modules. A similar statement is
conjectured to hold in the d-case [8]. This should also provide a more conceptual
proof of the preceding theorem. At present, only some consequences of this deep
conjecture have been verified. To formulate these results we need to introduce
one further invariant. Let (L, A) be d-cuspidal. Then WG(lL, >.) := NG(L, A)/L
is called the relative Weyl group of (L, A) in G.

Theorem 2.5. (Broue/Malle/Michel) For each d there exists a collection of

isometries
Ire,>.) : Zlrr(WM(lL, A)) -+ ZUch(M, (1L, >.)),

such that for all M and all (1L, A) we have

RM
G
0
1M
(L,>.) = IG(L,>.) 0 I n dWG(IL,>.)
WM(IL,>.)·

Here M runs over the d-split Levi subgroups of G and (1L, >.) over the set of
d-cuspidal pairs of M.

This result was proved in [9, Theorem 3.2]. It seems to indicate that the
constituents of Rf(A) can be parameterized by the irreducible characters of
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 341

an algebra which is a deformation of the group algebra of the relative Weyl

group WIG(lL, oX). It can be checked that all relative Weyl groups occurring in
groups of Lie type are complex reflection groups. Suitable deformations of group
algebras of complex reflection groups, called cyclotomic Hecke algebras, have
been introduced by Broue and Malle [8]. We cannot present the details here.

Generic blocks. The importance of d-Harish-Chandra series lies in their con-

nection with f-blocks of finite groups of Lie type for primes f not dividing q.
We fix IG and a choice of a prime power q, hence a pair (G,F). A prime f
not dividing q is called large for IG if f. does not divide the order of W(I/I). If f is
large there exists a unique d such that fl<lid(q) and <lidlllGl.
Theorem 2.6. (Broue/Malle/Michel) Let f be large for IG, and assume that
fl<lid(q). Then the partition of Uch(G F ) into f-blocks coincides with the image
under 'IjJ~ of the partition ofUch(lG) into d-Harish-Chandra series. In particular,
the distribution of unipotent characters of G F into f-blocks is generic.
This is proved in [9, Theorem 5.24]. We write bl(L, oX) for the unipotent f-
block of G F indexed by (lL, oX). The unipotent blocks and their defect groups can
be described more precisely. For this we need:
Definition 2.6. For, E Uch(lG) we denote by SdCr) the set of <lid-tori oflG con-
tained in a maximal torus § of IG such that •R~ Cr) i- O. The maximal elements
of Sd(,) are called the <lid-defect tori of ,.
The <lid-defect tori of a unipotent character can be characterized as follows
(see [9, Theorem 4.8]):
Proposition 2.2. Let (lL, oX) be a d-cuspidal pair and, E Uch(lG, (lL, oX)). Then
the <lid-defect tori of, are conjugate to Rad(lL)d.
Here Rad(lL) is the generic finite reductive group associated to the radical of
L (this is in fact a torus), and Rad(lL)d denotes its maximal <lid-subtorus.
For an F-stable Levi subgroup L of G denote by AbIIrr(L F ) the group
of characters (over a splitting field of characteristic 0) of f-power order of the
abelian group LF /[LF, LF]. Then [9, Theorem 5.24] gives the following sharp-
ening of Theorem 2.6:
Theorem 2.7. (Broue/Malle/Michel) Let f. be large for IG, and assume that
f.1<lid(q). Let (L, oX) be a d-cuspidal pair of G.
(a) The f.-block bl(L, oX) of G F consists of the irreducible constituents of the
virtual characters Rr(f:1oX), where (J E AbtIrr(L F ).
(b) The defect groups of bt(L, oX) are the Sylow f.-subgroups of the groups of
F-jixed points of the <lid-defect tori of unipotent characters in bl(L, ),).
(c) The block bl(L,),) is isotypic to the principal f.-block of the normalizer of
its defect group.
Broue and Michel [11, TMoreme] have shown that part (c) actually holds under
the weaker assumption that the Sylow f-subgroup of G F is abelian.
342 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

2.3 On i-Blocks of Finite Groups of Lie Type

The results in the previous section have been generalized by Cabanes and En-
guehard [13] in a program to determine all i-blocks of finite groups of Lie type.
In order to describe their results we first have to recall Lusztig's classification
of the irreducible complex characters of these groups. As before, let G be a
connected reductive algebraic group, defined over a finite field IF'q, with corre-
sponding Frobenius morphism F : G --+ G. Let G* be a group in duality with G,
with Frobenius morphism F*. We fix an isomorphism between the multiplicative
group of the algebraic closure of IF'q and the group (Q/Z)p" and an embedding
of the latter into QX. Then the set of G F -classes of pairs (T, 8), where T is an
F-stable maximal torus of G and B E Irr(TF), is in bijection with the set of
G *po -classes of pairs (T*, s), where T* is an F* -stable maximal torus of G *
and s E T*F*. We will write Rfj*(s) for Rfj(B) if (T,B) and (T*,s) correspond
to each other in this way. This allows to introduce the so-called Lusztig series
&(GF,s):= {X E Irr(G F ) I (X,R~*(s)) =I- 0 for some T* 3 s}
attached to the class of an F-stable semisimple element s of G*. Lusztig has
shown that this defines a partition of the set of irreducible complex characters
ofGF:

Here s runs over a system of representatives of conjugacy classes of semisimple

elements in the dual group G*F*. Furthermore, there is a bijection
&(GF,s) ~ Uch(CG*(s)F*)
of the Lusztig series &(GF,s) with the set of unipotent characters of the cen-
tralizer CG* (s) [95,96]. This is called the Jordan decomposition of characters.
Let i be a prime dividing IGFI but not dividing q. For a semisimple i-regular
element s E G *po define
&l(GF,S):= U&(GF,st)
t

where the union now is over semisimple i-elements t in the centralizer CG* (s)F*
of s. The following result of Broue and Michel [10, Theoreme 2.2] shows a certain
compatibility between Lusztig series and i-blocks:
Theorem 2.8. (Broue/Michel) Each set &l(G F , s) is a union 0/ i-blocks o/G F .
The description of arbitrary i-blocks is analogous to that given for unipo-

the prime i have to be made, and the result is phrased in terms of Rr,
tent i-blocks in the previous section, although at present some restrictions on
whose
decomposition is not yet known in general. Let e be a positive integer. In exten-
sion of our above definitions we say that (L, A) is e-cuspidal if L is e-split and
A E Irr(LF) is e-cuspidal. We let «e be the transitive closure of the relation :::;e
on e-split pairs introduced above. As an example for the type of results which
can be obtained we cite:
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 343

TheoreIn 2.9. (CabanesjEnguehard) Let (G,F) be as above, and f a prime

satisfying the following conditions: f does not divide q, f is good for G, f i= 2,
f i= 3 if G F has a component of type 3 D 4 • Let e denote the order of q modulo f.
(a) There is a natural bijection between the set of f-blocks of GF and the set
of G F -classes of e-cuspidal pairs (L, A) with A E £(LF, s) for some f.-regular s.
(b) Let bt(L, A) be the block corresponding to the e-cuspidal pair (L, A). Then

bt(L,A) n U£(GF,s) = b E Irr(G F ) I (L,A)«e(G,,),)}

where the union runs over f.-regular semisimple elements s.

(c) Let (L, A) be e-cuspidal. Let G(s) be a group in duality with CGo (s),
L(s) a Levi subgroup of G(s) in duality with CI.o (s). By the Jordan decomposi-
tion of characters A E £(CI.o (S)F, 1) corresponds to an element of £(L(s)F, 1),
which we also call A. Then (L(s), A) is e-cuspidal. The defect group of bt(L, A)
is isomorphic to the defect group of the unipotent block bt(L(s), A).
This was proved in [13, Theorem 3.3 and 3.4, and Rem. 3.6). The f.-blocks
of classical groups had previously been determined by Fong and Srinivasan [41),
and Hiss [72) had obtained partial results in the case of exceptional groups.
Remark 2.3. It is not known whether the relations «e and ::;e coincide. If so, we
would obtain an e-Harish-Chandra theory for arbitrary Lusztig series, generaliz-
ing Theorem 2.4. Cabanes and Enguehard [13, (2.l.R») give a technical condition
on the decomposition of R~ which would imply the equality of «e and ::;e.
Remark 2.4. Theorem 2.9 compares the defect groups of arbitrary f.-blocks to
those of unipotent f-blocks of (possibly) smaller groups. The defect groups of
unipotent f.-blocks for large primes f. where described in Theorem 2.7(b). For
small f., when the Sylow f.-subgroup is no longer abelian, the structure of the
defect group is explicitly given in [13, Theorem 3.5).

3 Heeke Algebras
In Section 2.1 we described the endomorphism algebra of a Harish-Chandra
induced cuspidal representation of a finite group G of Lie type. These endomor-
phism rings carry a lot of information on representations of G. We shall make
this connection now more precise by defining certain functors which tie together
representations of G and those of the Hecke algebras in Theorem 2.3. This mo-
tivates to study the representations of Hecke algebras abstractly. In subsequent
sections we present some results on Iwahori-Hecke algebras associated with real
(and in view of Section 2.2 with complex) reflection groups.

3.1 HOIn-Functors and Hecke Algebras

We shall present the theory of Hom-functors only as far as it is needed for the
representation theory of finite reductive groups and Heeke algebras. Proofs and
details in a more general setting can be found in [19) and [20).
344 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

Throughout R is either a field or a complete discrete valuation ring. R-

algebras and modules of R-algebras are always assumed to be free of finite rank
as R-modules. Let T be an R-algebra, M E mod-T, and let fl : P -+ M be a
projective presentation of M. Assume henceforth that ker fl is invariant under
the endomorphism ring EndT(P) of P. Then J{3 = {¢ E EndT(P) I fl¢ = O} is
an ideal of EndT(P) and EndT(P)/ J{3 ~ EndT(M) =: 1£ canonically.
The functor H{3 from mod-T to mod-l£ is defined on objects V E mod-T by

and on morphisms similarly. It is called Hom-functor associated with the pro-

jective presentation fl : P -+ M of M.
The P-torsion submodule tp(V) is the unique maximal submodule X of
V E mod-T with respect to the property that HomT(P,X) = {OJ. We have a
functor Ap : mod-T -+ mod-T taking V E mod-T to V/tp(V). We say that V
is P-torsionless if tp(V) = (0). We define the functor iI{3 : mod-l£ -+ mod-T
to be the composite functor H{3 = Ap 0 ( - 01{. M). It was shown in [19, 2.16]
that iI{3 is a right inverse of the functor H{3.
We turn now to the calculation of decomposition numbers. For this let
(K, 0, k) be an i-modular system. We let To be an O-order in some finite dimen-
sional semisimple K -algebra TK, where K is the quotient field of O. Let k be the
residue field of O. Henceforth, tensoring is always tensoring over 0 if not stated
otherwise, and objects tensored over 0 by K or k are denoted by an index K,
k respectively. Thus in particular Tk = k 0 To is a finite dimensional k-algebra.
Choosing To-lattices Mo in the irreducible TK-modules MK and recording the
composition factors of Mk into a matrix (fixing an ordering of the irreducibles
over K and k) yields the decomposition matrix of To.
We take a To-lattice Mo and let flo : Po -+ Mo be a projective presentation
of Mo. Note that Po is a To-lattice and that flk = 10 flo : k 0 Po -+ k 0
Mo is a projective presentation of Mk = k 0 Mo. Moreover, as in the case of
group algebras we may lift idempotents, and homomorphism from projective Tk-
modules are always liftable. The endomorphism ring of MR for R E {K, 0, k} is
denoted by l£R.
Theorem 3.1. (Dipper) Suppose that ker flo is invariant under every endo-
morphism of Po· Then ker flR is invariant under EndTR (PR ) for every choice
ofR E {K,O,k}. Moreover EndTR(MR) = l£R ~ R0EndTo(Mo), and the
decomposition matrix of 1£0 is the part of the decomposition matrix of To de-
scribing the composition multiplicities of the irreducible Tk -modules occurring in
the head of Mk in the reductions from K to k of the irreducible constituents of
the semisimple module MK.

The theorem is an easy consequence of Fittings lemma and was shown first
in [19, 4.7 and 4.10]. It is applied in the following situation. For a finite group
G = G F of Lie type we take a regular cuspidal representation CK of some Levi
subgroup L of G. The term regular means here, that CK occurs as constituent
of the Gelfand-Gmev representation rk of L. This is a special representation,
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 345

which is multiplicity free and is induced from the unipotent radical of any Borel
subgroup of L (see e.g. [15] for details). In particular r15 is a projective OL-
lattice, where the characteristic of K is now zero and that of k is a prime i
different from the describing characteristic p of G.
We recall the notion of Lusztig series introduced in Section 2.3. Thus cor-
responding to the character of CK we have a representative s of a semisimple
conjugacy class of the dual group L * of L. Since all irreducible direct summands
of rf( occur with multiplicity one, there is up to isomorphisms precisely one
OG-Iattice Co(s) affording this cuspidal representation such that Co(s) is an
epimorphic image of r15. Among other things this implies that r15contains a pro-
jective cover Q ofCo(s) as direct summand, the head of Ck(S) is simple occurring
with multiplicity one as composition factor of Ck(S), and EndkL(Ck(S)) = k. We
Harish-Chandra induce the epimorphism from Q onto Co(s) to get a surjective
map f30 : Po ~ Mo(s), where Po = Ry(Q) is a projective OG-Iattice and
Mo(s) = RY(Co(s)). As in Section 2.1, we set W(L) to be the relative Weyl
group of L in G. Note that W(L) acts on the conjugacy classes of semisimple
elements of L. For any tEL *, denote the stabilizer of the L * -conjugacy class
containing t in W(L*) by W(L,t). Note that, if R = K or if R = k and Ck(S)
is irreducible, W(L, s) is isomorphic to the group W(L, CR(S)) of Theorem 2.3.
In [24,4.10] it was shown that W(L, s) is a real reflection group provided that
the center of G is connected.

Theorem 3.2. (Dipper/Fleischmann) Let sand f30 : Po ~ Mo(s) be as above.

Denote the i-regular part of s by s'. Suppose that

W(L,s) = W(L,s').

Then the kernel of f30 : Po ~ Mo(s) is invariant under all endomorphisms of

Po. Moreover, the endomorphism ring of Mo(s) is the (extended) Iwahori-Hecke
algebra 1l0(W(L, s)) associated to W(L, s).

This theorem was proved in [24, 4.6] for connected groups with connected center
and [24, Part II, Theorem 1] in full generality. As a consequence of Theorem
3.1 we obtain that the decomposition matrix of 1l0(W(L, s)) is part of the
i-decomposition matrix of G.

3.2 Iwahori-Hecke Algebras

The results of the previous section show that part of the decomposition numbers
of finite groups of Lie type can be obtained from those of Iwahori-Hecke algebras.
Therefore, we now briefly survey some features of the representation theory of
Iwahori-Hecke algebras associated with reflection groups.
Let (W, S) be a finite Coxeter system, i.e., W is a finite group and S is a
subset of W such that we have a presentation of W with .

generators: s E S,
relations: (st)m •• = 1 for s, t E S,
346 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

where (mst) is a matrix of integers with mss = 1 and mts = mst > 1 for 8 =I t.
The matrices (mst) such that the above presentation defines a finite group are
classified. It turns out that the irreducible Coxeter groups fall into several infinite
series and a number of exceptional types, which are conveniently described by
the following diagrams:

)w-
An
n;:::1
1
• • •
2 3
-.n
En 1 2 3 n
Dn
n;:::4 -.n
• • •
4
n;:::2 -.
1m 2 1 2 3 4
• • • •
4
12(m) F4 1 3 4 5 6
------- E6
• • • •
H3 1
• • •
52 3
H4 1 5
• • • •
2 3 4
12
1 3 4 5 6 7 1 3 4 5 6 7 8
E7
• • • • • Es • • • • • •
12 12
(where m ::::: 5 in type 12(m».

The vertices are in bijection with S, and two vertices 8 =I t are joined by an
edge if mst > 2 (Le., 8, t do not commute with each other). An edge is labelled
by the integer mst unless we have mst = 3 in which case we omit this label. For
example, the diagram of type A n - 1 defines the symmetric group on {I, ... , n},
generated by the basic transpositions (1,2), .. , , (n - 1, n).
An important tool in studying W is the length function l: W -+ No: given
w E W we can write w = 81 ... 8 n with 8i E S. If such an expression is of shortest
possible length, we call it a reduced expression and let lew) := n.
The Iwahori-Hecke algebra associated with (W, S) is defined as a deformation
of the group algebra of W over a commutative ring R:

Definition 3.1. Let qs E R (s E S) such that q. = qt whenever s, t E S are

conjugate in W. Then the Iwahori-Hecke algebra H = HR(Wj{qs Is E S})
over R is the associative algebra with 1 defined by the presentation with

generators: T w , wE W,
relations: T w = T. t •.. T' n if w = 81 ... Sn with Si E S is reduced,
T; = q.T1 + (qs - I)Ts for 8 E S.

It is a non-trivial fact that H is free as an R-module, with a basis given by the

elements {Tw I w E W} (see [16, §68A]).
Now there is a universal choice for the pair (R, {qs I 8 E S}): we take the
ring of Laurent polynomials Ao = Z[u;l I 8 E S1 in indeterminates Us such
that u. = Ut whenever 8, t E S are conjugate in W. The Iwahori-Hecke algebra
defined with respect to the pair (Ao, {u. I 8 E S}) will be called the generic
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 347

Iwahori-Hecke algebra associated with (W, S); we shall denote it by 1-l. Given
any commutative ring R and elements {q. I S E S} ~ R as above, we have a
canonical isomorphism

where R is regarded as an Ao-module via the ring homomorphism Ao --+ R,

u. f-t q. (8 E S).
The reason why we took Laurent polynomials rather than just polynomials
is the following: first of all, it implies that all basis elements Tw are invertible.
Indeed, we have T;;;I = Ts--;,l ... Ts~l if w = 81 ... Sn is a reduced expression and

for all 8 E S.

Secondly, it implies that the Gram matrix of the bilinear form 1-l x 1-l --+ Ao
defined by
(Tw, T w') f-t coefficient of T1 in T wT w',
is invertible over A o, and hence 1-l is a symmetric algebra.

The generic algebra and its character table. In view of our applications to
groups of Lie type, we will now only consider the case where W is a finite Weyl
group. Then it is known that Q is a splitting field for W. In order to obtain
a similar statement for 1-l, we consider the ring A = Z[U;1/2 I 8 E S] ;2 Ao
and let K be its field of fractions. It follows from results of Benson/Curtis and
Lusztig (see [4], [94] and also [49]) that the algebra 1-lK = K ®A o 1-l is split
semisimple. Hence, by Tits' Deformation Theorem (see [16, §68A]) , we have
in fact 1-lK ~ KW. In particular, there is a bijection between the irreducible
characters of 1-lK and those of W. Explicitly, such a bijection is given as follows:
since the structure constants of 1-lK with respect to the basis {Tw I w E W} lie
in A o, a general argument shows that if X is an irreducible character of 1-lK then
X(Tw) lies in the integral closure of Ao in K, i.e., we have
for all w E W.

Now consider the ring homomorphism 8: A --+ Q, U!/2 f-t 1 (8 E S). Then Tits'
Deformation Theorem states more precisely that if X is an irreducible character
of 1-lK then the map w f-t 8(X(Tw)) (w E W) defines an irreducible character of
W, and this gives the required bijection.
We now wish to define the character table of 1-lK as a square matrix of
character values X(Tw), where X runs over the irreducible characters of1-lK and
w E W runs over a set of representatives of the conjugacy classes of W. However,
simple examples show that we may have X(Tw) =1= X(Tw') even if w, WI E Ware
conjugate. The question of a good choice of representatives is solved as follows.
Theorem 3.3. (Geck/Pfeiffer [60]) Let CI(W) be the set of conjugacy classes
of W. Let C E Cl(W) and w, WI E C. Then, if w, WI have minimal length in C,
the basis elements T wand T w' are conjugate in 1-l.
348 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

Thus, if we choose for each C E CI(W) a representative We E C of minimal

length, then the matrix of character values
where X E Irr(HK) and C E CI(W),
is independent of any choices, and it is called the character table of H.
Example 3.1. Let (W, S) be of type G 2 = [2(6), i.e., W is the dihedral group
of order 12, generated by two involutions s, t such that st has order 6. There
are 6 conjugacy classes, with representatives of minimal length as given in the
following table.
T1 Ts Tt Tst T stst Tststst
ind 1 Us Ut UsUt (u sUt)2 (U sUt)3
£1 1 Us -1 -Us u 2s -U~
£2 1 -1 Ut -Ut u t2 -ur
£ 1 -1 -1 1 1 1
Xl 2 Us -1 Ut -1 JusUt -UsUt -2JusUt 3
X2 2 Us -1 Ut -1 -JusUt -UsUt 2JusUt 3
The rows are indexed by the irreducible characters of HK. There are 4 characters
of degree 1 denoted by ind,£1,£2,£ and 2 characters of degree 2 denoted by
Xl, X2· We see from the above table that square roots of the parameters Us, Ut
do actually occur in character values.
The character tables of all Iwahori-Hecke algebras of all types are now known
in the following sense: for classical types there exist recursive formulas in the
spirit of the Murnaghan-Nakayama rule, for the exceptional types the tables
have been computed explicitly.
- The table for type A n - 1 was first computed in 1975 by A.J. Starkey (a Ph.D.
student of J.A. Green in Warwick). The results are explained in [14].
- Murnaghan-Nakayama formulas for type An were found by A. Ram [112];
subsequently, different proofs of this result were found (see [109]) and gen-
eralizations were proved for types En and Dn (see [69] and [110], [111]).
- The tables for the exceptional types F4 , E6 and E7 were computed in [49]
and [50], using CHEVIE [54] and GAP [116].
- The last remaining and biggest table, namely that of type E s , was deter-
mined in Geck/Michel [59], again using CHEVIE and GAP.
The main tool for the computation of character tables of Iwahori-Hecke algebras
of exceptional type is a general result about the eigenvalues of the basis elements
Tw in the irreducible representations of llK:
Theorem 3.4. (Geck/Michel [59]) Let p: HK -+ Kdxd be an irreducible ma-
trix representation and w E W be an element which has minimal length in its
conjugacy class. Then the eigenvalues of p(Tw) are of the form

(II u!, where ( is a root of unity and fs E Q for all s E S.

sES
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 349

Although Theorems 3.3 and 3.4 are formulated in general terms, their proofs
depend on a ease-by-case analysis. The first theorem depends on a strong form
of conjugation in the underlying Weyl group, while the second theorem follows
from a result about taking powers of suitable elements in the associated Artin-
Tits braid groups. These results in turn were proved by inductive methods for
the classical types An, En, Dn and were verified by explicit computations for the
exceptional types using CHEVIE.

Remark 3.1. Theorems 3.3 and 3.4 remain correct for arbitrary finite Coxeter
groups, i.e., also for non-Weyl groups, see [54,59]. The character tables of the
Iwahori-Hecke algebras of the non-crystallographic types 12(m), H 3 , H4 are con-
structed from explicit matrix representations as computed by Kilmoyer /Solomon
[16, §67C], Lusztig [94] and Alvis/Lusztig [1], respectively.

3.3 Hom-Functors and q-Schur Algebras

Having described Hecke algebras and exhibited their basic features we want to
introduce a further type of finite dimensional algebras, q-Schur algebras, which
are derived from Hecke algebras enlarging those, and whose representations carry
also information on the representations for finite groups of Lie type. We first
explain how this comes about.
Let us keep the notation of Section 3.1. Being an additive functor of abelian
categories the Hom-functor H(J introduced there induces homomorphism on
Hom-sets and endomorphism algebras. A special case is of particular interest
(see [19,2.21]):

Proposition 3.1. (Dipper) Let T be an R-algebra, ME mod-T, and (3 : P -+

M be a projective presentation of M, such that ker (3 is invariant under all
endomorphisms of P. Suppose that M is P-torsionless. Then H(J induces an
isomorphism, again denoted by H(J :

H(J : HomT(XM, YM) -+ HomH(X, Y),

where X, Yare right ideals of N.

This can again be applied to the representation theory of a finite group of Lie
type G. The idea is roughly as follows: We take right ideals Xi of No, where
No is one of the Hecke algebras coming up in Theorem 3.2, then we consider
the OG-lattice

We construct a projective presentation 'Yo : Qo -+ No such that ker'Yo is

invariant under all endomorphisms of Qo. Then we apply Theorem 3.1 again
to connect representations of RG with those of the endomorphism ring SR =
EndRG(NR). On the other hand Proposition 3.1 yields that SR is the endomor-
phism ring of the direct sum of the Xi as well and can hence be computed in
terms of Hecke algebras again. However in 3.1 one needs often to replace XiMO
350 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

by its purification in Mo which yields as well an isomorphism (for details see

[19, 4.17) and [20, 1.30)) or even lattices in between ([25)).
The special case of the unipotent characters of G may serve as illustration:
We take as Levi subgroup a maximally split torus T and let MR = Rf].(IR),
where IR is the trivial RT-module. Thus MR is the trivial B-module induced to
G, where T ~ B is a Borel subgroup of G. The irreducible characters afforded
by the constituents of MK are unipotent characters. This situation was first
investigated for R = K by Iwahori in [82) and is a special case of Theorem
2.3. The endomorphism ring EndRG(MR) is the Iwahori-Hecke algebra 1-lR =
1-lR(W) associated with the Weyl group W of G, where the parameter values
are determined by the field of definition of G. For instance if G is untwisted
over the finite field with q elements, all parameters equal q. Note that this is a
special case of the situation in Theorem 3.2. The corresponding Hom-functors
are denoted by H R , where as usual R E {K,O,k}.
The Levi subgroups B ~ L ~ G are parametrized by the subsets J of the
set S of basic reflections of the Weyl group. We denote by LJ the Levi subgroup
of G corresponding to J ~ S. Similarly, WJ denotes the corresponding parabolic
subgroup of W. For J ~ S we set

YJ = 2: (-I)I(w)ind(Tw)-lTw E 1-lR,
wEWJ

where ind: 1-lR -+ R is the I-dimensional representation such that ind(T.) = q.

for s E S. Moreover we define

Note that YR e! R0Yo, since YJ1-lo is pure in 1-l0. Moreover StJ,K = YJR!i/ (IK)
is a K LJ-submodule of MK isomorphic to the Steinberg module of LJ, which
occurs with multiplicity one in the Gelfand-Graev representation rJ,K of LJ.
Consequently there is a unique OLrlattice StJ,O in StJ,K which is an epimorphic
image of rJ,O, which hence contains a projective cover of StJ,o. We set NJ,o =
RtJ(StJ,o) and
NR = R0 EB NJ,o,
J~S

for R E {K,O,k}. Similarly we Harish-Chandra induce the projective cover of

StJ,O and take the direct sum over all subsets J of S to obtain a projective
presentation 'Yo : Qo -+ No. We have the following result:
Theorem 3.5. (Dipper/Gruber) The kernel of 'YR is invariant under all endo-
morphisms of QR. Moreover HR(NR ) e! Y R and HR induces an isomorphism
from EndRG(YR) onto EndllR(YR).
As a consequence of Theorem 3.1 the decomposition matrix of Endllo(Yo)
embeds into the decomposition matrix of G. For a proof (and a much more
general statement, dealing with the situation of Theorem 3.2) see [25). It should
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 351

be noted too that for J ~ S the OG-sublattice NJ,o of Mo contains yJMo and
is contained in the purification YJMKnMO of the latter, but is not equal to one
of these in general.
The R-algebra End llR (YR ) is called the q-Schur algebra associated with 1{R
(of parabolic type) and it is denoted by SR = SR(W) adding the parameters as
additional indices if needed.
In [29] Dipper and James introduced q-Schur algebras associated with Weyl
groups of type A and observed that their representations are closely related with
those of finite general linear groups, (compare Section 4.3). Subsequently it was
discovered by Dipper and Donkin that these come up as well as duals of the
sub-coalgebra of homogeneous parts in the quantum monoid of (n x n)-matrices,
for details see [21].
In [53] and [68] Geck, Gruber and Hiss defined q-Schur algebras (somewhat
smaller than the q-Schur algebras of parabolic type introduced above) for Weyl
groups of types Band D, and used them to relate the decomposition matrices
of classical groups with those of general linear groups (see Section 4.4).
Parshall and Wang showed in [108] that q-Schur algebras. of type A are quasi
hereditary. This is not always true for other types. In [37] Du, Parshall and
Scott found that those satisfy the weaker condition to be stratified algebras. For
further results see e.g. [64] and [114].
In [39] Du and Scott and independently in [32] Dipper, James, and Mathas
constructed quasi hereditary q-Schur algebras of type B, called q-Schu-? algebras
in [39] and (Q, q) -Schur algebras in [32] by using not only q-analogues of right
ideals YJ1{ coming from parabolic subgroups of W, but from arbitrary reflection
subgroups as well.
In [33] Dipper, James, and Mathas generalized this further by construct-
ing cyclotomic q-Schur algebras which are associated with Ariki-Koike algebras.
These are deformations of the group algebra of certain complex reflection groups,
which are wreath products of a cyclic group of order r by the symmetric group
6 n . For r = lone obtains the Iwahori-Hecke algebra of type An and for r = 2 of
type Bn. Thus the previous results appear as special cases of this construction.
In [65] R. Green used similar ideas to construct q-Schur algebras associated
with affine Hecke algebras of type A.
Using the quantum group approach Oehms defined a different generalized
q-Schur algebra of type B, called symplectic q-Schur algebra in his disserta-
tion [104]. The Brauer algebra acts on tensor space centralizing the action of
symplectic and orthogonal groups. A q-deformation of the Brauer algebra is
the Birman-Murakami-Wenzl algebra which acts on tensor space as well. Using
a generalization of the FRT-construction, which was introduced by Faddeev,
Reshetikhin und Takhtadjin as a tool to produce quantum groups, the symplec-
tic quantized monoid is defined as centralizer coalgebra of this action. This is a
bialgebra graded by subcoalgebras of finite rank, whose duals are defined to be
the symplectic q-Schur algebras.
352 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

3.4 Specializations and Decomposition Maps

Let 11. be a generic Iwahori-Hecke algebra or a suitable q-Schur algebra associ-

ated with a finite Weyl group W. Then any specialization B: A ~ k into a field
k gives rise to a specialized algebra 1I.k = k 0A 11.. In Section 3.2 we have al-
ready encountered this situation in connection with Tits' Deformation Theorem.
Now we consider the case where the specialized algebra is not semisimple. Then
we have a non-trivial decomposition map between the Grothendieck groups of
representations of 1I.K and of 1I.k.
In this section, we consider only the case where all parameters U. (8 E S)
equal a single parameter u, say. In view of our applications to finite groups of
Lie type, we are mainly interested in specializations of the following type: let q
be a prime power, £ be a prime not dividing q, and

B:A ~ Ft such that B(u) = q E IFt.

By the theory of Hom-functors (see Section 3.1), the associated decomposition
matrix of 11. is a submatrix of the decomposition matrix of a corresponding finite
group of Lie type over IFq • Now there are of course infinitely many choices for
£ and q. But one can in fact control this situation by factorizing B into two
steps: one from A to a cyclotomic extension of <Q and one from that cyclotomic
extension to Ft.
More precisely, let e ~ 1 be minimal such that B(u)e = 1. Then we can
factorize B as follows. Let (e E C be a primitive e-th root of unity and Be: A ~
C be a ring homomorphism such that Be(u) = (e' Then 'there exists a ring
homomorphism Be,t: <Q[(~/2] ~ Ft such that B = Be,t 0 Be.

Theorem 3.6. Let B: A ~ Ft be a specialization as above and D be the cor-

responding decomposition matrix between the irreducible representations of 1I.K
and Ft 0Ao 11.. Then we have a factorization D = De,t . De, where De and De,t
are the decomposition matrices induced by Be and Be,t, respectively.

The article [61] provides a rather general framework in which a result as

above can be proved. Thus, the decomposition matrix De can be viewed as
a first approximation to D, and D itself is given by multiplying De with the
"adjustment matrix" De,t (a term introduced by James).

Example 3.2. Let 11. be an Iwahori-Hecke algebra of type G 2 • Then De is not

the identity matrix only for e E {2, 3, 6}. In these cases, we have:

De e=2 e=3 e=6

ind 1 1 1
£1 1. 1 1.
£2 1 1 1
£ 1 1 1
Xl 1 1 1 1
X2 1 1 1 1
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 353

If f E {2,3} we only have to consider adjustment matrices De,l for (e, f) E

{(2, 2), (2,3), (3, 3)}j they are given as follows:

1 ... )
· 1 ..
( · . 1. , respectively.
· .. 1
· . 11
If f> 3, then De,l is always the identity matrix of the appropriate size. These re-
sults are easily proved by explicit computations using the matrix representations
given in [16, §67C).
The above example seems to indicate that most adjustment matrices are in
fact identity matrices. A general argument (which is given for Iwahori-Hecke
algebras in [46, Prop. 5.5)) shows that this is indeed the case for all sufficiently
large primes f. The term "sufficiently large" is specified in the following conjec-
ture, which was first stated by James [86, §4] for Iwahori-Hecke algebras and
q-Schur algebras of type A n - 1 and then formulated for Iwahori-Hecke algebras
of any type in [46, (5.6)].
Conjecture 3.1. If 1£ is the generic Iwahori-Hecke algebra associated with a finite
Weyl group, then the adjustment matrix De,l is the identity matrix if f does not
divide the order of W.
Probably, in the case of q-Schur algebras and Iwahori-Hecke algebras of type
A n - 1 , this result will even be true under the strengthened condition that ee > n.
The conjecture is established in [46] for blocks of defect 1, where the decomposi-
tion matrix is given in terms of a Brauer tree, similarly as for blocks of defect 1
in finite groups.
For explicit results on Iwahori-Hecke algebras of classical type, see Sec-
tion 3.5. The known results for exceptional types are summarized as follows:
- For type G 2 with equal parameters, see Example 3.2. (The case of unequal
parameters is easily treated by similar methods.)
- The matrices De are completely determined for types F 4 , E6 and E7j see
[57], [47], [50], and [100]. Partial results on the matrices De for type Es
are obtained by J. Muller [100]. The techniques used include R. Parker's
MEATAXE [107] and S. Linton's VECTOR-ENUMERATOR [93]. In [101],
the analogous matrices for the non crystallographic types 12 (m), H 3 , H4 are
determined.
- The above conjecture is established by explicit computation of all possible
decomposition matrices for types F4 (with equal parameters) and E 6 , see [57]
and [47], respectively. K. Bremke [5] has considered those cases of unequal
parameters in type F4 which actually occur in groups of Lie type.
In the case of Iwahori-Hecke algebras of exceptional type or of type An, En, Dn
(n odd) the following result can be extracted from the above explicit results and
the results in [26,34,106].
354 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

Theorem 3.7. (Geck [51]) If 11. is an Iwahori-Hecke algebra of a finite Weyl

group (where all parameters are equal), then the matrix De always has a lower
unitriangular shape, for a natural ordering of the rows and columns given in
terms of the relation ~LR of Kazhdan-Lusztig [88].

3.5 Iwahori-Hecke and q-Schur Algebras of Classical Type

We now turn to the Iwahori-Hecke algebras of classical type. We begin with the
type A case. Thus W = 6 n is the symmetric group, 11. = llR(W; q), where R is
a commutative ring and q is a unit of R. For fields R the irreducible ll-modules
were determined by Dipper and James in [26, 7.6) and it was shown that their
decomposition matrices are lower unitriangular.
For a partition A f- n of n let 6'I'>. denote the set of standard A-tableaux.
Murphy introduced in [102) and [103) a basis

{xst Is, t E 6'I'>., A f- n}

of 11., called Murphy basis, which possesses remarkable properties. Indeed it is a
cellular basis as defined by Graham and Lehrer in [62), and hence their general
results on cellular algebras may be used to recover most of the results in [26)
and some of [28). We apply now the general theory of cellular algebras [62). For
a partition A of n we define N>' to be the R-module spanned by

and R>' to be the subspace spanned by those Xst where p, [> A.

Theorem 3.8. Let A be a partition of n. Then N>' and R>' are two sided ideals
of 11..

The Specht (or standard) module S>. is now the submodule of 11./ R>' gen-
erated by z>. = x>. + R>'/R>' E ll/R\ where x>. := LWEW, Tw. On S>. we
have an ll-invariant bilinear form whose radical is denoted by radS>'. We set
D>' = S>'/radS>'.

Theorem 3.9. Suppose R is a field. Then the non-zero ll-modules in

{D>'I A f- n}

is a complete set of irreducible ll-modules. If we choose a linear ordering of the

partitions of n which is compatible with the dominance order downward then the
matrix.1 describing the composition factors of Specht modules is lower unitrian-
gular. If R is a field and 11. is semisimple then (0) #- s>. = D>' for every partition
A ofn. Thus

is a complete set of non-isomorphic irreducible ll-modules in this case.

 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 355

It should be pointed out that the Kazhdan-Lusztig basis of 1i as defined in

[88] is cellular in type A but not in general.
Theorem 3.9 states what can directly be concluded from the fact that 1i has a
cellular basis. There are some further results which however do not follow directly
from properties of a cellular basis, but require special proofs. In particular one
knows which of the D>' are nonzero in Theorem 3.9 by a result of Dipper and
James [26, 7.6]. Thus let R be a field. It is known that 1i is not semisimple if and
only if the parameter q E R is a primitive eth root of unity for some 1 < e :::; n
or q = 1 and R is of characteristic e : :; n. We define e to be e in the latter case.
A partition .A is called e-regular, if there are at most e - 1 repetitions in .A. We
then have:

Theorem 3.10. (Dipper/James) Let e be as above. Then D>' '" (0) precisely if
.A is e-regular.

The blocks of 1i are given bye-cores respectively p-cores in the group case
by [28, 4.13] and [87, 4.29], and the primitive central idempotents were exhibited
in [28, 5.4] to name a few further results.
In the special case of a field R of characteristic 0, where q is a primitive eth
root of unity, an algorithm how to compute the decomposition matrices explicitly
will be discussed in more detail in the next section.
We come now to other types of Iwahori-Hecke algebras and q-Schur algebras.
In [99] Mathas produced a cellular basis of Ariki-Koike algebras generalizing
results of Dipper, James and Murphy [34] on Iwahori-Hecke algebras of type
B. Here the labels of the basis elements are standard multi-tableaux whose
shapes are multi-partitions, which in turn label the standard and the irreducible
modules. The decomposition matrix is again lower unitriangular. The question
of actually classifying the irreducible modules is presently still open, although a
lot of evidence towards a conjecture concerning this question has been obtained,
(see [34, 8.13] for the case of Iwahori-Hecke algebras of type Band [99] for its
generalization to Ariki-Koike algebras).
A similar picture evolves for q-Schur algebras and their generalizations. The
case of type A was investigated first in [29] and [30] by Dipper and James.
They defined q- Weyl modules, labelled by partitions of n and determined a
semistandard basis of those, labelled by semistandard tableaux. The q- Weyl
modules have unique maximal submodules for fields R and the unique irreducible
quotients are precisely the irreducible modules for the q-Schur algebra. The
decomposition matrix describing the composition factors of the q- Weyl modules
is a square matrix and is unitriangular.
In [35] Du extended the Kazhdan-Lusztig basis for Iwahori-Hecke algebras to
q-Schur algebras and showed later (see e.g. [36]) that it is the same as Lusztig's
canonical basis arising from quantum groups. In [38] Du and Rui showed that
this basis is cellular.
In his thesis [63] Richard Green extended the Murphy basis of the Iwahori-
Heeke algebra of type A to q-Sehur algebras using bideterminants and showed
that it is cellular.
356 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

The cyclotomic q-Schur algebras (and hence the special cases for type A and
B of Section 3.3) are cellular ([33]) as well as the symplectic q-Schur algebras of
Oehms in [104]. Moreover, in both cases the bilinear form on standard modules
are non-zero, and hence the decomposition matrices are square matrices and the
algebras are quasi hereditary.
Under a special assumption there is a direct way to investigate Iwahori-
Hecke and q-Schur algebras of type B, yielding more complete results. Thus let
W = C 2 /6 n be the Weyl group of type B of rank n. The Iwahori-Hecke algebra
H involves two parameter q and Q. Let
n-l

fn(Q, q) = II (Q + qi).
i=-(n-l)

Theorem 3.11. (Dipper/James) Let R be a commutative ring, and let q, Q be

units of R. Suppose that fn(Q, q) f= O. Then H is Morita equivalent to
n
EB HR(6 a; q) @ HR(6 n - a; q).
a=O

For details we refer to [31]. As a consequence one obtains:

Theorem 3.12. (Gruber/Hiss) Let R, Q, q, H be as above and suppose again

that fn(Q,q) f= O. Then the (Q,q)-Schur algebra S is Morita equivalent to the
corresponding q-Schur algebra of parabolic type which in turn is Morita equivalent
to the direct sum of q-Schur algebras associated with the Iwahori-Hecke algebras
HR(6 a ; q) @ HR(6 n - a ; q), where a runs from 0 to n.

This theorem was shown in [68] for those choices of parameters occurring in
the representation theory of finite classical groups. The condition fn(Q, q) f= 0
holds in roughly a third of all possible cases for these groups. Gruber and Hiss
used their representations to establish Theorem 3.12 and to show even that using
only parabolic subgroups of type A produces another Morita equivalent q-Schur
algebra. However Theorem 3.12 holds in general as can be seen easily from [32].
Obviously Theorems 3.11 and 3.12 allow to carry results for the type A-case
to those for the type Bn-case if fn(Q,q) f= O. In particular using 3.10 there is
a complete description of the irreducible modules and decomposition matrix of
H in terms of Iwahori-Hecke algebras of type A and that of the corresponding
q-Schur algebra of type B in terms of q-Schur algebras of type A. In Section 4.4
this will be applied to representations of classical groups.
Iwahori-Hecke algebras of type D seem far less accessible. In particular there
is no cellular basis known, and only q-Schur algebras of parabolic type have been
considered so far. Pallikaros generalized Theorem 3.11 to Iwahori-Hecke algebras
of type D in [106]. However, his results are not as complete as in the type B
case. In particular, he does not get a complete classification of the irreducible
modules in the case of even n. Note, however, that the triangular shape for
the decomposition matrix is established in [51], using a completely different
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 357

approach. There are some more results in special cases, due to Gruber and Hiss
in [68], using the fact that Iwahori-Hecke algebras of type D are contained as
subalgebras in Iwahori-Hecke algebras oftype B for a special choice of the second
parameter.
There are many numerical results on decomposition matrices of Iwahori-
Hecke and q-Schur algebras, of which we shall mention only two, since they
are connected with Conjecture 3.1. Mathas wrote the share package SPECHT
in GAP [116] to compute decomposition numbers of Iwahori-Hecke algebras of
type A at roots of unity in characteristic zero. In his thesis which is under
preparation, Lipp used an implementation in GAP of combinatorial rules [86]
for the computation of decomposition numbers of q-Schur algebras of type A
to verify the James conjecture in many special cases (compare Section 3.4). In
general he shows that the conjecture holds for fields R of small characteristic
and based on results of Richards [113] proved a block wise version of James
conjecture for blocks of weight ::; 3.

3.6 The Theory of Lascoux-Leclerc-Thibon

Let ?in be the generic Iwahori-Hecke algebra associated with the symmetric
group 6 n . Consider a specialization 8: A -t C which takes the parameter u to a
primitive e-th root of unity (for some e 2: 1), and let De be the corresponding
decomposition matrix. Lascoux, Leclerc and Thibon [91] conjectured that the
problem of computing De can be translated to that of computing the canonical
basis (in the sense of Kashiwara and Lusztig) of a certain highest weight module
for an affine Kac-Moody algebra. This has now been proved by Ariki [3]. (In
October 1995, Grojnowski also announced a proof, following the ideas in [66].)
Here, we shall only describe the purely algorithmic part of the solution.
For any n 2: 0, let Fn be the Q(u)-vector space with a basis consisting of the
partitions A f- n; by convention, Fo has as basis the empty partition, 0. Let

the so-called "Fock space" .

As usual, a partition A f- n is represented by a Young diagram, which is a

collection of n boxes arranged in left-justified rows, where the number of boxes
in each row is given by the parts of A.
The e-residue of a box which occupies the j-th position in the i-th row say,
is the unique r E {O, ... ,e -I} such that r == j - i (mod e).
Next, if we can remove the right-most box in a row and the result is still a
Young tableau (for a partition of n - 1) we call that box a removable box. (For
example, the right-most box in the last row is always removable.)
Finally, if we can add a new box to some row and the result is again a Young
tableau (for a partition of n + 1), we call that rowan indent row. (For example,
we can always add a box to the first row; note that it is allowed to add a new
row consisting of one box to the bottom of the diagram.) The e-residue of such
a row is the e-residue of the new box that we can add.
358 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

We shall now define linear maps fr: F -t F (0 :::; r :::; e - 1) such that
fr(Fn) ~ F n + 1 for all n, r. Let A I- n and 0 :::; r :::; e - 1. Suppose that the i-th
row is an indent row of A whose e-residue is r. Then we let N(A, r, i) be the
number of indent rows strictly above i whose e-residue is r, minus the number
of removable boxes in rows above i whose e-residue is r. We define
fr(A) = LiuN(~,r,i) A[i],
where the sum is over all indent rows i of A with e-residue r, and A[i] denotes
the partition of n + 1 obtained by adding a new box to the i-th row. For any
k ~ 1, we let [k]u := (uk - u-k)/(u - u- 1 ), and define operators f;k) by
f$1) := fr and f;k) = f;k-l) I[k]u (k ~ 2).
Let Kn ~ Fn be the subspace generated by all f::(0) := fi~n) ... fi~')(0), where
£ = (i 1 , ... , in) and K, = (kl, ... , k n ) are any sequences of integers with 0 :::;
il, ... , in :::; e - 1 and k 1 , • •• ,kn ~ 1.
Lemma 3.1. For any e-regular partition v I- n, there exist £, K, as above such
that
Kv := f:(0) = v + Z[u±1]-linear combination of various AI- n, A <l v.
Here, <l denotes the usual dominance order. Note that this element depends on
the choice of £, K" but for any choice, the elements {Kv} form a basis of Kn.
The proof in [91, §6] also yields an algorithm for finding suitable sequences £, K,
for each v. Now, using an interpretation of F as a module for an affine Kac-
Moody algebra and applying the theory of canonical bases, it can be shown that
there exist unique elements {GI'} in Kn (for e-regular Ill- n) such that

GI' = 11 + L d~I'(U)A where d~l'(u) E Z[u] and d~I'(O) = O.

~I-n,~<l,..

Lemma 3.2. Each G,.. is uniquely a linear combination G,.. = I:v'Yv,..(u)Kv

where 'Yv,..(u) E Z[u, u- 1] are such that 'YVI'(u- 1 ) = 'Yv,..(u).
The proof in [91, §6] shows that the 'Yv,..(u) can be computed by a "triangular
algorithm". All this is implemented in Mathas' GAP package SPECHT [116],
and in Veigneau's package ACE [118]. Here is an example, for e = 2 and n = 5:

K(5) K(41) K(32)

K,: 11111 1211 122
£: 01010 0101 010
(5) 1
(41) 1
(32) 1 1
(311) 2u u
(221) u2 u2
(2111) u
(11111) u2
 Representations of Hecke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 359

Now let us finally come to D., the decomposition matrix that we are trying to
compute. By [26], we know already that De has rows labelled by all partitions
>. I- n and columns labelled by the e-regular partitions f.L I- n. The following
result, which is Conjecture 6.9(ii) in [91], shows that De is determined by Gp.:

Theorem 3.13. (Ariki [3, Theorem 4.4]) For any e-regular partition f.L I- n, let
us write Gp. = L:;,\I-n d,\p.(u) >. where d,\p.(u) E Z[u]. Then we have De = (d,\p.(I)).

We remark that Ariki proves in fact a more general result, which also applies to
Iwahori-Hecke algebras of type Bn and even to the cyclotomic Hecke algebras
associated with the wreath product of 6 n and a finite cyclic group. Moreover,
Leclerc and Thibon [92] have proposed a generalization to the q-Schur algebra.

4 Decomposition Matrices
The concept of the decomposition matrix provides a link between the "ordinary"
complex representations of a finite group and the "modular" representations over
a field of prime characteristic. In the case of finite groups of Lie type, the ordi-
nary character tables are relatively well understood, due to the work of Lusztig
and Shoji (see [95,117] and the references there). The situation for modular rep-
resentations in the defining characteristic is settled by Lusztig's conjecture, if
that characteristic is not too small (see [2] and the references there). In this sec-
tion we consider the case of non-defining characteristic, and give a survey of the
present state of knowledge. Most of the results were first proved for the groups
GLn(q) (see [18,29]). The precise formulation of possible generalizations to other
types of groups was in many cases only possible after extensive calculations in
exceptional groups of low rank (see [72]).

4.1 Basic Sets

The notion of a basic set (as defined below) was originally conceived by R. Parker
as a computational tool for the explicit determination of decomposition numbers
of sporadic simple groups. Since then, it has also proved useful as a conceptual
tool in the modular representation theory of finite groups of Lie type.
First we give the general definitions. Let G be a finite group, f a prime, and
B a union of f-blocks of G. We take the point of view that we know the ordinary
irreducible characters of G belonging to B. Let D be the decomposition matrix of
B. One of the most basic theoretical results that we have is that the elementary
divisors of D are all 1. This leads to the following:

Definition 4.1. A subset of the set of ordinary irreducible characters in B is

called an ordinary basic set for B if the submatrix of D with rows labelled by the
elements in that subset has determinant ±l.

More generally, a set of Brauer characters is called a basic set for B if it is

linearly independent and if every irreducible Brauer character belonging to B is
360 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

an integral linear combination of the elements of that set. Thus, if we have an

ordinary basic set for B, the restrictions of its members to the f'-elements of G
yield a basic set for B. In the literature, one sometimes finds a definition where
also generalized Brauer characters are allowed to be members of a basic set, but
we do insist on having actual characters.
Note that basic sets always exist (e.g., take the irreducible Brauer characters
belonging to B), but it is an open question whether or not ordinary basic sets
always exist. (K. Lux has checked that ordinary basic sets exist, for example, for
all blocks of sporadic simple groups.)
The importance of the existence of an ordinary basic set lies in the following
facts. First of all, its cardinality is the number of irreducible Brauer characters
in B. Moreover, any ordinary irreducible character in B outside the basic set
can be written---on the £I-elements of G-as an integral linear combination of
the elements in the basic set. Thus, in order to know the whole decomposition
matrix of B, it is sufficient to determine that part of it which has rows labelled by
the elements in the basic set. Note that this is a square matrix of non-negative
integers with determinant ±1.
It has turned out that, under some mild conditions, blocks of finite groups
of Lie type always possess ordinary basic sets which have a simple description
in terms of Lusztig series. To state these results, we fix the following notation.
Let G be a connected reductive group defined over the finite field lFq , with
corresponding Frobenius map F: G -+ G. Let G* be the dual group over lFq , with
Frobenius map F*. Recall that we have a partition of the irreducible characters
of the finite group G F into Lusztig series, £ (G F , s), one for each F* -stable class
of semisimple elements s E G*.
Let f be a prime not dividing q. For each F-stable semisimple element s E G*
of order prime to f, we have a corresponding union of f-blocks £1(G F , s); see
Theorem 2.8. We have the following general result:
Theorem 4.1. (GeckjHiss [52,48]) Assume that f is a good prime for each
simple component of G, i.e., f ::f. 2 in types Bn, Cn, D n , £ ::f. 2,3 in types G 2 ,
F4 , E 6 , E 7 , and f::f. 2,3,5 in type Eg. Assume, moreover, that f does not divide
the order of the largest quotient of the group Z(G)jZO(G) on which Facts
trivially. Then, for any F* -stable semisimple element s E G* of order prime to
£, the characters in £(G F , s) form an ordinary basic set for £1(G F , s).
If the assumption on f or on the center of G is not satisfied, the assertion
of the above theorem does not necessarily hold; for example, take G F = SL3(q)
where f = 3 I q - 1 or G F = G 2 (q) and f = 2. Nevertheless, we believe that
ordinary basic sets for finite groups of Lie type in non-defining characteristic
will always exist. Some partial results in this direction are obtained in Part III
of [48], where 2-modular Brauer characters of groups of classical type and with
a connected center are considered. In particular, it is shown that in this case
the number of irreducible Brauer characters in £2 (GF , s) equals the number of
F'
unipotent classes of CG'(s)* .
In [53], we have found the number of irreducible Brauer characters in B =
£1(G F ,l) for exceptional groups G with a connected center, under some mild
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 361

restrictions on q. We take this opportunity to correct an error in the tables in

[53, (5.5)(c) and (6.6)] which was found by F. Liibeck. The error is caused by a
preceding error in [117, (5.1)], where the supporting sets for cuspidal character
sheaves in type Es are stated incorrectly. (Details of the corrections will appear
elsewhere.) The correct numbers of irreducible Brauer characters in Ct(GF, 1),
for bad primes i, are given as follows:

Type £=2 i=3 £=5

G2 9 8
F4 28 35
Ea 27 28
E7 64 72
Es 131 150 162

(Thus it is not necessary to consider the case of type Es with q a power of 3

separately.) We hope to be able to settle the question of the existence of ordi-
nary basic sets in these cases by explicitly computing the necessary parts of the
character tables in the framework of CHEVIE [54].

4.2 Triangular Shape

Consider again a union B of i-blocks for some finite group G, and let D be
the corresponding decomposition matrix. Let IBrl(B) be the set of irreducible
Brauer characters in B. Assume that there exists an ordinary basic set S for Bj
see Definition 4.1. Let Ds be the submatrix of D with rows labelled by the
elements in S.

Definition 4.2. We say that D has a triangular shape with respect to the ordi-
nary basic set S, if it is possible to order the sets Sand 1Brl(B) in such a way
that the matrix Ds has a lower triangular shape with 1 along the diagonal.

There are examples where this is not possiblej e.g., for G = SL2 (8) and £ = 2.
But there are no counter-examples known for finite groups of Lie type in non-
defining characteristic! The advantage of having a triangular shape as above is
that we then have a canonical labelling of the irreducible Brauer characters in
B by the ordinary characters in S. Indeed, we have:

Lemma 4.1. Assume that D has a triangular shape with respect to S. Choose
labellings S = {Xl,"" Xm} and IBrl(B) = {Ol,"" Om} such that the corre-
sponding matrix D s is lower triangular with 1 along the diagonal. Then the
bijection
Xi ++ Oi (1 ~ i ~ m),
does not depend on the chosen labellings.

Now consider again a finite group of Lie type GF over lFq as in the previous
section, and let £ be a prime not dividing q.
362 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

As in the case of ordinary characters, the union of unipotent blocks &t(G F , 1)

plays a distinguished role in the modular representation theory of the group G F .
A reduction to this case may be possible by an-as yet conjectural-Jordan
decomposition of blocks and decomposition numbers. More precisely, assume
that G has a connected center and that 8 E G* is an F*-stable semisimple
element of order prime to £.

Conjecture 4.1. (Brow~ [6, Section 2A]/Hiss [72, Section 4.4]) If the ordinary
irreducible characters in &(G F , 8) and in &(CGo (8)*F*, 1) are matched via the
Jordan decomposition of characters (see Section 2.3), then the decomposition
matrix of [(G F , 8) equals that of [(CGo (8)* F ,1).
O

In the case where CGo (8) is a Levi L* subgroup of G*, the Jordan decomposition
is given by the operator RT, and Broue has in fact conjectured that this should
define a Morita equivalence between the corresponding unions of blocks. We will
come back to these questions below in the discussion of general linear groups
and the linear prime case for classical groups.
By Theorem 4.1, the unipotent characters of G F form an ordinary basic set
for [t (G F , 1) provided that £ is a good prime for G and the center of G is con-
nected. Suppose we are in this situation. Then it is known that the corresponding
decomposition matrix has a triangular shape in the following cases:
- GF = GLn(q), any £; see Section 4.3 below. In this case, we also have a
Jordan decomposition of blocks and decomposition numbers.
- G F is a finite classical group, £ is a linear prime; see Section 4.4. There is
also a Jordan decomposition of blocks and decomposition numbers.
- GF = GUn(q), any £; see [44].
- G F is an exceptional group of low rank (possibly with further conditions on
q or e); see [72] for G 2 (q), [45] for 3 D 4(q), and [122] for F4(q). A discussion of
a special case in E6(q) is contained in [53, §7]. (Although, strictly speaking,
the Suzuki and Ree groups are not finite groups of Lie type as introduced in
Section 2.2, the questions discussed here make sense for these groups, too. It
is known that the decomposition matrix of the unipotent characters of the
Suzuki groups 2B2(q) and of the Ree groups 2G 2(q) has triangular shape.
These groups have cyclic defect groups in all odd (non-defining) character-
istics, so the only problem here is the case of 2G2 (q) in characteristic 2.
The decomposition numbers in this case were found by Landrock and Mich-
ler [89].)
Some partial results are known in the bad prime case. It is shown in [48, Part III]
that if G F is a finite classical group, q is large and £ = 2, then the decomposition
matrix of [2(G F , 1) also has a triangular shape but only with respect to ordinary
basic sets which do not necessarily consist of unipotent characters.
Among all irreducible characters, the cuspidal ones playa special role from
the viewpoint of Harish-Chandra theory. It has been shown by Dipper and James
[18] that, if G F = GLn(q), then the i-modular reduction of an ordinary cuspidal
irreducible character remains irreducible as a Brauer character, and all cuspidal
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 363

irreducible Brauer characters arise in this way. This need not be the case for
other types of groups: there are examples of cuspidal ordinary characters which
do not remain irreducible under f-modular reduction; and there are examples
of cuspidal Brauer characters which do not occur in the f-modular reduction of
any ordinary cuspidal irreducible character. However, the second named author
has formulated in his Ph.D. thesis (1990) the following:

Conjecture 4.2. (Geck) The f-modular reduction of a cuspidal unipotent charac-

ter remains irreducible as a Brauer character.

If this were true, we would then have a connection between the theory of Harish-
Chandra series of ordinary characters and of f-modular Brauer characters. The
conjecture is known to be true in the following cases:
- GF = GUn(q), any f; see [55].
- GF is a finite classical group, q is large and f = 2; see [58].
- G F is an exceptional group of low rank (possibly with further conditions on
q or f); see [72] for G2(q), [45] for type 3 D 4(q), and [53, §7] for E6(q). (Also
for 2B2(q) and 2G'2(q) if f is odd, but it is not true for f = 2 in 2G'2(q) [89].
But notice that the latter is not a group of Lie type as defined in Section 2.2.)
The proofs of these results use the fact that the decomposition matrix is known
to have a triangular shape in these cases, and a kind of Harish-Chandra theory
for generalized Gelfand-Graev representations in order to produce "sufficiently
many zeroes" in the decomposition matrix (see [58]).

4.3 Decomposition Matrices of General Linear Groups

For G = G F = GLn(q) we have a complete classification of the f-modular ir-
reducible representations in terms of q-Schur algebras. The ordinary irreducible
characters in geometric conjugacy classes belonging to semisimple f-regular con-
jugacy classes of G constitute an ordinary basic set for G and the f-modular
decomposition matrix of G is unitriangular. Indeed the computation of the f-
modular decomposition matrix of G can be completely reduced to the computa-
tion of decomposition matrices of q-Schur algebras of type A using the approach
of Section 3.3. How this is done will be described briefly below.
Thus let G = GLn(q) for some prime power q, and let f be a prime not
dividing q. Here G* = G hence the geometric conjugacy classes are labelled by
conjugacy classes of semisimple elements of G. We choose a set C of represen-
tatives of these classes, and for sEC we denote the corresponding geometric
conjugacy class of G by E(G, s). For general linear groups geometric conjugacy
classes coincide with Harish-Chandra series.
We let (K, 0, k) be a split f-modular system for G and fix sEC. We choose
a minimal Levi subgroup L = L. containing s. Then the corresponding cuspidal
OL-Iattice Co(s) is regular, that is it occurs in the Gelfand-Graev representation
of L (see Section 3.1).
364 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

We concentrate now on the special case where the l-regular part s' of s is the
identity 1 of G. This is justified, since the union £((G, s) of alil-blocks of G with
semisimple part s (compare Theorem 2.8) has the same decomposition matrix as
the union £((GG(s), 1) of unipotent l-blocks of GG(s), i.e., Conjecture 4.1 holds
for G. There is, however, so far no independent proof of this fact, it follows a pos-
teriori by showing that the decomposition matrices of the same q-Schur algebras
determine these decomposition matrices with the same algorithms. Everything
what is said below can be generalized to the case of arbitrary SEC.
Thus s is an l-element of G. Then W(L., 1) in Theorem 3.2 is the normalizer
W(L.) of L. in the Weyl group W of G. We have:
Theorem 4.2. (Dipper) Gk(s) = k ® Go(s) is an irreducible cuspidal kL-
module. There exists an l-element t E C such that L = L t = L. and the sub-
group W(L, t) of W(L) equals W(L). Moreover Gk(t) ~ Gk(S) and W(L, s) is a
parabolic subgroup of W(L) = W(L, t).
This result can be used to reduce the computation of the decomposition num-
bers ofthe geometric conjugacy class £(G, s) completely to those of £(G, t). For
details and a proof we refer to [20, Section 4] and [29]. With other words it suffices
to calculate decomposition numbers of Harish-Chandra series £(G, s) satisfying
the hypothesis of Theorem 3.2. In particular we may assume that tiR(W(L, s» =
R®oti(W(L, s» for R E {K, 0, k}, and write tiReS) := tiR(W(L, s». Similarly,
we write SR(S) := SR(W(L,s» for the corresponding q-Schur algebras.
Let e = l if l divides q - 1 and e be the multiplicative order of q modulo l
otherwise. The standard and the irreducible tiR(s)-modules are now labelled by
multi-partitions respectively regular multi-partitions corresponding to the tensor
factors of tiReS), where R = K or k. Here regular means ei-regular in the ith
part were ei = e if di = 1 and ei = l otherwise. We now apply Theorems 3.1
and 3.5 (in their general form [25]) to obtain:
Theorem 4.3. (DipperfJames) The decomposition matrix..1. of the q-Schur
algebra So (s) is part of the decomposition matrix of £ (G, s). The columns corre-
sponding to regular multi-partitions are the columns of the decomposition matrix
oftio(s). If L. = GLd(q)m for natural numbers m,d with md = n, then..1. is
the complete l-modular decomposition matrix of £(G, s).
This was proved in [29] up to the last part, which is a result of James in
[85]. Consider now the special case s = 1. Then L can be taken as the Borel
subgroup of all lower triangular matrices in G and tiReS) = llR(6 n ; q). The
rows and columns of the decomposition matrix ..11 of the corresponding q-Schur
algebra are labelled by partitions of n. An easy counting argument (applied to
all semisimple l-regular elements sEC) shows that ..11 is the complete decom-
position matrix of £(G, 1), that is, we have a complete list of the irreducible
kG-modules in the union of the unipotent blocks. We have thus:
Theorem 4.4. (Dipper/James) There is a bijection between the irreducible kG-
modules and the irreducible So(s)-modules, where s runs through a set of rep-
resentatives of semisimple l-regular conjugacy classes of G. Moreover the l-
modular decomposition matrix of G is lower unitriangular.
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 365

The irreducible kG-modules were determined by Dipper in [18] in terms of

Hecke algebraB and it WaB shown there that the decomposition matrix of G is
lower unitriangular. James derived in [83], [84], and [85] a claBsification by labels
coming from q-Schur algebras (without defining these), aB in the theorem. In [27]
Dipper and James exhibited their connection: For sEC aB above and a multi-
partition .\ occurring aB label for some irreducible Sk(s)-module let D(s,.\) be
the corresponding kG-module. Taking a multi-partition .\ of n which is not e-
regular there is corresponding to the e-f-adic decomposition Xof'\ (which is a
multi partition) a semisimple f-element s such that X occurs as a label of an
irreducible 1lk(s)-module. We have (for a proof see [27, 5.1]):

Theorem 4.5. (Dipper/James) Let .\, s and Xbe as above. Then

D(l,.\) = D(s, X).

The theorem looks like Steinberg's tensor product theorem. Using quantum
groups, Dipper and Du showed in [23] that indeed there is a tensor product
theorem behind this coming from a tensor product theorem for q-Schur algebraB.
Moreover, the claBsification of the irreducible kG-modules in terms of Hecke
algebraB gives the Harish-Chandra series of kG. With other words the irreducible
kG-module D(l,.\) haB semisimple vertex L. and semisimple source C.,k, which
is the cuspidal kL.-module corresponding to s E L. (see Definition 2.2. For a
proof see [23, 4.3.12]).
Theorem 4.5 connects column labels of ..1. with those of ..1 1 , where sEC is an
f-element. However there may be entries in the decomposition matrix of &(G, s)
which are in a column not matching any column in d •. As can be seen from
Theorem 4.3 this happens only if L. is not of the form GLd(q)m. In this case there
is another combinatorial algorithm involving only inverting matrices ..1. and
the Littlewood-Richardson rule to calculate those entries of the decomposition
matrix of G. For proofs and details we refer to [29, Section 7] or [27]. We have:

Theorem 4.6. (Dipper/James) The f-modular decomposition matrix of finite

general linear groups for non-describing characteristic f can be computed from
the decomposition matrices of q-Schur algebras by an algorithm which involves
only the Littlewood-Richardson rule and the inversion of triangular matrices.

The decomposition numbers of q-Schur algebras for integral parameters q

and hence of GLn(q) are known up to n = 10 by work of James, [86].

4.4 Decomposition Matrices of Classical Groups

In this section we survey the present knowledge on decomposition numbers of

claBsical groups. To simplify the exposition, we shall aBsume here that our groups
arise from algebraic groups with connected center. This excludes, e.g., the sym-
plectic groups or the special orthogonal groups in even dimensions. Many of the
results to follow are also valid for such groups. We exclude the general linear
groups, since these have been dealt with in the previous section.
366 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

The classical groups. Thus a classical group in this section is one of the groups
of the following list. Let lFq denote the field with q elements, where q is a power
of a prime p, and let n be a positive integer. We write Gn(q) for anyone of the
following groups.

(1) The unitary group GUn(q) of an n-dimensional vector space over lFq2 with
a non-degenerate unitary form.
(2) The special orthogonal group SOn(q) of an n-dimensional vector space over
lFq with a quadratic form of maximal Witt index, where n is odd.
(3) The conformal symplectic group eSPn(q) of an n-dimensional vector space
over lFq with a non-degenerate symplectic form (such that n is even).
(4) The conformal special orthogonal group eso;t(q) of an n-dimensional vector
space over lFq with a quadratic form of maximal Witt index, where n is even.
(5) The conformal special orthogonal group eso;; (q) of an n-dimensional vector
space over lFq with a quadratic form of Witt index n/2 - 1, where n is even.

Linear and very large primes. Given a non-zero integer a and a prime e not
dividing a we write d := d(a, e) for the multiplicative order of a modulo e, i.e., d
is the smallest positive integer such that e divides ad - 1.

Definition 4.3. Let G = Gn(q) be one of the groups in the list above, and let e
be a prime not dividing q. Put

e ._ e(G e) .= {d( -q,e), if G is a unitary group,

.- ,. d(q, e), otherwise.

If G is unitary, e is called linear for G, if e(G, e) is even. In the other cases,

e is called linear for G, if e and e( G, e) are odd. We call e very large for G, if
e(G, e) > n/2.
Notice that a linear prime for a unitary group is odd. Also, if e is very large
for G, a Sylow e subgroup of G is cyclic.

Decomposition matrices. There is a great amount of information on the e-

e
decomposition matrices of G if is very large or linear. First of all, the hypotheses
of Theorem 4.1 on basic sets of Brauer characters are satisfied in these cases.
Thus in order to compute the irreducible Brauer characters of G in a union of
blocks £l(G, s) (see Section 2.3 for the notation), it suffices to find the decompo-
sition numbers of the characters in £(G, s). The matrix of these decomposition
numbers is a square matrix, but we can say a lot more about its entries in case of
e
linear or very large primes. For example, if is linear, the decomposition matrix
of £(G, s) is equal to the decomposition matrix of a generalized q-Schur algebra
(see Section 3.3).
The results of Fong and Srinivasan [42, (9B)] and of Gruber and Hiss [68,
Theorem 9.3] allow a reduction to the case of unipotent characters. Namely, let
G = GF be one of the classical groups above, l a linear or a very large prime
 Representations of Hecke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 367

for G, and s a non-isolated semisimple £I-element in the dual group G*, i.e.,
CG. (s) is contained in a proper Levi subgroup of G*. Then the decomposition
matrices of &(G, s) and of &(Ca. (s), 1) are the same, i.e., Conjecture 4.1 is true
in these cases.
Unfortunately, no a priori proof of this reduction is known. For very large
primes it follows from the fact that, for the two cases, corresponding arguments
can be given to establish the links on the Brauer trees. For linear primes it follows
from the fact that the two q-Schur algebras which determine the decomposition
numbers of &(G, s) and &(Ca. (s), 1) are isomorphic to each other.
We may thus, for the purpose of this survey, restrict attention to the decom-
position numbers for unipotent characters. It turns out that in case of linear
and very large primes, the distribution of the unipotent characters into Harish-
Chandra series (of ordinary characters) plays an important role.

Theorem 4.7. (Fong/Srinivasan [42], Gruber/Hiss [68, Theorem 9.3]) LetG be

a classical group from the list above and let f be a linear or a very large prime
for G. Then the decomposition matrix of the unipotent characters is a block
diagonal matrix
diag(.::1 1 , .::1 2 , .. . ,.::1 r ),
where the .::1 i are square matrices corresponding to the Harish-Chandra series of
ordinary characters, i.e., each .::1 i gives the decomposition into irreducible Brauer
characters of the restricted ordinary characters of a particular Harish-Chandra
series of unipotent characters.

This theorem no longer holds in general. An example is provided by the group

GU 3 (q) and a prime f ~ 5 dividing q + l.
We are now going to describe the matrices .::1 i which occur in the preceding
theorem. We define the a-invariant of a unipotent character X to be the largest
r ~ 0 such xr divides the generic degree of X (see the paragraph following
Definition 2.4).

Theorem 4.8. (Fong/Srinivasan [42]) Let G be a classical group from the list
above and let f be a very large prime for G. Consider a Harish-Chandra series S
of unipotent characters of G. Suppose that the elements of S fall into the f-blocks
B 1 , .•• , B. of G. Then, for 1 $ i $ s, the a-invariants of the unipotent characters
in S n Bi are all different. Moreover, arranging these characters according to
increasing a-invariants, the decomposition matrix of S n Bi equals J(b i ) (where
bi = ISnBil and J(b i ) denotes the lower unitriangular Jordan (b i x bi)-matrix).
With this ordering of the characters in S, the decomposition matrix .::1 of S is
the block diagonal matrix diag(J(b 1 ), J(b 2 ), ••• , J(b.)).

We finally turn to the case of linear primes. For this purpose we have to
describe, in some more detail, the parameterization of the characters inside a
Harish-Chandra series of unipotent characters. This is the same for all classical
groups and all Harish-Chandra series except for the principal series of the confor-
mal group CSO~(q). For reasons of simplicity we therefore omit the latter from
368 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

the following considerations. Then the characters of a Harish-Chandra series of

unipotent characters are parameterized by bi-partitions of some positive integer
m ~ n/2. This is due to the fact that the Hecke algebra corresponding to the
Harish-Chandra series (according to Definition 2.2) is the Iwahori-Hecke algebra
of type Bm. In the following theorem, d equals 2 if G is a unitary group, and 1,
otherwise. Also, if A is a partition, we write IAI for the sum of its parts.
Theorem 4.9. (Gruber/Hiss [68, Corollary 8.11]) Let G be a classical group
from the list above and let i be a linear prime for G. Let Ll denote the decompo-
sition matrix of a Harish-Chandra series S of unipotent characters of G (where
S is not the principal series if G = CSO~ (q)).
For a non-negative integer j let Aj denote the decomposition matrix of the
unipotent characters of GLj (q,j). Then Ll is a block diagonal matrix of the form

Ll=

o
Here, ® denotes the Kronecker product of the matrices.
To be more precise, the elements of S are labelled as X = X(1'1,1'2) by bi-
partitions (P,1, P,2) of m via ordinary Harish-Chandra theory. The Brauer char-
acters occurring as constituents of the elements in S also have a labeling as
c.p = c.p(Vl,V2) by bi-partitions (VI, V2) of m. The multiplicity of c.p(Vl,V2) in X(1'1,1'2)
is 0, if 1p,11 i= IV11, and it equals dl'lVl (q,j)dI'2v2(q,j), otherwise. Here, d AlA2 (l)
is the i-decomposition number of GLIAl I(l) which corresponds to the unipotent
character parameterized by the partition Al and the Brauer character parame-
terized by "\2'
Let us state one corollary of the results described in this section.
Corollary 4.1. Let G be a classical group from the list above and let i be a linear
or a very large prime for G. Then the ordinary irreducible characters of G can
be arranged in such a way that the decomposition matrix is lower unitriangular.
This follows from the theorems given in this section (except for the conformal
orthogonal groups CSO~(q), where it is also true) and from the corresponding
fact for the general linear groups, see Theorem 4.5.
We also have an important result on the size of the decomposition numbers.
Theorem 4.10. (Gruber/Hiss [68, Corollary 8.11)) Let G = Gn(q) be a clas-
sical group from the list above and let i be a linear prime for G. Then the
i-decomposition numbers of G are bounded above by the order of the Weyl group
ofG.
Note that this bound on the decomposition numbers is independent of q and i.
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 369

4.5 Decomposition Matrices of Sp4(Q)

The determination of decomposition matrices of classical groups for non-linear,
not very large primes appears to be a very hard problem. The answer is not
even completely known for one of the "smallest" series of classical groups, the
3-dimensional unitary groups GU 3 (q). Geck has determined their decomposition
numbers in [43), with one exception in case i divides q + 1.
A similar problem, again for the case i divides q + 1, has been left open by
White, who investigated the decomposition numbers for the symplectic groups
Sp4(q) [121). In this case, however, Okuyama and Waki [105) were able to solve
White's problem. It should be noted that here, again, the decomposition numbers
of the unipotent characters are bounded independently of q and i. In fact, the
largest decomposition number of a unipotent character is 2.
In contrast to the case of linear primes the e-modular decomposition numbers
do not only depend on the integer e(G,i) (see Definition 4.3) but also on the
highest power of i dividing q + 1.

4.6 Decomposition Matrices of Exceptional Groups

Let us shortly summarize the knowledge on the decomposition matrices (in non-
defining characteristic) for the exceptional groups of Lie type. Let G be an
exceptional group of Lie type.

Complete decomposition matrices. Complete decomposition matrices are

known only if G is a Suzuki group 2B2(q) [98) or a Ree group 2G 2(q) [89,73].
Almost complete results are available for Steinberg's triality groups 3D4(q) [45]
and for the Chevalley groups G 2 (q) [71). For example, all i-modular decomposi-
tion numbers are known for G 2 (q) in case eis greater than 3 and does not divide
q + 1. If i > 3 divides q + 1, the results of [71] allow to compute all but two
of the i-modular irreducible characters. The remaining problems in these two
series are very similar to those already encountered in the 3-dimensional unitary
groups and the 4-dimensional symplectic groups (see Section 4.5). We hope that
they can be solved with methods similar to those introduced by Okuyama and
Waki in [105].

Brauer trees. If we consider primes i with the property that the Sylow i-
subgroups of G are cyclic, the situation is much better. In this case the de-
composition matrices are described by Brauer trees. These are known for all
exceptional groups of Lie type except for E7(q) and E8(q) (and some exceptions
for 2E6(q» [77,76].

4.7 Harish-Chandra Series of Brauer Characters

In order to describe the Harish-Chandra series of Brauer characters, we have to
describe the cuspidal irreducible Brauer characters first. For reasons of simplicity,
370 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

we only consider unipotent characters. As always we let G = G F be a finite group

of Lie type of characteristic p, and let i be a prime different from p.
The Gelfand-Graev representation of G is projective and has a unique direct
summand containing the Steinberg representation as a constituent. We denote
by CPSt the corresponding irreducible i-modular character of G.

General linear groups. Let G = GLn(q), and let e be as in 4.3, i.e., e = i, if

i I q -1, and e = d(q, i) is the order of q modulo i, otherwise.
Theorem 4.11. (Dipper / James) If G has a cuspidal unipotent Brauer charac-
ter 11', then 11' = CPSt· Moreover, CPSt is cuspidal if and only if n = 1 or n = eij
for some j ~ O.
If A = (1 aI, 2G2 , ••• ) is a partition of n, we write

(1)

for the corresponding standard Levi subgroup of G. If 11' is a cuspidal unipotent

Brauer character of LA, we must have

(2)

and
11' = CPA,St := CPSt m-l ® CPSt mo ® CPSt m, ® ...
by Theorem 4.11. Thus the Harish-Chandra series of unipotent Brauer charac-
ters of G are in bijection with the partitions of n of the form (2). The question of
which unipotent Brauer characters lie in the Harish-Chandra series correspond-
ing to such a partition is answered in the following theorem. By the results
of Section 4.3 we have a natural labelling of the unipotent Brauer characters
of G by partitions of n. Let 11'/1 denote the unipotent Brauer character of G
corresponding to the partition I-' of n.

Theorem 4.12. (Dipper/Du [23,4.3.12)) Let I-' be a partition ofn with e-i-adic
expansion
I-' = 1-'(-1) + el-'(O) + eil-'(l) + ....

Then 11'/1 lies in the Hansh-Chandra senes corresponding to the partition A of

the form (2) with mi := II-'il for i = -1,0,1, ...

Classical groups. We now let G = Gn(q) be a classical group as in 4.4, and

we let i be a linear prime for G. In this case the cuspidal unipotent Brauer
characters are easy to describe.
Theorem 4.13. (Gruber/Hiss [68, Corollary 8.8)) The group G has a cuspidal
unipotent Brauer character 11' if and only if it has an ordinary cuspidal unipotent
character X. In this case 11' is liftable to X. Moreover, X is an i-defect 0 character
ofG/Z(G).
 Representations of Heeke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 371

It follows in particular, that G has at most one cuspidal unipotent Brauer char-
acter. The Levi subgroups of G are of the form

where a ~ n is an integer such that n - a is even, Ga(q) is a group of the

same type as G, A is a partition of (n - a)/2, and L>. is the Levi subgroup of
GL(n_a)/2(qc5) introduced in (1) with 8 as in Theorem 4.9. It is well known that
La.>. has an ordinary cuspidal unipotent character only for special values of a
and then only for A = (1m).
Let 0 ~ al < a2 < ... < ar ~ n denote the integers such that n - ai is
even and such that G a , (q) has a cuspidal unipotent character Xi. The ordinary
unipotent characters in the Harish-Chandra series corresponding to Xi are la-
belled by bi-partitions of ni = (n - ai)/2. (Again we exclude the case of the
principal series of CSO~ (q).) Thus the unipotent characters are labelled by the
triples (ai; AI, A2) where (Ab A2) is a bi-partition of ni and i runs from 1 to r. (It
is not difficult to translate this labelling of the unipotent characters to the more
common one by symbols or partitions.) In turn, by Corollary 4.1, the unipotent
Brauer characters of G are labelled by such triples.

Theorem 4.14. Let (ai; P,1, P,2) be the label of a unipotent Brauer character 'P
of G, and let p'~j) and p'~j), j = -1,0,1, ... , denote the parts of the e-P-adic
expansion of P,l and P,2, respectively. (Here, e is defined as in 4.3 with respect
to q0.) Then'P lies in the Harish-Chandra series corresponding to La,.>., where A
is the partition of (n - ai)/2 of the form (2) with mj = 1p,~j)1 + Ip,~\ j =
-1,0,1, ...

This theorem was conjectured for the unitary groups in [55, Conjecture 9.2],
and proved in the case that 'P lies in an P-block with a cyclic defect group [55,
Proposition 9.3]. In the general case it follows from the results of [68, Section 8].

The unitary groups. We now give a result which indicates the existence of
many cuspidal unipotent Brauer characters which are not liftable to ordinary
characters. Let G = GUn(q) and let P be an odd prime dividing q + 1. The
unipotent Brauer characters of G have a natural parameterization by partitions
of n (see Section 4.2). Let 'Pp. denote the unipotent Brauer character of G cor-
responding to the partition p, of n.

Theorem 4.15. (Geck/Hiss/Malle, Gruber) The unipotent Brauer character

'Pp. is cuspidal if and only if two consecutive parts of p, differ by at most 1.
(This is the same as saying that p,', the partition conjugate to p" is 2-regular).

We can also describe the Harish-Chandra series in this case.

Theorem 4.16. (Geck/Hiss/Malle, Gruber) Let p, be a partition of n. Write

p, = P,l + 2p,2, where P,l and P,2 are uniquely determined by the fact that p,~ is
372 R. Dipper, M. Geck, G. Hiss, G. Malle

2-regular. Define m = IJLII and mj = IJL~j) I, where the JL~j) are the parts of the
l-adic expansion of JL2, j = 0, 1,2, ....
Then <PIL lies in the Harish-Chandra series of <PILI 0 <PSt mo 0 <PSt ml 0"',
where <PSt m; is the l-modular Steinberg character of GL t ; (q2)m;, j = 0,1,2, ...

These two results were conjectured in [55, Conjecture 9.6], and proved to be true
in [56, Theorem 4.12J for l > n, and in general by Gruber in [67J.

Exceptional groups. The modular Harish-Chandra series and the endomor-

phism algebras of Harish-Chandra induced cuspidal modules occurring in ex-
ceptional groups G(q) were determined by Geck/Hiss/Malle in [56] in all cases
where the order d = d(q,l) of q modulo l is odd and l does not divide the order
ofthe Weyl group of G, except for d E {3, 5} for G = E8(q). In order to indicate
the nature of the results to expect we reproduce from Table 5.4 in loco cit. the
results pertaining to Harish-Chandra series of G = E7(q) in the form of a table.

Table. Modular Harish-Chandra series for E7(q)

d L X R C 1i #irr.
3 1 1 E7 1 1i(E7; q) 32
A2 <PSt A5 2 1i(A5;q) : 2 14
A2 x A2 <PSt x <PSt G 2 x Al 1 1i(G2; q, 1) 01i(AI; 1) 8
D4 C C3 1 1i(C3 ;q,q) 4
E6 CI, C2 Al 1 1i(AI; 1) 2+2
E6 c3,···,Cij Al 1 1i(AI ;Pi), i = 1, ... ,4 8
+ 6 cuspidals
5 1 1 E7 1 1i(E7;q) 54
A4 <PSt A2 2 1i(A2; q) : 2 6
D4 C C3 1 1i(C3 ;q,q4) 10
E6 CI,C2 Al 1 1i(AI;q4) 2+2
+ 2 cuspidals
7 1 1 E7 1 1i(E7;q) 58
D4 C C3 1 1i(C3 ;q,q4) 10
A6 <PSt Al 1 1i(AI ;P5) 2
E6 CI,C2 Al 1 1i(AI;q2) 2+2
+ 2 cuspidals
9 1 1 E7 1 1i(E7;q) 58
D4 C C3 1 1i(C3 ;q,q4) 10
E6 Cr, C2 Al 1 1i(AI; 1) 2+2
E6 <PSt Al 1 1i(AI ;P6) 2
+ 2 cuspidals
 Representations of Hecke Algebras and Finite Groups of Lie Type 373

Its first column contains the number d = d(q, f), the order of q modulo f.
The second column of the table gives the pairs (L, X), where L is a Levi
subgroup of G and X is a cuspidal simple kL-module. The Levi subgroups are
denoted by their types. The trivial kL-module (which is cuspidal only if L is the
maximally split torus), is denoted by 1, the Steinberg module, if it is cuspidal,
by 'PSt. Further cuspidal modules are denoted by cor Ci, i = 1, ... ,6.
The third and fourth columns then give the groups R = R(L, X) and C =
C(L, X), and the sixth column the endomorphism algebra H = H(L, X) =
EndkG(Rr(X» (see Theorem 2.3). The parameters of these all lie in the finite
field 1Ft ~ k, i.e., q also denotes its image in 1Ft. There are some parameters
Pi E 1Ft * \ { -1}, i = 1, ... ,6, which are not yet known explicitly.
The last column of the table gives the number of simple kG-modules in the
Harish-Chandra series corresponding to (L, X), which is equal to the number of
simple H-modules by Corollary 2.1.

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 The Groups of Order 512

Bettina Eick 1 and E.A. O'Brien 2

1Mathematisches Institut, Universitat Wiirzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Wiirzburg,

Germany
2 Department of Mathematics, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland,
New Zealand

Abstract. We recently developed a practical algorithm to enumerate

the p-groups of a given order. Here we report on the use of this method
to establish that there are 10 494 213 groups of order 512.

A central problem in attempting to determine the groups of order pn, where p

is a prime, is that the number of such groups grows exponentially with increasing
n. Higman, see [4], and Sims, see [11), provide asymptotic estimates which show
that the number of groups of order pn is p2n 3 /27+0(n 8 / 3 ).
The p-group generation algorithm (see Newman, [6); O'Brien, [7)) is a prac-
tical method to generate descriptions of the groups of order pn. It produces a
complete and irredundant list of descriptions of the p-groups of a given order -
that is, a representative of each isomorphism type is present and no two elements
in the list have the same isomorphism type.
The p-group generation algorithm has been used to determine the 2-groups
of order dividing 256 (see O'Brien, [8)) and the 3-groups of order dividing 729.
These groups are available as data libraries in GAP 3.4.4 (see Schonert et al.,
[10)). The groups of order dividing p6, for p an odd prime, were studied by James,
see [5).
More recently, a catalogue of the remaining groups of order at most 1000,
except for 512 and 768, has been obtained by Besche & Eick, see [1) and [2).
This catalogue is also available in GAP 3.4.4.
Hence, the groups of order 512 are the only p-groups of order at most 1000
which are not yet known. One could attempt to list these groups using the p-
group generation algorithm. This algorithm is implemented in C and it is part of
the GAP share package ANUPQ. In fact, we used this implementation to list the
1 708440 groups of order 512 and p-class at least 3. As part of this computation,
we used our GAP implementation of an improved version of the algorithm of
O'Brien, see [9), to compute the automorphism group of a p-group; this will be
available later as a GAP library.
However, a central feature of the p-group generation algorithm is that the
isomorphism problem is solved by explicitly computing orbits of certain spaces
under the action of an automorphism group. In computing the groups of or-
der 512 and p-class 2, these orbits are extremely large and cannot readily be
computed using available computational resources.

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
380 B. Eick, E.A. O'Brien

In an attempt to overcome this difficulty, we decided to enumerate the groups

of order 512 and p-class 2, rather than explicitly listing them. Eick & O'Brien,
see (3), present a practical algorithm to enumerate the groups of order pn. The
method relies on knowing explicitly the groups of order dividing pn-l. It uses
a cohomological approach and also exploits the Cauchy-Frobenius Lemma to
count the number of orbits of a matrix group acting on certain vectors in the
underlying vector space. The method can be restricted readily to enumerate the
groups of a certain p-class only.
We implemented this enumeration algorithm in GAP 4 (see The GAP Team,
[12]). Using this implementation, we established that there are 8 785 772 groups
of order 512 having p-class 2. This computation required approximately 18 hours
of CPU time on a Pentium PC.
This result combined with the explicit listing of the groups of order 512 and
p-class at least 3 shows that there are 10 494 213 groups of order 512.
More detailed information on the algorithm and on the groups can be found
in Eick & O'Brien, see (3).

References
1. Hans Ulrich Besche and Bettina Eick: Construction of finite groups. J. Symbolic
Comput. (to appear) (1998).
2. Hans Ulrich Besche and Bettina Eick: The groups of order at most 1000 except
512 and 768. J. Symbolic Comput. (to appear) (1998).
3. Bettina Eick and E.A. O'Brien: Enumerating p-groups. In preparation (1998).
4. Graham Higman: Enumerating p-groups. I: Inequalities. Proc. London Math. Soc.
(3) 10, 24-30 (1960).
5. Rodney James: The Groups of Order p6 (p an Odd Prime). Math. Camp. 34,
613-637 (1980).
6. M.F. Newman: Determination of groups of prime-power order. Group Theory, Lec-
ture Notes in Math., 573, (Canberra, 1975), pp. 73-84. Springer-Verlag, Berlin,
Heidelberg, New York (1997).
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(1990).
8. E.A. O'Brien: The Groups of Order 256. J. Algebra 143(1}, 219-235 (1991).
9. E.A. O'Brien: Computing automorphism groups of p-groups. Computational Alge-
bra and Number Theory (Sydney, 1992), pp. 83-90. Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht (1995).
10. Martin Schonert et al.: GAP - Groups, Algorithms and Programming. Lehrstuhl
D fUr Mathematik, RWTH Aachen (1997).
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(1965).
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Computational Sciences, University of St Andrews (1997).
 Computational Aspects of Representation
Theory of Finite Groups II

Klaus Lux! and Herbert Pahlings2

1 Department of Mathematics, University of Arizona, 617 N. Santa Rita,

Tucson 85721, Arizona, U.S.A.
2 Lehrstuhl D f. Mathematik, RWTH Aachen, Templergraben 64,
D 52062 Aachen, Germany

Abstract. Recent progress in computational representation theory is

surveyed. As an application of some methods for constructing ordinary
character tables Brauer pairs among 2-groups of order up to 28 are de-
termined. Furthermore the present status of the library of the tables of
marks for simple groups which is available in GAP is described. Finally
the state of the art of computational modular representation theory is
summarized, by listing not only results on Brauer character tables of
finite simple groups, which have been computed since the appearance of
the first part of this paper, but also recent advances in the algorithms
for dealing with representations over finite fields as well as Brauer char-
acters. Also results concerning the structure of the module category of
the group algebra of a finite simple group are reviewed.

1 Ordinary Character Tables of Finite Groups

In Section 1 of the first part of the paper (see [35]) some methods for computing
ordinary characters and for obtaining additional information from these such
as fusions, powermaps and permutation characters have been outlined. These
required some knowledge of the conjugacy classes of the group in question. If it
is possible to compute within a group e.g. using a permutation representation
or a presentation and to find explicitly its conjugacy classes there are meth-
ods to calculate the complete character table. These methods are implemented
e.g. in the computer algebra system GAP [50] which has now completely super-
seded the former system CAS [42], although the latter system (devoted solely to
computations with characters) is still operational in a few places.
The best known method for calculating a character table of a group given e.g.
as a permutation group or by a power commutator presentation is the Dixon-
Schneider algorithm (see [12], [48]), which goes back to an idea described in
Burnside's book [6] to calculate the characters using the class multiplication con-
stants but using finite fields. This method has been implemented in various ways
(see e.g. [23]) and its applicability has been extended quite considerably (from
e.g. the Mathieu group M22 of order 443 520 with 12 conjugacy classes described
in [48] to 3~+B . 2:+6 . 3~+2 . 2S4 , a maximal subgroup of order 3 265 173 504
with 181 conjugacy classes of the Fischer group Fi 23 , a computation using GAP

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
382 K. Lux, H. Pahlings

which was done in [23] and which is explained in some detail in [41]). These
algorithms and implementations have a broad spectrum of applications in var-
IOus areas, e. g. in the recent verifications of the Dade conjectures in modular
representation theory (see for examples [13]) to mention just one.
Whereas the Dixon-Schneider algorithm works for any finite group in which
one can calculate explicitly with the conjugacy classes, there are also algorithms
due to Conlon (see [8]), and Baum (see [2], [3]) which work for p-groups, or
supersolvable groups. These algorithms use Clifford Theory and the fact that
irreducible representations of supersolvable groups are monomial and require
the group to be given by a power-commutator presentation. They also allow the
construction of representatives of the irreducible representations. These algo-
rithms have been implemented in GAP by H. U. Besche [4] and have proven to
be quite efficient. For most 2-groups of order 28 for example the implementation
of Baum's algorithm ("CharTablePGroup") in GAP takes about 2 seconds on a
Pentium 166 MH UNIX workstation, which is about three times as fast as the
implementation of the Dixon-Schneider Algorithm in these cases.

1.1 Brauer Pairs

It is well known, that non-isomorphic groups may have the same character table,
the best known example being the quaternion and the dihedral groups of order
8. There are very many other examples of this sort, e.g among 2-groups, as the
following table shows:

order number of isomorphism classes number of character tables

16 14 11
32 51 35
64 267 146
128 2328 904
256 56092 8444
In fact among these groups there are not Just palrs, but also tnples, quadru-
ples, even larger families of groups having the same character tables. There is
even a family of 1528 pairwise non-isomorphic groups of order 512 (with rank 5
and elementary abelian commutator factor group and center of order 8) having
the same character table.
In [5] R. Brauer had asked whether there exist non-isomorphic finite groups
G l , G 2 which have the same character table with the same powermap. Such a
pair of groups is now usually called a Brauer pair. Thus G l , G 2 form a Brauer
pair, if there are bijections

such that
X(gi) = 'I/J(X)(</>(g)i)
for all 9 E G l and X E Irr(Gt} and j E :IN .
 Computational Representation Theory 383

The first Brauer pairs were given by E. C. Dade in [11] . These were certain
p-groups of exponent p and order p7 defined for p ~ 5 . Observe that for such
groups of exponent p the powermaps don't give any further information which
is not contained in the matrix of the character values.
A comprehensive search for Brauer pairs among the 2-groups of order up to
28 was carried out in Aachen by E. Skrzipczyk in 1992 ([51]) using the library
of 2-groups established by E. O'Brien (see [43]), which is available e.g. in GAP.
Perhaps surprisingly (in view of the figures in the above table) no Brauer pairs
were found among the groups of order up to 27. But for the groups of order 256
the search was successful, giving the first examples of Brauer pairs among 2-
groups and the first examples of such pairs not consisting of groups of exponent
p.
Theorem 1. Among the 56092 groups of order 28 there are exactly 10 Brauer
pairs. These are
(G1734,G1735),(G1736,G1737), (G1739,G1740), (G1741,G1742), (G3378,G3380),
(G3379,G3381), (G3678,G3679), (G4154,G4157), (G4155,G4158 ),(G4156,G4159 ),
where G; denotes the group of order 28 with number i in O'Brien's data base.
Since it is impossible to compare 56092 character tables at the same time, it
was necessary to divide the groups into smaller families using invariants, which
are respected by the character tables. The rank and isomorphism type of the
commutator factor group, which are very easy to compute, were not sufficient
for these purposes. In addition the order of the center and the number of con-
jugacy classes were used for the preprocessing. These invariants brought down
the number of groups and tables to be considered at the same time to a man-
ageable size of a few hundreds (in many cases far less) except for a few cases
among the groups of rank 5. Since comparing large character tables (using e.g.
the GAP - command "TransformingPermutationsCharTable" , c.f. [50] ) is quite
time consuming a number of technical and quickly computable invariants had
been introduced, such as the values of characters of fixed degree on classes of
elements of given order and centralizer order. Of course also F'robenius Schur in-
dicators are taken into account and classes which consist of squares of elements
are distinguished from those which don't. It seems to be impossible to prove one
part of the Theorem without the help of a computer. On the other hand, it is
not impossible to verify by hand that the given pairs are indeed Brauer pairs;
indeed they also have the same irreducible 2-characters as defined by F'robenius
[15] (see also [31] and [30]) , where the 2-character corresponding to a character
X is defined to be the function X(2) : G x G -+ (: with

X(2) (9, h) = X(g)X(h) - X(gh).

In fact this follows easily from looking at the presentations of the pairs (which we
are going to list now) and has also been observed by J. McKay and D. Sibley. We
mention in passing that on the other hand the irreducible 1-, 2- and 3-characters
characterize a finite group up to isomorphism, as was proved in [22].
We proceed to list power commutator presentations for the Brauer pairs.
All the groups in the Brauer pairs found have rank 2 and center isomorphic to
384 K. Lux, H. Pahlings

the Klein four-group 7Z2 x 7Z2 . The pairs fall into several families with very
similar structure We have changed some of the presentations given in O'Brien's
database slightly so that in all cases the center is < a7, as > and also so that for
each Brauer pair (G;,G j ) the map

<jJ: II a~'-t II a fk>

k=I, ... ,S k=I, ... ,S

gives a bijection of the conjugacy classes of G; to those of Gj with the properties

required in the definition above. Of course the ai have to be interpreted to be in
G; on the left hand side and in G j on the right hand side. In order to transform
the 2-characters of Gi into those of Gj one has to apply a few permutations of
the elements of, say G i , which can be obtained by multiplying some non-central
elements with a central involution, a process, which leaves all conjugacy classes
unchanged.
For the presentations below we use the convention that [ai, aj] = 1 for i > j
and a; = 1 unless stated otherwise. Also, to make the listings concise we first
give common relations for a number of the groups involved. More precisely, all
the groups in the above list of Brauer pairs which have commutator quotient of
order 16 are factor groups of a certain group HI of order 212 with generators
aI, ... , as and defining relations (subject to the above convention) as follows
(HI): ai = a6 , a~ = 1 , a~ = a4 , a~ = 1, [a2' ad = a4 , [a3' ad = a5,
[a4' all = [a5, a3] = [a6, a2] = a7 , [a5, all = [a6, a3] , [a3, a2]2 = [a3, a~] = 1
From this one obtains power commutator presentations by adding the follow-
ing relations:

G 1 734 : a~ = 1, a~ = 1, [a3, a2] = 1, [a5, all = as

G 1735 : a~ = 1, a~ = 1, [a3, a2] = a7 , [a5 , all = as
G 1736 : a§=a7' a~ = 1, [a3 , a2] =1 , [a5 , all = as
G 1737 : a~=a7' a~ = 1, [a3 , a2] = a7 , [a5 , ad = as
G 1739 : a§ = 1, a~=a7' [a3 , a2] =1 , [a5, ad = as
G 1740 : a~ = 1, a~ = a7 , [a3 , a2] = a7 , [a5 , ad = as
G 1741 : a~=a7' a~=a7' [a3 , a2] =1 , [a5' ad = as
G 1742 : a~=a7' a~=a7' [a3 , a2] = a7 , [a5, ad = as
G 4154 : a§ = 1, a~ = 1, [a3 , a2] = as , [a5, ad =1
G 4157 : a~ = 1, a~ = 1, [a3 , a2] = as , [a5, ad = a7
G 4155 : a§ = 1, a~ = a7 , [a3 , a2] = a8 , [a5 , all =1
G 4158 : a~ = 1, a~=a7' [a3 , a2l = as , [a5 , all = a7
G 4156 : a~ = 1, a~=a7' [a3 , a2l = as , [a5 , all =1
G 4159 : a~ = 1,a~=a7' [a3 , a2] = as , [a5 , all = a7
It is clear from these presentations how to obtain for each Brauer pair (Gi,Gj)
a common central extension of order 29 •
The groups G3378 , ... , G3381 are all factor groups of a group H2 of order 1024
with defining relations (with the above convention)
 Computational Representation Theory 385

(H2) : at = 1 , a~ = a4 , a~ = 1, [a2,al] = a4 , [a3,al] = a5 , [a3,a2] = a6,

[a4,a3] = [a5,al] = [a6,a2] = a7, [a5,a2] = as, [a6,ad = a7aS.

From this one obtains power commutator presentations by adding the following
relations:

Finally G 367S and G 3679 are factor groups of H3 of order 512 with defining
relations

(H3): at = 1 , a~ = a4aS , a~ = a4 , [a2,ad = a4 , [a3,al] = a5 , [a3,a2] = a6,

[a4,al] = [a5,a3] = [a6,a2] = a7 , [a5,ad = a7aS ,
[a4, a2] = [a5, a2] = [a6, all = [a6, a3] = as
from which G 367S and G 3679 are obtained by adding one relation:

The given presentations reveal that for any of the above pairs (G i , G j) there
is a common supergroup Gi,j of order 512 in which G i and Gj intersect in a
group Di,j of order 128. In the first four pairs (G1734,GI735) to (G1741,GI742)
we have Di,j =< al,a3, ... ,as > whereas in all other cases Di,j =< a2, ... ,as >.
It turns out that some of the Brauer pairs consist of groups having the same
tables of marks, whereas others don't. We summarize some of the properties of
the pairs in the following table.
pair Gi,Gj GdG~ nclasses nsubs equal tables
G I734 , G l735 (2,2,4) 34 407 no
G 1736 , G l737 (2,2,4) 34 393 no
G1739,GI740 (2,2,4) 34 377 no
G 1741, G l742 (2,2,4) 34 283 yes
G337S,G33S0 (2,2,2) 28 381,373 no
G3379,G33S1 (2,2,2) 28 271,263 no
G 367S , G 3679 (2,2,2) 25 186 yes
G4154, G4157 (2,2,4) 46 555 no
G4155,G4158 (2,2,4) 46 481 no
G 4156 , G 4159 (2,2,4) 46 401 yes

The second column gives the type of the commutator factor group, (2 , 2 , 4)
means, that this factor is isomorphic to 7Z2 x 7Z2 X 7Z4 . In the next columns
the numbers nclasses of conjugacy classes of elements and nsubs of subgroups
are displayed. The last column indicates whether the groups G i and Gj have
the same table of marks (using appropriate orderings of the conjugacy classes of
subgroups).
386 K. Lux, H. Pahlings

2 Tables of Marks
As indicated in part I [35J tables of marks playa role in numerous applications.
Just to mention one in addition to those referred to in [35] we remark that
the first author has used such tables to find explicitly subgroups H of order
coprime to p such that a block B of a group algebra FG of G over a field
F of characteristic p is Morita equivalent to the "condensed block" eHBeH,
see page 392. Here eH is the idempotent rkr 2:hEH h corresponding to H in
FG. He has thereby determined the layers of the socle series of the projective
indecomposable B-modules for several sporadic simple groups, see page 393 (and
also [34]). The algorithm of G. Pfeiffer [44] sketched in [35] to construct tables
of marks inductively has been further developed by T. Merkwitz [38] and the
library of tables, which is now available in GAP, has been increased considerably.
One of the main improvements is that for any representative of a conjugacy
class of subgroups a set of generators is stored. For the whole group G , whenever
possible, standard generators as defined by R. Wilson [60] (see also [59]) are used.
The generators of subgroups are then expressed as words in these "standard
generators", although they are not stored in this manner but in a recursive
way, which is nowadays usually called a "straight line program". In this way
the amount of storage space necessary is kept in reasonable ranges whereas
the user has the possibility to perform concrete computations with elements of
representatives of subgroups, which has already proved to be invaluable for many
applications. In fact two frequently needed data for subgroups, their normalizers
in G and their commutator subgroups, are now already stored with the tables,
more precisely, for each conjugacy class of subgroups, which corresponds to a line
in the table of marks, the conjugacy class containing the normalizer (respectively
the commutator subgroup) of a representative of the class is given.
The GAP-library of tables of marks contains now the tables (with the addi-
tional information as described above) of the following groups:

alternating A5 , A6 , A7 , A8 , A9 , AlO , All

groups 55 , 56 , A 6 .22 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 510 , 5 11
2.A5 , 2.A6 , 2.A7 , 2.As
sporadic M11 , M12 , M22 , M23 , M24 , J1 , h, J3 , H 5 , MeL, He
J2.2, Js.2 , M12·2 , M22.2 , McL.2
linear L2(q) for q ~ 125
L3(3) , L3(4) , L3(5) , L3(7) , L3(8) , L3(9) , L4(3) , L5(2)
L2(7).2, L2(16).2, L 2(16).4, L2(11).2, L2(8).3, L2(13).2, L2(25).22
L3(3).2, L3(4).21 , L3(4).22 , L3(4).23 , L3(4).3 , L3(4).6 ,
L 3(4).3.2 2 , L3(4).22 , L 3(4).3.2 3 , L3(4).D12
unitary U3(3) , U3(4) , U3(5) , U3(7) , U3(8) , U3(9) , U3(1l) ,
U4(2) , U4(3) , U5 (2)
U3(3).2, U3(4).2 , U3(5).2 , U3(5).3, U3(5).53 , U4(2).2 ,
U4(3).21 ,U4(3).23 2,U4(2).2 , 2.U4 (2)
symplectic 54(4) , 5 4(5) , 5 6 (2) , 5 4(4).2 , 2.56(2)
other 5z(8) , ~ F4(2)' , 5z(32) , G 2(3) , G 2(3).2
 Computational Representation Theory 387

Also most of the tables of marks of the maximal subgroups of the groups listed
above are contained in the library, in particular those of the larger groups in the
above list.

3 Recent Progress in Computational Modular

Representation Theory

Since the publication of the first part of this paper (see [35], section 2) major
advances have been made in the area of computational modular representation
theory. The achievements can be split into the following topics.

a) Brauer character tables of finite simple groups.

b) Algorithms dealing with representations over finite fields F and dealing with
Brauer characters.
c) Results concerning the structure of the module category of the group algebra
FG for some finite simple groups G.

In the following we give a survey on the topics a), b), and c).

3.1 New Brauer Character Tables

The publication of the Atlas of Brauer Characters, see [27], surely represents
a major progress in topic a). This Atlas is the first published list of Brauer
character tables of finite simple groups. Moreover, it will be of great use to
all people who seriously want to study individual almost simple groups and
the properties of their irreducible Brauer characters. But a very competitive
approach to the printed version of Brauer character tables in the Atlas of Brauer
characters is given by the database of Brauer character tables implemented in the
GAP system. In contrast to the printed version of the Atlas of Brauer characters,
it allows the user to access the tables online and therefore use a table directly
in any further calculations, one wants to make.
Moreover one can easily derive new information from such a table, in the sense
that one can apply all elementary character theoretic manipulations within the
GAP system. As such, GAP nicely complements the MOe system, which as
described in [35] is used for determining Brauer character tables in the first
place.
The list of Brauer characters in GAP actually contains even all the new
results which have been obtained since the publication of the Atlas of Brauer
characters.
The following table lists a couple of new results obtained in the last few years
and also the authors of the corresponding tables. Note that the Brauer character
tables are complete for all groups listed in [9] up to page 135. Moreover, postscript
versions of all computed tables can be obtained on request from the first author.
388 K. Lux, H. Pahlings

Author Group Primes Reference

Wilson He 2 unpublished
Wilson Ru 2 unpublished
Hiss Ru 3 [17]
Hiss, Muller Ru 5 [20]
Jansen, Lux, Muller Suz 2 unpublished
Jansen, Muller Suz 3 [28]
Hiss, Lux Suz 5 unpublished
Jansen, Wilson ON 2,3 [29]
Henke, Hiss, Muller ON 7 [16]
Suleiman, Wilson, Muller, Rosenboom CO 2 2 [53]
Jansen CO 2 3 [25]
Suleiman, Wilson, Muller, Rosenboom C03 2 [54] ,[4O]
Jansen C03 3 [25]
Muller C03 5 [39]
Hiss COl 7 unpublished
The results from this table imply that we now have complete knowledge about
the Brauer character tables for the sporadic simple groups Suz, Ru, ON, C03
and Co 2 • Partial results are however already known for more sporadic simple
groups. For example, as part of his Ph.D. thesis, see [26], C. Jansen has deter-
mined the minimal nontrivial Brauer character degrees for all sporadic simple
groups and the covering groups. Moreover, R. A. Wilson has created a library
containing many irreducible matrix representations for quite a lot of finite simple
groups as matrices for the standard generators. If you are interested in this li-
brary, check the WEB page http://www.mat.bham.ac.uk/R.A.Wilson/atlas.html.

3.2 Algorithms
The programs that were used for determining all the tables mentioned are part
of the two program systems MOC and M. Ringe's C-MeatAxe, see [45].
The MOC system has been in a stable state since the end of the 1980s. The
only major addition to its algorithmic part has been contributed by C. Jansen
in his diploma thesis, see [24].
In the thesis he deals with the problem of proving efficiently that a given
Brauer character or projective character is irreducible respectively indecompos-
able. The original version of MOC contained a very naive approach, see [35],
that was suffering from the known problem of combinatorial explosion.
Before we give a rough outline of the method that he uses let us recall some
facts from [35]. As described there, when studying the Brauer characters of a
finite group using MOC, one assumes that one is given several sets of Brauer
and projective characters:

i) A basic set of Brauer characters BS, i.e. a basis of the free abelian group of
Brauer characters consisting of genuine Brauer characters.
ii) An analogous basic set PS of projective characters.
 Computational Representation Theory 389

iii) A set of Brauer characters B for which the decomposition into the basic
set BS contains negative coefficients. By abuse of notation we denote the
decompositions into BS by B, too.
iv) A set of projective characters P for which the decomposition into the basic
set P S contains negative coefficients. Again, by abuse of notation we denote
the decompositions into P S by P, too.

The aim of MOC is to derive from these sets the irreducible Brauer characters
IBr(G) and the indecomposable projective characters IPr(G). In addition to
the four sets above, we also consider for each of the basic sets the corresponding
dual basis called projective atoms P A and Brauer atoms BA. Denote the base
change from BS to BA by U, the base change from BS to IBr(G) by U1 and
the base change from PS to IPr(G) by U2 . Then U can be written as

where U! is the transpose of U2 • Moreover, note that U1 and U2 are unimodular

integral matrices with nonnegative entries.
So from all possible factorizations of U into a product of two nonnegative,
unimodular integral matrices we get a list of all the possible base change matri-
ces from BS to the irreducible Brauer characters. This is by nature a nonlinear
(quadratic) integer problem and up to now we do not know any efficient algo-
rithm for solving it.
So, whereas a general attack to the above nonlinear factorization problem
seems to be hard, one can take a slightly simpler approach by studying individual
rows and columns of U, as already described in [35). One possible aim is to show
that rows or columns of U may not be changed, i.e. belong to irreducible Brauer
characters and indecomposable projective characters. This problem has already
been discussed in [35]
The new approach discovered by C. Jansen consists of using an algorithm
borrowed from linear integer programming, namely the so called Gomory algo-
rithm. This is based on the observation that the requirement that the scalar
products of Brauer characters with the projective characters in P have to be
nonnegative can be seen as a system of linear inequalities, which have to hold.
Moreover, C. Jansen observed that the simplex algorithm can be used to
solve another problem one is faced with when trying to determine a Brauer
character table using MOC. It is quite easy to generate a lot of reducible Brauer
characters by the usual character theoretic methods such as tensoring characters,
inducing characters from subgroups and so on but most of the characters one
obtains this way are actually redundant for the final outcome. What we should
be interested in is a small (ideally minimal) set of Brauer characters such that
any other Brauer character in the list B is a positive linear combination of the
characters in this small set. Here, by a positive linear combination we may allow
combinations with real coefficients and hence a character is redundant if it lies
in the positive cone of our set. C. Jansen has shown that the question whether
a given character is in the positive cone of a given set can be answered by the
390 K. Lux, H. Pahlings

simplex algorithm. Based on this observation he has written a MOC program

which tries to find such a small set of characters fulfilling the requirements above.
Finally, he also developed a method based on the simplex algorithm, which
enables one to show that certain rows of U are not irreducible. Under favorable
circumstances, such as U being unitriangular, the program can even determine
what the corresponding irreducible Brauer character has to be. A thorough study
of the situation enables the program to improve (reducible) Brauer characters
by subtracting off irreducible Brauer characters and thereby generate sparser
hence better Brauer characters. This is again in the spirit of [35].
The list of Brauer character tables given above has however not been calcu-
lated using MOC alone. The usual procedure applied to these tables was first of
all to get a good approximation to the Brauer character table using MOC and
then to study the usually few possible character tables by using the MeatAxe
and moreover the more sophisticated condensation method which is described
in the next section.

4 The Structure of Module Categories

In particular, condensation has been proven to be quite a powerful method for
investigating the representations of a given finite group, see for example [46],
[36], and [40]. The general mathematical background of condensation is most
naturally phrased in terms of module categories and equivalences of categories,
for the terminology used see for example [7] or [1].
Definition 1. Let A and B be two F-algebms. Then A and B are called Morita
equivalent if there is a categorical equivalence between their module categories
RMod(A) and RMod(B).
If we are given an explicit functor F from RMod(A) to RMod(B) inducing
the equivalence, then we get the following result, see [1].

Lemma 1. If F: RMod(A) -t RMod(B) is a Morita equivalence and M is an

A-module, then the following statements hold:
i) F induces a bijection between the isomorphism classes of simple A-modules
and the isomorphism classes of simple B-modules. The same result holds for
the isomorphism classes of projective indecomposable modules of A and B.
ii) F maps a composition series of M to a composition series of F(M).
iii) The lattice of submodules of M and F(M) are isomorphic as lattices and
therefore the mdical and the socle series of M and F(M) are in one-to-one
correspondence.

The condensation method uses the following observation in the context of

group algebras, see [7].

Theorem 2. Let A be an F -algebm and let e be an idempotent in A. Then the

algebras eAe and A are Morita-equivalent if and only if the two sided ideal AeA
 Computational Representation Theory 391

is equal to A. Moreover a Morita equivalence is given by the functor F, which

evaluated on an A-module M, is given as multiplication (projection) bye, so
F(M) = Me.
In practice the idempotents used for the case of group algebras are of a very
special kind. Given a subgroup H of G, whose order IHI is invertible in F, we
form the idempotent eH = dllL: h E H. The main reason for considering this
special idempotent is the following.

Lemma 2. Let G be a finite group, let eH be the idempotent described above

and let M be an FG-module. Then M eH is the subspace of vectors fixed un-
der the action of H. The algebra eHFGeH is called the condensation algebra
(or condensed algebra) and the eHFGeH-module MeH is called the condensed
module.

This lemma indicates that in order to determine the evaluation of the cor-
responding functor on a module, we only have to know a generating set for H.
This is not true for idempotents different from eH in general. However, it is con-
ceivable and even useful to consider idempotents different from eH. Note also
that the algebra eHFGeH is isomorphic to the endomorphism ring of the per-
mutation module on the cosets of H, which sometimes is called a Hecke algebra,
see [46].
The example of the McLaughlin group in characteristic 5 given in [35] already
showed how condensation is used to find out which of a given set of possible
Brauer character tables is the correct one. Let us suppose that we are given
an FG-module M and the action of some elements of the algebra eHFGeH on
the condensed module Me. We can get lower bounds on the dimensions of the
simple modules involved in M by determining the composition factors of Me
as a module for the algebra generated by these elements. In the example given
in [35] this was sufficient to settle the problem of finding the correct Brauer
character table. However, in general, the lower bounds we get might not solve
the problem for the following reason: in general we do not know whether the
sub algebra generated by the elements selected really is the condensed algebra
eHFGeH. Even though it is quite likely that it is true, there is no guarantee in
general that we have found a generating set. The following example illustrates
that even given generators for G, the corresponding elements in the condensed
algebra eHFGeH do not necessarily generate eHFGeH.

Remark 1. If we take a finite group G and a maximal subgroup H of order prime

to p such that eH FGeH is non-commutative, then a generating set hi, ... ,hn of
H together with any element g not contained in H generates G. However, the
sub algebra generated by eHhieH, ... ,eHhneH,eHgeH is a cyclic hence commu-
tative algebra, since eHhieH is just eH and therefore this subalgebra is smaller
than eHFGeH. A concrete example is given by the group L 2 (11), in characteristic
5, when we take H to be a maximal subgroup isomorphic to the dihedral group
of order 12. Then the permutation character of G on H is not multiplicity-free,
see [9], and hence eHFGeH is non-commutative.
392 K. Lux, H. Pahlings

There is however an algorithmically feasible method to verify that a given

set of elements generates the algebra eHFGeH. This is based on the following.
Lemma 3. Let G be a finite group, let H be a subgroup whose order is in-
vertible in F and let e H be the corresponding idempotent. Then the following
holds: The condensation of the permutation module eHFG of G on the cosets
of H is the regular eHFGeH module eHFGeH. The corresponding condensed
module therefore gives the regular representation of eHFGeH. This implies that
the smallest invariant submodule generated by the element eH of the condensed
module (eHFG)eH under the action of eHgleH, ... ,eHgneH is the subalgebra
generated by the elements itself. Hence by explicitly constructing this subspace
we can decide whether the subalgebra is equal to the full algebra eHFGeH. Note
that it is a straightforward application of the MeatAxe to construct this subspace
given the matrices ofeHgleH, ... ,eHgneH acting on (eHFG)eH.
Using a variant of this lemma, the first author has determined generating sets
for suitable subalgebras of the type eHFGeH for most of the sporadic simple
groups G in interesting characteristics that are Morita equivalent to the principal
block of G, see [34]. By suitable we mean that the algebra has minimal dimension
amongst all subalgebras of the form eHFGeH that are Morita equivalent to the
principal block of FG.
The following table lists the groups and the characteristics for which one can
find generating sets of the condensed algebra in [34].

Group Primes
Mll 2,3
M12 2,3
J1 2
M22 2,3
h 2,3,5
M 23 2,3
HS 3,5
h 3
M24 3
Remark 2. For finding a suitable subgroup H we made heavy use of the GAP
system in the sense of using the library of tables of marks created by G. Pfeiffer
and T. Merkwitz. Especially its extended version created by T. Merkwitz was
particularly useful, since it contains words in the standard generators that give
generators for all (!) subgroups of G up to conjugacy, as mentioned in section
2. This simplified the task of constructing the regular eHFGen-module consid-
erably. Moreover in some particular cases we had to use an enhanced version of
the above lemma which is due to M. Wiegelmann, see [36]. It basically says that
we can do a little bit better than studying the regular eHFGen-module.
Remark 3. As mentioned above the so de and the radical series of a module are
preserved under a Morita equivalence. This has been applied by the first author,
 Computational Representation Theory 393

see [34], to determine the sode series of all the projective indecomposable mod-
ules for several of the sporadic simple groups. The following list gives an overview
of the characteristics for which the sode series of all blocks of noncydic defect
have now been computed. A question mark indicates that the corresponding so-
de series have not yet been determined.

Primes 2 3 5
Mu see [47] see [55]
M12 see [49] see [47]
J1 see [32]
M22 see [33] see [55]
h see [34] see [34] see [34]
M 23 see [36] see [55]
HS ? see [56] see [34]
J3 ? see [34]
M24 ? see [34]

The explicit Morita equivalences given for the groups listed above can also be
used to determine the complete structure of the basic algebra for blocks of FG.
S. Weiss, a former student in Aachen, has written several programs, see [57],
that given the projective indecomposable modules of an F-algebra A determine
the quiver with relations for the corresponding basic algebra. Given this data,
first the radical series of the projective indecomposable modules are determined.
This information is used to determine a basis for a complement to the vector
space of homomorphisms from each projective indecomposable module into the
radical of any other projective module to the subspace of homomorphisms into
the square of the radical is chosen. In the final step a program then determines
the relations amongst these chosen homomorphisms and thereby a presentation
for the quiver with relations is achieved. She applied her programs successfully
to J 1 in characteristic 2 and to HS in characteristic 3 using the explicit Morita
equivalences determined by the first author. Meanwhile the first author has also
succeeded along the same lines in determining the quiver with relations for the
principal block of h in characteristic 5.
Given the quiver with relations one can then start to study questions about
the cohomology of specific modules by using the program GRB written by C.
Feustel and E. Green, see [14], or by using a suggestion by J.F. Carlson. The pro-
gram GRB determines the syzygy modules of a given finitely presented module
of a finitely presented algebra, using Grabner basis techniques applied to non-
commutative algebras. J.F. Carlson's suggestion represents modules as matrix
representations but makes use of the well-known standard basis technique of the
MeatAxe. Both methods were successfully used for determining minimal projec-
tive resolutions for the basic algebra of the principal block of h in characteristic
5.
Originally the condensation method had only been implemented for the case
where FG-module M is actually a permutation module for G. However, in the
394 K. Lux, H. Pahlings

last couple of years the use of the condensation method has been extended
considerably.
In [46] A. Ryba describes his implementation of condensation which given
M determines the condensation of the n-th exterior power of M. His program
is however restricted to the case that the condensation subgroup H is acting
monomially on the FG-module M. As in the original case of a permutation
module, he proceeds in two steps: the first one in which the fixed space An(v)H
is determined and a second one where the action of eHgeH for a given 9 EGis
computed.
The general case of condensing the tensor product of two FG-modules V
and W was studied in [37]. As before, there are two steps to consider: determine
the fixed space in the tensor product of V and Wand then compute the action
of an element eHgeH on (V ® W)H. Both steps heavily rely on the fact that
the group algebra F H is semisimple. This implies that after a suitable base
change the matrix representations of H on V and W are block matrices whose
blocks are matrix representations on the irreducible FH-summands of V and
W, respectively W.
The technical details of the implementation of both steps can be found in
[37]. The resulting programs were written as part of M. Ringe's C-MeatAxe and
will be sent on request by the first author.
J. Muller and J. Rosenboom (see [40] ) were able to extend condensation from
the class of permutation modules to the much larger class of induced modules
by making use of the fundamental theorem of Mackey about homomorphisms
between induced modules. They have developed an algorithm, which derives from
an induced FG-module the corresponding condensed module without explicitly
constructing the induced module at all. Since it requires explicit information
about the group and certain subgroups, their implementation uses both the
GAP system and M. Ringe's C-MeatAxe.
Finally, based on a first version of a program written by R. A. Parker, G.
Cooperman and M. Tselman have extended the range of application of condensa-
tion for permutation modules quite considerably. R.A. Parker's original program
uses the idea that a permutation representation, which is constructed from the
action of a group G as a matrix group on a vector orbit, does not have to be
constructed explicitly in order to determine the matrices for elements of the
form eHgeH. The main ingredient in addition to this idea in the implementation
by Cooperman and Tselman is the idea of splitting the algorithm into subtasks
which are parallelized. The most impressive result, up to now, obtained in this
way is the determination of the Brauer tree in characteristic 19 of the Thomp-
son simple group, see [10], which required the study of a condensed module of a
permutation module of degree roughly a billion.
Summarizing, it seems as if computational modular representation theory is a
very active part of mathematical research at the moment. The last couple of years
have seen a tremendous amount of progress concerning results and methods.
Moreover, we can now start to study more sophisticated objects, such as for
 Computational Representation Theory 395

example the complete module category of a group algebra FG, the cohomology
of FG and the quiver with relations for blocks of FG.

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 High Performance Computations In Group
Representation Theory

Gerhard O. Michler

Institut fUr Experimentelle Mathematik

Universitat Essen-GH
Ellernstrafie 29
Essen
Germany

Introduction
The classification of the finite simple groups is one of the important achievements
of the mathematicians in this century. According to p. 3 of the recent book [16]
by Gorenstein, Lyons and Solomon "The existing proof of the classification of the
finite simple groups runs to somewhere between 10 000 and 15 000 journal pages,
spread across some 500 separate articles by more than 100 mathematicians .... As
a result of these various factors, it is extremely difficult for even the most diligent
mathematician to obtain a comprehensive picture of the proof by examining the
existing literature." On p. 45 of [16] these authors write: "The most serious
problem concerns the sporadic groups, whose development at the time of the
completion of the classification theorem was far from satisfactory. The existence
and uniqueness of the sporadic groups and the development of their properties
form a very elaborate chapter of simple group theory, spread across a large
number of journal articles. Moreover, some of the results are unpublished (e.g.
Sims' computer calculations establishing the existence and uniqueness of the
Lyons group Ly). Furthermore, until very recently, the two principal sources for
properties of the sporadic groups were [5] and [15], Part 1, §5 consisting only of
statements of results without proofs."
Recently H. GoHan [11] has given a new computer construction of Lyons'
simple group Ly which is independent of Sims' unpublished work, see [30]. In
section 1 his methods are generalized in such a way that any sporadic simple
group G characterized by the centralizer H = Ga(u) of some involution u can
be constructed by the same procedure, provided sufficiently large computers are
available.
This approach to the revision project of the sporadic simple groups is mathe-
matically very easy. It requires the performance of many calculations with dense
matrices over small finite fields or large permutations. However, these computa-
tions are easily described and will be documented professionally.
In order to show that our approach of the revision project of the sporadic
simple groups is promising we describe in section 2 the recent existence proof
of the largest Janko group J 4 by Cooperman, Lempken, Michler and Weller [7],
see Theorem 2.5. This proof rests on Weller's construction [34] of a permutation

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
400 G. O. Michler

module of degree 173067389 on the supercomputers of the Theory Center of

Cornell University and the Computer Center of Karlsruhe University. It also has
been used in [23J by Weller and the author to give a new constructive proof for
J4 to be an irreducible subgroup of GL112(2). Furthermore, a membership test
is given for an arbitrary matrix A E GL112(2) to belong to the subgroup J 4 •
In our revision project of the large sporadic simple groups we need efficient
implementations of the basic algorithms for computing with large dense matri-
ces over small finite fields. These implementations are described in our lecture
notes [9J. A summary is given in section 3. P. Roelse's applications [27J of these
linear algebra methods for the factorization of polynomials over finite fields are
described there, too. In fact, he has been able to factorize an arbitrarily chosen
polynomial p(X) E GF(2)[XJ of degree 300000 into irreducible factors by means
of the supercomputer of the Theory Center of Cornell University. According to
the book [8J by Diaz, Emiris, Kaltofen and Pan this is a world record.
In the 4th section we describe the constructions of some large irreducible
modular representations of the Conway groups CO 2 and C03 as applications
of the parallel linear algebra algorithms. These results have been obtained by
Rosenboom and Miiller [24J and Rosenboom [28J using high performance com-
putations on parallel computers and new mathematical algorithms. They answer
some open questions of Suleiman and Wilson [32J, [31J on the 2-modular decom-
position matrices of these sporadic simple groups.
Concerning our notation and terminology we refer to the Atlas [5J and the
books by Butler [4J and Gorenstein, Lyons, Solomon [16J.

1 How to Construct a Finite Simple Group from a

Centralizer of an Involution
In this section we describe a general method for the construction of a finite
simple group G characterized by the centralizer H = Ca(u) of some involution
u of G. By the famous Brauer-Fowler theorem there are only finitely many simple
groups G with a given centralizer H of an involution. It is restated as

Theorem 1.1. (Brauer-Fowler) Let G be a finite simple group, u an involution

in G, and n = ICa(u)l. Then

Many of the 26 sporadic simple groups G are uniquely determined by their

centralizer H of some suitable involution. This is in particular true for the large
sporadic simple groups like the Lyons group Ly, Janko's group J4 , O'Nan's group
ON, the Baby Monster F2 , and the Monster FI, see Gorenstein [14J, p. 86. How-
ever, the centralizers of a central involution of the three non isomorphic simple
groups He, M24 and PSL 5 (2) are isomorphic, see Gorenstein [14J, p. 87. These
known facts inspire the following
 High Performance Computations in Group Representation Theory 401

Question: Given a finite group H with a central involution u. Which faithful

modular representations
p: H -t = GF(q) with characteristicp >
GLn(q) of H over a finite field F °
can be extended to an irreducible modular representation p : G -t GLn(q) of
a finite simple group Gover F such that G has an involution u with Ga(u) e:! H?

Because of this question it is reasonable to test the simplicity of a modular

representation V of a finite simple group G by means of its restriction VJH to a
centralizer H = Ga(u) of an involution. This has been done by 0. Solberg and
the author in Theorem 3.1 of [22] which is stated as
Theorem 1.2. Let G be a finite perfect group with an involution u such that
G = (u, g) for some g in G. Let H = Ga(u) be the centralizer of u in G. Let F
be a finite field of odd characteristic p and let V be an FG-module. If the trivial
FG-module is not contained in soc (V), then the following assertions hold:
(a) VIH = E+1 EBE-1' and E>. =I (0) for each A E {I, -I} where E>. denotes the
eigenspace of u with respect to A.
(b) V is a simple FG -submodule if and only iffor some A E {I, -I} the following
two conditions are satisfied:
(i) V = E>.FG.
(ii) V· = ZFG for every simple FH-submodule Z of the FH-module E>..
In fact, in (b) A E {I, -I} can always be chosen such that

dimF E>. = min{dimF E+1, dimF E-d ~ ~ dimF V.

Using the classification theorem of the finite simple groups Malle, Saxl, Weigel
[21] have shown that each finite simple group G can be generated by an involution
u and some other element g E G.
If H is a centralizer of an involution u characterizing a sporadic simple group
G and p f IHI then it is always possible to find a faithful semisimple F H -module
V = V1 EB V2 , Vi =I 0, over some finite field F with odd characteristic p > 0,
where the involution u is faithful on V2 and u is in the kernel of V1, such that V
can be extended to an irreducible FG-module of minimal dimension.
In all the examples studied so far such an extension from H to G is con-
structed by means of Thompson's amalgamation method [33] generalized to
modular representation theory by Parker and Wilson [26]. We state GoHan's
version [10] of this algorithm as
Theorem 1.3. Let G be a finite group, F = GF(q) a finite field. Let U1 =
(Xl, ... ,Xt), U2 = (Y1, ... ,Ym) be two subgroups ofG such that G = (U1,U2),
and let V = U1 n U2 • Let 81 : U1 -t GLn(q), 82 : U2 -t GLn(q) be representations
of U1, U2 respectively, such that 81 1V = 82 IV . Furthermore, let T1, ... ,Tk be a
full set of representatives for the double cosets
402 G.O. Michler

Then there exists a representation b: G ~ GLn(q) such that blUl ~ b1 and

blU2 ~ b2, if and only if there exists a matrix T E {T1o'.' , Tk} with

In [6] Cooperman, Finkelstein, York and Tselman have described a method

to construct a permutation representation

1I':X~Sm

of a finite group X with a given subgroup U of index m = IX : UI from a linear

representation
",:X ~GLn(F)
of X over a finite field F. This transformation is an important idea, because most
of the efficient algorithms in computational group theory deal with permutation
groups, see [4]. Using Algorithm 2.3.1 of [11] M. Weller [34] has strengthened
the results of Cooperman et al. [6] as follows:

Theorem 1.4. Let F be a finite field of characteristic p > O. Let U be a proper

subgroup of a finite group G, and let V be a simple FG-module such that its
restriction Vju contains a proper non-zero FU -submodule W.

Then there is an algorithm to construct:

(a) The stabilizer fJ = StabG(W) = {g E GIWg = W :5 V}
(b) a full set of double coset representatives Xi, 1 :5 i :5 k, of fJ in G, i. e.
k. •
G= UUx,U,
i=1
(c) a base [.810 .82,"· ,.8j] and strong generating set {gsll :5 s :5 q} of G with
respect to the action of G on the cosets of fJ, which coincides with the given
operation of G on the FU -submodule W of V.
An explicit description of this algorithm is given in Weller's article [34],
where he also gives information about the hash function he uses to construct the
permutation representation of G on the cosets fJ x of the stabilizer (;.
We now can describe a general construction method for sporadic simple
groups. Here we assume that we have access to enough powerful computers and
workstation clusters necessary to perform all the steps of the construction. For
the sake of completeness we restate the following standard notation.
Let H be a proper subgroup of the finite group G, and let G : H = {H xix E
T} denote the set of all coset Hx of H in G. Then G operates on G: H by right
multiplication. The set of fixed points of z EGis denoted by

Fix(z) = {Hx E G: HI(Hx)z = Hx}.

Construction Method 1.S. Let u be an involution of the finite group H which
is assumed to be isomorphic to the centralizer CG(U1) of an involution U1 of some
 High Performance Computations in Group Representation Theory 403

finite simple group G. Let F = GF(q) be a finite field of odd characteristicp > O.
Let
<p: H -t GLn(q)
be a faithful semi-simple n-dimensional representation of Hover F such that
the eigenspace VI of u belonging to the eigenvalue 1 is a proper F H -submodule
of V = Fn.
Suppose that it has been proved that there is an isomorphism

H := <p(H) ~ CG(ut}.
Then there exists a simple subgroup a of GLn(q) with involution u = <p(u) and
centralizer Ca(u) = H which is isomorphic to G, if all the conditions of the
following steps can be verified:
(1) Construct a subgroup Min GLn(q) such that D = MnH is a proper subgroup
of H for which the restriction Vji) is a semi-simple FD-module. Then find
a matrix
t E CGLn(q)(H) \ CGLn(q) (D)/CGLn(q) (M)
such that V is a simple Fa-module for the subgroup a = (H, t- 1 Mt) of
GLn(q).
(2) Check that H ::; Ca(u).
(3) Applying the algorithm of Theorem 1.4 to the Fa-module V and its restric-
tion Vjii one obtains a permutation representation

1r : a -t 8 m with stabilizer H.

Check that H = H. If so, then lal = IHlm.

(4) Compute the number f = IFix(u) I of fixed points of the permutation 1r(u).
Determine a complete set of representatives ZI = U, Z2, ... ,Zr of all involu-
tions Z of H with trace tr(z) = tr(u) such that for each i = 1,2, ... , r the
following conditions hold:
(a) IFix(ii) I = f·
(b) There is a coset Hx; E Fix(ii) with (U),"i = Zi. Then check that

f = 1 + lifl + ... + lif"!.

If so, then Ca(u) = H.
(5) Show that a is a simple group.
Remark 1.1. If some condition of the five steps (1) - (5) of the construction
principle 1.5 cannot be verified then this method has to be applied to another
faithful semi-simple representation of H.
Remark 1.2. Suppose that one can construct another subgroup lV ofa ::; GLn(q)
satisfying the following conditions:
(O!) u E lV and la : lVl < la : HI·
404 G.O. Michler

(f3) The restriction YIN of the simple FG-module V of step (1) of 1.5 contains a
proper FN-submodule W f; O.
Then by means of the following alternatives of the steps (3) and (4) of the
construction principle 1.5 one can save storage space and computing time.
(3') Applying the algorithm of Theorem 1.4 to the FG-module V and a minimal
F N-submodule W f; 0 of its restriction YIN to N one obtains a permutation
representation
7r : G --+ 8 m with stabilizer N.

Check that N = N. If so then IGI = INlm.

(4') Compute the number f = lFix(u)I of fixed points of the permutation 7r(u).
Determine then a complete set of representatives i1 = U, i2, . .. , ir of all the
conjugacy classes of involutions i of N with trace tr(i) = tr(u) such that
for each i = 1,2, ... , r the following conditions hold:
(a') IFix(ii)I = f
(b') There is a coset NXi E Fix(ii) with (u)X;;"" = ii for some iii E N. Then
check that
IHI = _ tlNI _.
li!"'1 + lit'l + ... + lit'l
If so, then Go(u) = H.
The last assertion of (4 ~ follows from (2) and the character formula of the
permutation representation (1 N»O, see [17), p. 64.
Example 1.1. In [12] Gollan has applied Theorem 1.3 to give a new construction
of the 5-modular 1I1-dimensional irreducible representation of Lyons' simple
group Ly. In fact, he chooses U1 = 2A l1 , which is assumed to be isomorphic
to the centralizer of some involution u of Ly. As U2 he takes 3M cL. For both
groups he constructs a semisimple faithful representation Di : Ui --+ GL 111 (5),
where D1 = 55 EB 56 and D2 = 21 EB90. He shows that the restrictions of these two
representations to V = U1 nU2 ~ Ml1 agree to lOEB lIEB45 2 . Therefore Theorem
1.3 asserts that D1 can be extended to G = (U1, U2 ) S; GL111(5). Furthermore,
the results of [12) show that all the steps (1) - (5) of the construction method of
Remark 1.7 can be performed for this representation of Ly.

2 A New Existence Proof and a Membership Test for

Janko's Group J 4
As an application of some of the computational methods described in the previ-
ous section we here give an outline of the new existence proof of Janko's largest
simple sporadic group J4 (18) given by Cooperman, Lempken, Weller and the
author, see [7) for details. Furthermore, we describe Weller's and the author's
 High Performance Computations in Group Representation Theory 405

construction [23] of J4 as an irreducible subgroup of GL l12 (2), and a membership

test for a matrix A of GL 112 (2) to belong to the subgroup J ~ h of GL112(2).
Janko's sporadic simple group J4 was originally constructed by Benson, Con-
way, Norton, Parker and Thackray as a subgroup of GL 112 (2), see [25]. So far
the proof of the construction of the 112-dimensional irreducible representation
of hover GF(2) is only described in Benson's thesis [2] at Cambridge Univer-
sity, 1980. For computations with elements in the group J 4 the explicit matrix
representation", : J4 -+ GL 112 (2) is very useful.
The following notations are kept throughout the remainder of this section.
Let V be the canonical 1333-dimensional vector space over the prime field K =
GF(l1) with eleven elements. In Theorem 3.16 and Remark 3.21 of [19] W.
Lempken describes the construction of two matrices x, y E GL 1333 (11) of order
o(x) = 42 and o(y) = 10, respectively, which generate a subgroup G = (x, y) of
GL 1333 (11) such that V is an irreducible KG-module.

Notation 2.1. In G = (x,y) ~ GL 1333 (11) define the following elements:

ro = yx 21 y-1 U5 = U4(V4r2)2
r1 = x14yx21y-1x-14 = (ro)X28 U6 = [X 21 (X 21 )Yj2
r2 = y3 x 21 y7 Sl = y2 r1y -2 = (r1)y 8
r3 = x14y3x21y7 x- 14 = (r2)X 28 S2 = (X 21 )YX 28 = x14y-1x21yx-14
V1 = y6 x 21 y 4 d1 = [(rt}b, Sl], where b = y-2 x -6
V2 = y8 x 21y2 d 2 = (X 21 )Y
V3 = y4 x 21 y 6 a1 = d1X6d1X24d1
V4 = X 21 t1 = sl(r1)b s1
W1 = [x 6 ,y5] t2 = (X21 )y5
U1 = (V1 r 2)2 = [X-12(y5X6)2(X21)y-lX28j2 qo = r1 r3d1s1(x6 y2)4
U2 = (V3rO)2 a3 = Sl (qo)3 Sl (qO)4 SlS2
U3 = U1(V4 r0)2 a6 = t1 (X14y5)-2X14(x14y5)2t1
U4 = (V3 r 2)2 Z = (X14)t, where t = (X 14 y5)2

Observe that the elements a1, a3, a6, z E G have order 3, and qo E G has order
7. All other elements are involutions of G.

The following results are proved in my joint article [7] with Cooperman,
Lempken and Weller.

Proposition 2.1. Let M = (x 3,y,z) ~ G = (x,y). Then the following asser-

tions hold:
(a) E = (U1' U2, U3, U4, U5, U6, V1rO, V2r2, V3d2, V4t2, y5) is an elementary abelian
normal subgroup of M with order lEI = 211 .
(b) L = (x 6, y2, z) is a subgroup of M such that M = EL, En L = 1, and L is
isomorphic to the simple Mathieu group M24 acting irreducibly on E.
(c) IMI = 221 .33 ·5·7· 11 . 23.
(d) M is perfect.
406 G.O. Michler

(e) M has six conjugacy classes of involutions with representatives: Ul, TO, Tlr2,
WI, U4rO and U4rlT2'

The next result is due to Lempken [19J.

Theorem 2.2. Let K = GF(l1), G = (x, y) :::; GL 1333 (11), and M = (x 3, y, z).
Then:
(a) V = K1333 is a simple KG-module.
(b) M is a subgroup of G such that the restriction = W $ S, where Wand S
VIM
are simple K M -modules with dimensions dimKW = 45 and dimKS = 1288.
Using Theorem 2.3 and an efficient implementation of the algorithm men-
tioned in Theorem 1.4 on the supercomputers of the Theory Center at Cornell
University and of the computer center of Karlsruhe University M. Weller [34J
has obtained the following result.
Theorem 2.3. Let G = (x,y) :::; GL 1333 (11) and M = (x\y,z). Then the
following assertions hold:
(a) IG: MI = 173067389
(b) IGI = 221 .3 3 .5.7.11 3 .23.29.31.37.43
(c) If [l denotes the index set of the cosets M9i of M in G, then G induces
on [l = {I, 2, ... ,173067389} a faithful permutation representation 7r with
stabilizer staba(l) = M
7
(d) G = U MXiM, where the double coset representatives Xi of M are given by
i=l
the following words:
Xl = 1 (IMxlMI = 1)
X2 = X14C12 (IMx2MI = 15180)
X3 = X6y2c16yc13yc4yclOyc18xc2l (1M x3MI = 28336)
X4 = X3c3x-lCll (1M x4MI = 3400320)
Xs = X6XC (1M xsMI = 32643072)
X6 = XC 12 XC 3XC 2 (IMx6MI = 54405120)
X7 = XSXC9XC16x2C16 (IMx7MI = 82575360)
where C:= (X14)ty4(X14)ty-l (XI4)t has order 23, and t = (X 14 y S)2.
(e) The sequence B =
[M gl, M g2,· .. , M 97J of cosets f3j =
M gj of M in G with
the following coset representatives gj and basic indices lf3j Gj - l l

gl = 1,
g2 = x2c14 ycS yc2 and 1f32Gll = 15180,
93 = X2c 14 ycS yc7 and 1f33G21 = 4032,
94 = X2c 14 ycS yc3 and 1f34G31 = 256,
=
9s X2c 14 ycS yc6 and If3SG4/ = 4,
=
96 x2c 14 ycS yc4 and /f36Gsl = 4,
97 = X2c 14 ycS ycS and /f3TG 6 1 = 2
is a base for G with set stabilizers Gj = Staba; -1 ( {f31, f32, ... , f3j}), 1 :::; j :::;
7, where Go = G.
 High Performance Computations in Group Representation Theory 407

(f) The following words Si, 1 ~ i ~ 11, form a set of strong generators for G
with respect to the base B:

word order fixing base points

S1 - x 42 none
S2 =Y 10 (31
S3 = c 23 (31
S4 = C1YYCtiyc1H(Cllyc1~) -1 14 (31, (32
S5 = C1YycHyc1~(C1~YCll)-1 8 (31, (32
86 = (85)~(S4)~S5S4[S4S5S4(S5)~] -, 4 (31, (32, (33
S7 = S4S5(S4)~(S5)4[(S5)~S4S5S4]-1 4 (31 , (32, /33
S8 = (S4)~(S5)q[S4(S5)qs4]-1(S4)~S5(S4y(S5)qd 2 (31 , /32, /33
S9 = S4 S5(S4)1(S4S5) -1 2 (31 , /32, /33
slO = S7 S14(S7) -1 2 (31, /32(33, (34
Su - S9 S6(86 S9) -1 2 (31, /32, /33, (34
S12 = e(s4)4(S5)~(S4)~[(S5)~S4(S5)~S4(S5)~]-1e~ 2 (31, (32, (33, (34, (35
S13 = S8 S6(S6 S8) -1 2 (31, /32, (33, (34, (35
S14 = e(s7)2(S8 S9)2 2 (31,/32,(33,(34,(35,(36

where d = [(S4)2S5(S4)2]-1, has order 12 and stabilizes base point (31, and
e = S4(S5)2(S4)2[(S4)4(S5)2S4]-1 has order 4 and stabilizes base points (31,/32
and /33-
(g) The set stabilizers G i , 0 ~ i ~ 7, have the following strong generators:

Go = (S1,S2), G 1 = (82,S3),
G 2 = (S4,S5), G3 = (S6,S7,S8,S9,S12,S14),
G 4 = (S1O, SU, S12, S13, 814), G 5 = (S12, S13, S14),
G6 = (S14), G7 = L

Theorem 2.4 is the basic ingredient of the new existence proof for Janko's
sporadic simple group J4 [18] given by G_ Cooperman, W_ Lempken, M. Weller
and the author. Theorem 5.1 of their article [7] is restated as follows.

Theorem 2.4. Let G = (x, y) where x, y E GL 1333 (11) are matrices constructed
in f19} of orders o(x) = 42 and o(y) = 10. Then G is a simple group of order

IGI = 221 .33 .5.7.11 3 - 23·29·31·37·43

such that U1 = [X- 12 (y5 X6)2(X 21 )Y-'X 28 ]2 i= 1 is an involution of G with central-
izer H = Gc(ut} = (x 7, y5, (x 14 )a, (rt)b), where a = r1 (X 6)y4 , and b = y-2 x -6.
Furthermore, with the Notation 2.1 the following assertions hold:
408 G.O. Michler

(a) Q = 02(H) = (Ul, U2, U3, U4, us, VI, V2, ro, rl, r2, r3, d l , SI) is an extmspecial
normal subgroup of H with IQI = 2 13 .
(b) The element al = dlx6dly24dl of order 3 genemtes a Sylow 3-subgroup of
02,3(H), and GQ(al) = Z(Q) = (Ul).
(c) Uo = Gn(aI) = (U6,V3,V4,d2,s2,t2,al,a3,a6,xl 4, y S) ~ 6M22 , the sixfold
cover of the Mathieu group M22 with center Z(Uo) = (Ulal) .
(d) U = N n (al)) = Uo : (h) is a subgroup of H with U/Z(Uo) ~ Aut(M22)'
and center Z(U) = (Ul).
(e) H = QU, and Q n U = (Ul) = GQ(aI).
In particular, G is isomorphic to Janko's simple group J4.
In order to construct Janko's simple group h as an irreducible subgroup
of GL 112 (2) in [23) M. Weller and the author determine the structure of the
endomorphism ring End FG(P) of the 2-modular reduction P = Pz ®z F of the
integral permutation module Pz of degree 173067389 of G.
Proposition 2.2. Let Pz = 1M ®ZM ZG be the integml permutation module of
G = (x,y) with respect to the subgroup M = (x 3,y,z). Then by Theorem 2.4 (d)
G has seven double cosets MXiM of M, 1 ::; i ::; 7. By [l} to each double coset
MXiM corresponds an integml intersection matrix Dk = (pfj) of Pz . All the
entries pfj = I{Mx E MXkM 1 Mxxj E MXiM}I, 1::; i,j, k::; 7, are computed
explicitly in Theorem 2.1 of [23}.
Furthermore, the endomorphism ring EndzG(Pz) of Pz is commutative.
Using this result the precise ring structure of EndFG(P) is given in Theorem
2.2 of [23). Applying then Gollan's and the author's method [13] to construct a
45694-dimensional simple submodule of 9606125-dimensional permutation mod-
ule of Lyons' group Ly over F, Weller and the author prove in Theorem 3.1 of
[23) the following result.
Theorem 2.5. Let P be the permutation module of G = (x, y) with respect to
the subgroup M = (x 3, y, z) over the field F = GF(2). Let'P be the endomor-
phism of P corresponding to the 2-modular reduction
0000001
0000001
0000000
d7 := 0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000

of the intersection matrix D7 of Proposition 2.6. Then V = 'P(P) is a simple

FG-submodule of the sode of P with dimension dimF(V) = 112.
If 1r( G) is the subgroup of the symmetric group S173067389 generated by the
two permutations 1r(x) and 1r(Y), then 'P induces a monomorphism K : 1r(G) --t
GL112(2). In particular, the following triangle of isomorphic simple subgroups
 High Performance Computations in Group Representation Theory 409

GL l333 {l1) 2: G = (x, y) - - - " - + . > 7r{G) = (7r{X), 7r{Y)) ~ 5173067389

~
J:= K-7r{G) = (K-7r{X),K-7r{Y)) ~ GL1l2 (2)
is commutative.
The explicit 112 x 112-matrices X = K-7r(x) and Y = K-7r(Y) are stated in [23].
By Theorems 2.4, 2.5 and 2.7 the subgroup J = (K-7r(x), K-7r(Y)) of GL 112 (2)
is isomorphic to Janko's simple group J4, see [18].
Since K-7r : G -+ J is an isomorphism, we denote the elements of J by the
same letter g as their preimages in G = (x, y) in order to simplify the notations.
In particular, now x,y E J ~ GL 1l2 (2), and all the elements rO,rl, ... ,a6,z of
Notation 2.1 are constructed in GL1l2(2) by the same formulas as given there.
Furthermore, all the statements of Theorem 2.5 characterizing G as the simple
Janko group J4 hold verbatim for J as for G. In particular, now all the conditions
of Theorem 2.5 can be verified by means of GAP [29] or MAGMA [3] on a
workstation.
By Theorem 2.4 (e) and (f) the group 7r(G) ~ 5173067389 has 14 strong gener-
ators 7r(Si), 1 ~ i ~ 14, with respect to the base B = [Mg l , Mg 2, ... , Mg7]. The
generators of the set stabilizers 7r(G)k = Stab,,(Gk_l){{Mgl ,Mg2, ... ,Mgk })
are given in Theorem 2.4 (g). Now let Jk = K-[7r{Gh] for 0 ~ k ~ 7. Let
M = (x 3 , y, z) ~ J = (x, y) ~ GL112(2). Using GAP it follows that the 3
matrices x 3 , y, z E GL 1l2 (2) have a unique common eigenvector 0 of. v E F1l2
with eigenvalue 1 E F. Let VI = V, and Vk = Vgk for 2 ~ k ~ 7. The set
B = [VI, V2, ... , V7] is called a generalized base of J.
For each step i E {I, 2, ... , 7} one computes the whole orbit ViJi - l in F112
under the multiplication of Vi with matrices of Ji-1. For each orbit element 0
one keeps track of the word w in the generators Sj of Ji-l which map Vi to
this orbit element o. This information can be stored efficiently in the so called
Schreier vector Si for 1 ~ i ~ 7. The implementation is described in section 4 of
Weller's article [34].
Theorem 2.6. Let B = [Vi \1 ~ i ~ 7] be the generalized base of the (Janko)
subgroup J = (x, y) of G Lll2 (2). Then the following assertions hold:
(a) 5 = {Sj E J \1 ~ j ~ 14} is a set of strong generators of J.
(b) For each vector Vi and subgroup J i - l defined above there is a 5chreier vector
Si describing the elements of the vector orbit set V;]i-l, where 1 ~ i ~ 7.
(c) Membership test: Let A be an arbitrary matrix of GLu2(2). Then by the
following algorithm it is decidable whether A belongs to the subgroup J of
GL1l2(2). If so, then this algorithm enables one to write A as a word in the
strong generators Sj E 5 of J.
410 G.O. Michler

Step 1: If vIA rt v 1 J, then A rt J.

Step 2: Otherwise vIA E v 1 J, and by means of the Schreier vector 8 1 one finds
--- a word WI in the strong generators s j E S of J with VI A = VI WI.
Step 3: If A :j; WI, then apply steps 1 and 2 to the matrix AWll and the subgroup
--- J 1 with Schreier vector 8 2 •
As J7 = 1, this algorithm terminates.

3 Parallel Linear Algebra Algorithms

In the lecture notes [9) my collaborators and I give a preliminary report about
the implemented parallel algorithms for large-scale computations with (m x n)-
matrices 21 = (aij) with entries aij in a small finite field IF = GF(q) with q = pk
elements, where p > 0 is the characteristic, on powerful parallel computers, such
as the IBM SP /2, or on clusters of workstations.
In the first part of the lecture notes [9), the basic tools for the study of
finite-dimensional vector spaces V over a finite field and their endomorphisms is
presented. In particular, efficient implementations of the arithmetic for calculat-
ing with elements of the field IF are described. They help to speed up the basic
parallel algorithms used for computing the product of two matrices or finding the
echelon form of a large dense rectangular matrix 21 = (aij) with entries aij E IF.
The efficiency of these algorithms is demonstrated by explicit examples like find-
ing the solutions of a dense homogeneous system 21· ~ = 0 with m = n ::; 200000
equations and indeterminates over the field GF(2) with 2 elements. In the mean-
time these algorithms have also been implemented for some other small finite
fields of odd characteristic.
Furthermore, we deal with the parallelization of Parker's Meat-Axe algo-
rithms constructing invariant subspaces U of n-dimensional IF-vector spaces V
with respect to two not necessarily commuting (n x n)-matrices 21 and 23. Due
to the efficient implementations of these algorithms and the powerful technol-
ogy of parallel computers, we show by examples that invariant subspaces of V
can be constructed for pairs of dense (n x n)-matrices, where n = 150000 and
IF = GF(2). Such demanding computations are necessary in modular represen-
tation theory of finite groups and our revision project of the sporadic simple
groups.
In [9), we also consider normal forms of (m x n)-matrices 21 = (aij) with en-
tries lying in IF or in lFlX), the ring of polynomials in the indeterminate X over IF.
In particular, parallel algorithms are presented to compute the Hermitian normal
form jj of a polynomial m x n-matrix 21 together with a unimodular transfor-
mation matrix \}3 such that 6 = 21\}3. Similar algorithms for the computation
of the Smith normal form (5 of a polynomial matrix 21, and two unimodular
matrices .Q and \}3 with (5 = .Q21\}3 are given as well. Because of its applica-
tions in linear algebra over fields, a special algorithm is presented for the case
where 21 is the characteristic matrix of a scalar (n x n)-matrix. The efficiency
of these algorithms is achieved by means of C. Wagner's implementations of the
fast algorithms to compute the greatest common divisor of a finite number of
polynomials heX) E lFlX) or Z[X).
 High Performance Computations in Group Representation Theory 411

The final part describes applications of the parallel linear algebra algorithms
to obtain efficient implementations of Berlekamp's and Niederreiter's algorithms
for the factorization of polynomials f(X) E IF[X] into irreducible factors. Using
the Gaussian elimination algorithms of the lecture notes [9], P. Roelse shows
by examples that one can factorize arbitrary polynomials f(X) of large degree
d provided IF' is small. In fact implementing his deterministic algorithms [27]
efficiently on the IBM SP2 supercomputer of the Theory Center of Cornell Uni-
versity he has been able to factorize a polynomial f(X) E GF(2)[X] of degree
d = 300000 chosen at random into its irreducible factors. This is a world record
according to the recent book [8) by Diaz, Emiris, Kaltofen and Pan. The running
times of his experiments on the supercomputer are given as follows.
Parallel CPU times for polynomial factorization in GF(2)[X]

Degree Degrees
d # processors Task CPU time of factors
75000 64 setup 0.27 1, 17, 35, 40, 81,
nullspace 2641 311, 622, 12225,
extract 26.9 21515,40153
total Oh44'28"
150000 128 setup 0.54 2,5,27,36,47,66,276,
nullspace 9623 284, 316, 948, 3690,
extract 106 5066,8536, 14534,
total 2h42'10" 27871,88296
300000 256 setup 1.25 2, 4, 165, 233, 275
nullspace 36540 10965, 18709,
extract 236 41770, 100948,
total lO h 12'57" 126929

4 Construction of Large Irreducible Representations

In this section some applications of the parallel linear algebra algorithms in mod-
ular representation theory of finite groups are given. We show by these examples
that the parallel linear algorithms described in the previous section allow com-
putations with large dense n x n-matrices (aij) with coefficients in a small field IF'
on powerful parallel machines. If IF' = GF(2) then n may be chosen up to 150000.
By means of such computations several high dimensional irreducible 2-modular
representations have been constructed recently by Miiller and Rosenboom [24]
and Rosenboom [28]. In this section their results are summarized.

a) Conway's Third Group Cos

The 2-modular character table of Conway's third sporadic simple group C03 has
been given by Suleiman and Wilson in [32]. Due to their use ofrandomized meth-
ods, two of the sixteen Brauer characters could only be conjectured to be given
412 G.O. Michler

correctly. In particular, they did not attempt to construct the corresponding

representations explicitly.
In [28] J. Rosenboom constructed these conjectured representations by means
of the parallel MeatAxe implementation [9] explicitly. Thereby he has proven
that the tables given in [32] are correct. His main result of [28] is stated as

Theorem 4.1. The 2-modular character table of Conway's group C03 is:

la 3a 3b 3c 5a 5b 7a 9a 9b lIa lIb 15a 15b 21a 23a 23b

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
22 -5 4 -2 -3 2 1 -2 1 -1 -2 -1 -1
230 14 5 2 5 -1 2 -1 -1 -1 -1 2
896 32 -4 -7 -4 1 2 -1 blI blI 2 1 -1 -1
896 32 -4 -7 -4 1 2 -1 bll bll 2 1 -1 -1
1496 -16 2 8 -4 -4 -2 -1 -4 -1 2 1 1 1
3520 -44 10 -8 -5 -1 1 1 1 -1 1 1
7084 10 19 -14 9 -1 4 -2 -1
9372 30 -15 6 -3 -3 -1 -3 -1 b23 b23
9372 30 -15 6 -3 -3 -1 -3 -1 b23 b23
19712 -160 -16 14 12 2 -4 -1 -1 1 1
38456 -100 -46 8 6 -4 -2 8 -1 -1 1
73600 160 16 13 -5 2 4 1 -1 -1 1 -1
88000 -20 -2 -32 3 -5 1 3 3 2 2
129536 -64 44 8 -14 -4 1 -1 -1 1 -1 1
131584 256 -32 -20 -16 4 -2 -2 1 2 2 -4 -2 1 1 1

Rosenboom constructed the 38456-dimensional 2-modular irreducible C03 -

module as a composition factor of the 6th exterior power M74613 = A6(22} of
the simple 2-modular representation of dimension 22. The irreducibility of this
module was confirmed with the help of Norton's irreducibility criterion. The
total running time for this computation was about eight days, using between six
and eight nodes of the SP /1 of the IEM, amounting to a total of 1500 cpu-hours.
In order to analyze the tensor product M206184 of the 22- and one 9372-
dimensional C03 -modules, Rosenboom has re-implemented the algorithms for
the condensation of tensor products described by Wiegelmann in [35]. As a con-
densation subgroup he has used the Sylow 5-subgroup of C03 of order 125 which
had already been used by Suleiman and Wilson [32]. All irreducibles remain
non-zero during this condensation. Therefore the condensed submodules are in
a one-to-one correspondence with the original ones.
It turned out that according to the decomposition of the condensed module,
M206184 has an irreducible sode, which consists exactly of the module of dimen-
sion 88000 missing in [32]. Using the parallel implementations of the MeatAxe
algorithms of [9] he obtained the proper invariant irreducible subspace of M206184
with dimension 88000. The computation took almost ten days. The resulting
space needs more than 2 gigabytes of storage.
 High Performance Computations in Group Representation Theory 413

b) The 2-Modular Decomposition Numbers of Conway's Group CO 2

In [24] Miiller and Rosenboom present an algorithm to condense induced modules
for a finite group over a finite field. It is built on existing tools of computational
group and representation theory, the MeatAxe for matrix algebras over finite
fields and the Schreier-Sims methods for permutation groups. It has been imple-
mented in GAP and as an extension of the MeatAxe. As an application Miiller
and Rosenboom construct and analyze an induced module for the sporadic sim-
ple Conway group CO 2 over the field GF(2). The result of this analysis is used to
complete the 2-modular Brauer character table of CO 2 computed by Suleiman,
Wilson [31]. Their main result is restated as

Theorem 4.2. The 2-modular character table of Conway's group CO 2 is:

lA 3A 3B 5A 5B 7A 9A llA 15A 15B 15C 23A 23B
Xl 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
X2 22 -5 4 -3 2 1 1 0 -1 0 0 -1 -1
X3 230 14 5 5 0 -1 -1 -1 0 -1 -1 0 0
X4 748 -8 1 -2 -2 -1 -2 0 1 b15 ** -b23
Xs 748 -8 1 -2 -2 -1 -2 0 1
**
b15 ** -b23
X6 3520 -44 10 -5 0 -1 1 0 0
**
1 1 1 1
X7 5312 20 2 12 -3 -1 -1 -1 -3 0 0 -1 -1
Xs 8602 43 -20 2 -3 -1 1 0 o -b15 ** 0 0
X9 8602 43 -20 2 -3 -1 1 0 0 ** -b15 0 0
XIO 36938 -79 -52 13 -2 -1 2 0 -2 1 1 0 0
Xu 83948 -22 -58 -2 -12 -3 -1 -4 -3 -2 -2 -2 -2
Xl2 156538 100 -80 -12 -2 -3 -2 -3 -5 0 0 0 0
Xl3 1835008 -128 -128 8 8 0 -2 -1 2 2 l -1 -1

In [31] Suleiman and Wilson have determined 10 of the 13 irreducible 2-modular

Brauer characters of G = C02. The remaining three characters were conjectured to have
degrees 36938, 83948 and 156538. Now, with Muller's and Rosenboom's condensation
algorithm [24] at hand, it is possible to solve this problem.
In fact, they find all three missing simple FG-modules by applying their conden-
sation method to the induced FG-module W = VG, where V is a simple FH-module
of dimension 140 of the maximal subgroup H ~ U6(2) : 2 of G of index 2300. In the
analysis of the structure of the condensed module, the techniques of Lux, Muller and
Ringe [20] have been very useful. The explicit matrix constructions of the simple FG-
modules of dimensions 36938 and 83948 has taken 7785 hours on the IBM SP2 of the
computer center of Essen University using the parallel MeatAxe algorithm of [9]. So far
there are no matrices of the generators of CO2 corresponding to the 156538-dimensional
FG-module.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author of this paper has been supported by the DFG research project "Algo-
rithmic Number Theory and Algebra" .
414 G.O. Michler

A substantial part of the high performance computations [34] proving Theorem

2.4 were conducted using the resources of the Cornell Theory Center, which receives
major funding from the National Science Foundation and New York State with addi-
tional support from the Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health, IBM
Cooperation and members of the Corporate Research Institute. The total computing
time on all the involved nodes was 28137 CPU-h. I owe special thanks to Professor J.
Guckenheimer and Dr. A. Hoisie for their support.
The author also would like to thank the Computer Center of Karlsruhe University
for providing 38785 CPU-h on their supercomputer IBM RS/6000 SP with 256 knots.
This help was necessary to complete the above mentioned computations. I am very
grateful to Professor W. Schiinauer for his assistance.
The author also wants to thank the referee for several helpful remarks concerning
the presentation of this article.

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(1980).
3. W. Bosma, J. Cannon, MAGMA Handbook, Sydney (1993).
4. G. Butler, Fundamental algorithms for permutation groups, Lecture Notes in Com-
puter Science, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg (1991).
5. J. H. Conway, R. T. Curtis, S. P. Norton, R. A. Parker, R. A. Wilson, Atlas of
finite groups, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1985).
6. G. D. Cooperman, L. Finkelstein, M. Tselman, B. York, Constructing permutation
representations for large matrix groups, J. Symb. Comput. 24 (1997), 471-488.
7. G. D. Cooperman, W. Lempken, G. O. Michler, M. Weller, A new existence proof
of Janko's simple group J4, Preprint, IEM Essen (1997).
8. A. Diaz, I. Z. Emiris, E. Kaltofen, V. Y. Pan, Algebraic algorithms, in: M. Attalah
(ed.), The Computer Science Handbook, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida (1998).
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M. Weller, Linear algebra over small finite fields on parallel machines, Vorlesungen
Fachbereich Mathematik Universitat GH Essen, Heft 23 (1995).
10. H. W. Gollan, The 5-modular representations of the Tits simple group, Math.
Compo 57 (1991), 369-386.
11. H. W. GoHan, A new existence proof for Ly, the sporadic group of R. Lyons,
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simple group Ly, VOrlesungen Fachbereich Mathematik Universitat GH Essen, Heft
26 (1998).
13. H. W. GoHan, G. O. Michler, Construction of a 45694-dimensional simple module
of Lyons' sporadic group over GF(2), Linear Algebra Appl. 256 (1997), 185-197.
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 The Structure of Maximal Finite Primitive
Matrix Groups

Gabriele Nebe

Lehrstuhl B fiir Mathematik, RWTH Aachen

Templergraben 64, 52062 Aachen, Germany
[email protected]

1 Introduction
The finite subgroups of GLn(Q) are classified up to dimension n = 31 by giving
a system of representatives for the conjugacy classes of the maximal finite ones
([12], [9], [5], [6], [7]) cf. [11] for a survey on this and interrelations between these
groups. Recently the classification has been extended to the one of absolutely
irreducible maximal finite subgroups G of GLnCD), where V is a totally definite
quaternion algebra and n . dimQ(V) ::; 40. As usual a subgroup G ::; GLn(V)
is called absolutely irreducible, if the enveloping Q-algebra QG := n:::9EG
agg I
a g E Q} ~ vnxn is the whole matrix ring vnxn (cf. [8]). The classification of
these groups yields a partial classification of the rational maximal finite matrix
groups in the new dimensions 32, 36, and 40 on one hand and on the other hand
it gives nice Hermitian structures for interesting lattices. For example one finds
eleven quaternionic structures of the Leech lattice as a Hermitian lattice of rank
n > lover a maximal order in a definite quaternion algebra V with absolutely
irreducible maximal finite automorphism group as displayed in Table l.
Rather than giving a survey of the classification results this note is devoted
to a general structure theorem (cf. Theorem 4 below).

2 The Algebraic Situation

The theoretical and computational methods apply to a quite general situation:
Let V be a division algebra of finite dimension over Q equipped with a positive
involution - : V --t V, i.e. - is an antiautomorphism of order ::; 2 of the Q-
algebra V such that the fixed field K+ := {x E V I x = x} is a totally real
number field and xx is totally positive for all 0 =1= x E V. We assume further
that K+ is contained in the center K := Z(V) of V. The involution - is extended
to a mapping of the whole matrix ring vnxn by applying it to the entries of the
matrices such that X r-t j(tr is an involution of the matrix ring vnxn. Then
the V-vector space vn has a totally positive definite Hermitian form (x,y) :=
L7=1 XiYi· Taking the average over the finite group G, one finds that
1 ~
]Of L..JgEG
gg-tr E ;:>O(G)
h
.-
.-
{F E vnxn IF = ptr,
gFgtr = F for all 9 E G,
F totally positive definite }.

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
418 G. Nebe

Table 1. Quaternionic structures of the Leech lattice

1) n Auth(L) IAuth(L)1
Qoo,2 6 2.G2(4) 2" 6 .36 .5'.7.13
Qoo,5 6 8L2(25) 24 .3.5 2 .13
Qoo,5 6 2.h.2 29 .33 .5 2 .7
Qoo,l1 24 .3.5.11
6 8 L 2(11).2
Qoo,13 6 8L2(13).2 24 .3.7.13
Q.j3,002 3 (±U3(3)).225 .33 .7
Q,;5,002 3 2.h 28 .33 .5 2 .7
Q.,f'f,002 3 cd L2(7) 26 .3.7
Qv'f3,002 3 8L2(13) 23 .3.7.13
Qv'2T,002 3 ±cd L2(7) 25 .3 2 ·7
QW,",003 13 2 ±CI3 .C4 23 .13

Since V is finite dimensional over Q the order of a finite subgroup G of

GLn(V) can be bounded by a formula given in [14). So there are only finitely
many conjugacy classes of finite subgroups in GLn(V). The most interesting ones
are the maximal finite subgroups of G Ln (V) since they contain all the other finite
ones. Moreover these maximal finite subgroups are full automorphism groups of
highly symmetric Hermitian lattices. In this paper it is shown that the structure
of the primitive maximal finite matrix groups is fairly restricted: The generalized
Fitting group already determines a normal subgroup with metabelian factor
group the index of which can be bounded.
Constructing the maximal finite groups, one clearly may restrict to the irre-
ducible ones, as one can build up the reducible maximal finite matrix groups from
the ones in smaller dimensions (d. [10)). This is also true for imprimitive groups:
the imprimitive maximal finite subgroups of GLn(V) are full wreath products of
a maximal finite primitive subgroup of GLd(V) with the symmetric group of de-
gree ~. So one only has to construct the primitive maximal finite groups, where
a finite subgroup G of GLn(V) is called primitive, if the natural representation
of G is irreducible over V and G does not embed into a wreath product with
more than one factor. Since the central primitive idempotents in the enveloping
algebra of a normal subgroup of G give rise to a system of imprimitivity of G,
primitivity has the following important consequence:

Remark 1. Let G ::; GLn(V) be a finite primitive group and N:::! G be a normal
subgroup of G. Then the K-algebra KN spanned by the matrices in N over the
centre K = Z(V) is a simple algebra.

Therefore only one irreducible K-representation of N occurs in the restric-

tion of the natural representation of a primitive matrix group G to a normal
subgroup N. In particular if N is abelian this implies that N is cyclic. Since the
p-groups for which all abelian characteristic subgroups are cyclic are classified
by P. Hall (cf. [3, p. 357)) this observation yields a (short) list of possible normal
 Maximal Finite Matrix Groups 419

p-subgroups of a primitive matrix group G. Using this list and the classification
of finite simple groups and their characters (d. [2), [4], [15)), one gets the candi-
dates for the generalized fitting groups Fitgen (G), the product of the maximal
nilpotent normal subgroup with the quasi-semi-simple normal subgroups of G,
for finite primitive subgroups G of GLn(V).

3 Arithmetic Properties
To get further insight in the structure of the maximal finite primitive matrix
groups one has to use some arithmetic properties. Let ZK be the ring of integers
in K and M a maximal order in V!::'! Endvnxn(V n ).
If G :$ GLn(V) is a finite matrix group, then the Z-lattice M ®ZK ZKG
spanned by M and the matrices in G is closed under multiplication hence it is
an order in the algebra V ®K KG. Since orders are contained in maximal orders
and the latter are endomorphism rings of lattices (finitely generated projective
M-modules that span vn) one gets that the set of G-invariant M-Iattices

Z!)Jt(G) := {L ~ vn I L is a full M-Iattice in vn

with Lg = L for all 9 E G}
is not empty. In particular a finite group G :$ GLn(V) is maximal finite,
if and only if G is the full automorphism group of all its invariant lattices:
G = Aut(L,F) := {x E GLn(V) I Lx = L,xFXtr = F} for all (L,F) E
Z!)Jt(G) x ~r(G).

There is a canonical process, the radical idealizer process, which attaches to

an order Ao in a semisimple algebra A a chain of orders Ao C Al C ... that
ends with a hereditary order Ae = AeH . Namely Ai is the right idealizer of the
arithmetic radical of A i - 1 i = 1,2, ... (cf. [1), [13)). If N is a normal subgroup
of a primitive matrix group G, then ZKN =: Ao is an order in the simple
algebra K N =: A. Clearly G acts on Ao and hence on the hereditary order Ae
by conjugation. Therefore the matrices in G and Ae generate an order and there
is a Ae-Iattice in vn that is G-invariant.

Remark 2. Let N be a normal subgroup of a primitive maximal finite subgroup

G of GLn(V) and V the irreducible KN-module occurring in the natural repre-
sentation of N. As above let Ae be the hereditary order obtained by applying the
radical idealizer process to the order Ao := ZKN. Let L 1 , . .. , L. be a system
of representatives of isomorphism classes of Ae-Iattices in V and F E :F;:O(N)
a positive definite N-invariant Hermitian form. Then the generalized Bravais
group

B'K(N) := {g E KN I Lig = Li for all i = 1, ... , sand gFgtr = F}

is a normal subgroup of G.
420 G. Nebe

B'K(N) is the unique maximal finite subgroup of the normalizer of N in the

unit group of KN (d. [12, (11.10)]).
Example 1. (d. [8, Prop. 7.2, Cor. 7.4])
Let p be an odd prime and N = Op(G) the maximal normal p-subgroup of a
primitive maximal finite matrix group G. It follows from a classification of P.
Hall of those p-groups of which all abelian characteristic subgroups are cyclic,
that there are m, kENo such that N = p~+2kyCp = is a central product of
an extraspecial p-group of exponent p and a cyclic group of order pm. Then
B'Q(N) ~ ±N.SP2k(P).

4 The Structure of the Maximal Finite Primitive Matrix

Groups
Now we are able to describe the structure of the maximal finite primitive sub-
groups G of GLnCD). Let G be such a group, N := Fitgen(G) its generalized
Fitting group. Then N is a normal subgroup of G that contains its centralizer.
Let B := B'K(N) be the generalized Bravais group of N. Since G is primitive,
the enveloping algebra A := K N = K B is a simple algebra. Hence the center
L := Z(A) is a field, the extension of K by the character values of an absolutely
irreducible constituent ofthe natural character of N. The group G acts as Galois
automorphisms on this abelian number field L. Let S be the kernel of this action.

Theorem 1. (ef. [8, Theorem 6.8)} If L = Z(A) is a totally real number field
then the quotient group S / B is of exponent 1 or 2.

Proof. Denote the commuting algebra Cvnxn (A) by C. Then Z(A) = Z(C).
Choose F E Fj;°(N). Then e f-+ eO := Fetr F- 1 is an involution on C and on
A. The other N-invariant Hermitian forms are of the form cF with c E C+,
the fixed space of o. Note that 0: C --+ C depends on the choice of F but
the corresponding involution on A does not. In particular the restriction of the
involution to the center L is independent of the choice of F. One easily sees
that the induced involution is the complex conjugation on L, hence it is trivial
because L is totally real.
Let s E S. Since s induces a L-algebra automorphism on the central simple L-
algebra A, the theorem of Skolem and Noether implies that there is an invertible
element a E A with as- 1 E C. The matrix aFatr is again N-invariant, hence
aFa tr = cF for some c E C+. Moreover c = aFatr F- 1 lies in the center L of
 Maximal Finite Matrix Groups 421

C, because for x E C one has cxo = aPa,tr p-l (Px tr P-l) = aPa,tr xtr p-l =
aPxtra,tr p-l = axe pa,tr p-l = xOc.
Therefore c E A and a 2 c- 1 P(a 2 c 1)tr = P. Since the element s has finite
order, there is mEN such that (a 2 c- 1 )m E L commutes with the elements of N.
Then P = (a 2 c- 1)mp«a2 c l)m)tr = (a2c- 1)m(a 2c- 1)mp. Hence (a 2c- 1)2m =
1 and therefore a 2 c- 1 is a unit of finite order in A normalizing N. By Remark 2
one gets that b:= a 2 c- 1 lies in B. Moreover b- 1 S 2 commutes with every element
of N and therefore lies in Ca(N) ~ N. 0

If L = Z(A) is not totally real, then the theorem above may be no longer
true. I have no example of a primitive maximal finite group G where 5/ B is of
exponent > 2 but the following example shows that such groups are likely to
exist. Let N := C3 x C7 : C3 = (z,x,y I z3,x 7 ,y3,xY = x 2 ). Then N has an
automorphism s of order 3, with z' = z, x' = x, yS = yz. The non split extension
C2 x N.(s) is a maximal subgroup of the GU3 (5), in fact one could replace N
by the irreducible matrix group 3.u3(5):-:; GL144(L) where L:= Q[v'-3,H].
N has an irreducible faithful representation into GL3(L). The corresponding
character extends to 5 := ±N : (s) but the character value of xs involves further
irrationalities. So if N (or 3.u3 (5)) is a normal subgroup of a maximal finite
primitive group G, then 3 divides the order of 5/ B (in the notation above).
The reason for this phenomenon is that L = Z(QN) is a complex field. The
element a 2 c 1 in the above proof only satisfies
(a2c- 1)m(a 2c 1)m = 1. Let P be a prime ideal in Land (Ae)P be the completion
ofthe hereditary order Ae at the prime P. The (Ae)p-Iattices in the simple (Ae)P-
module form a chain Ch p . If P :f. P, then a 2 c- 1 acts on this chain Ch p say by
shifting k-steps down. But then a 2 c- 1 acts on the chain ChI> by shifting k-steps
up.
The group generated by all possible shifts is abelian, so one finds that the
image 5/ B of 5 is abelian. To get bounds on the rank and exponent of this
abelian group let U1(L) := {x E L* I xx = I} be the unitary group of Land
rp(U1(L)) be the image of U1(L) in I15hp =: 5h where the product runs over
the set of unordered pairs of prime ideal P :f. P of L. Then 5 2 / B is isomorphic
to a subgroup of 5h/(rp(U1(L)).
Let Cl be the group of all ideals I of L with II = (1) modulo the group
of principal ideals that are generated by an element of Ut{L). Denote the rank
of Cl by t and its exponent by g. Let r be the number of pairs of prime ideals
P :f. P of L that divide the discriminant of Ae (and therefore the order of N).
Let d be the degree of a L-irreducible constituent of the natural representation
of N.
Proposition 1. The quotient group 5/ B is abelian. The rank of 52 / B is bound-
ed by r + t and its exponent divides dg.
Proof. For a prime ideal P of L let 5hp ==' Z denote the group of all inclusion
preserving permutations of the (Ae)p-Iattices in the irreducible (Ae)p-module
that are induced by elements of the normalizer of (Ae)P in Ap. The multiplicative
group L* acts on the Ae-Iattices, hence one gets a homomorphism L* --+ 5hp.
422 G. Nebe

The image is generated by multiplication with P and a subgroup of finite index

say Ap of Shp. Note that Ap divides the dimension of the irreducible (Ae)P-
module (and hence d) and that Ap = 1 if P does not divide the discriminant of
Ae. Hence one gets an exact sequence

Hence the rank of S2 IBis bounded by the rank of Shl t.p(U1(L)) ::; r + t and
the exponent of S21B divides exp(Shlt.p(U1(L))) which divides dg. 0

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 Presentations and Representations of Groups

W. Plesken
RWTH Aachen, Lehrstuhl B fUr Mathematik
Templergraben 64, 52062 Aachen, Germany
[email protected]

1 Introduction.
Solving equations belongs to the oldest problems in mathematics. In a wider
sense, analyzing a group presentation
G = (Xl, .. ' ,Xn!rt(Xl,'" ,Xn) = 1, ... ,rk(xl,'" ,xn) = 1)
belongs to this class of problems, because one wants to know the most general
solutions of the defining relations. It is well known that there is no general pro-
cedure to solve the word problem by the famous Novikov-Boone Theorem, cf.
[30] Chapter 13 for an exposition. Even deciding the question whether G is finite
or infinite cannot be solved in general. Nevertheless, one can try to prove that
G is infinite, if one suspects this, by solving the equations given by the relators
in some group, where one can compute, for example in a matrix group. In case
of success this produces an epimorphic image of G which might be infinite. And
even if it is finite, one might use the representations of the finite quotient to pro-
duce bigger epimorphic images. Various techniques for carrying out these ideas
have been developed over the last years. They will be described in the next few
chapters.

There are many other methods available to study finitely presented groups
from the computational point of view. To prove finiteness the classical Todd-
Coxeter algorithm is still the basic tool. Knuth-Bendix type approaches have
been successful to prove infiniteness in many cases, cf. [34] for a general reference
and [8], [9] for recent progress. For instance, Derek Holt has managed to prove
the infiniteness of the Heineken group
(Xl,X2,X31[[Xl,X2],X2] = X3, [[X2,X3],X3] = Xl, [[X3,Xl],Xl] = X2),
which still has not been possible by any other methods. But on the other hand,
the methods in this survey have successfully produced infiniteness results, where
all other methods failed. The infinity proofs for finitely presented groups dis-
cussed in this paper always exhibit an infinite, residually finite factor group
explicitly.

Roughly speaking there are two methods to be described here. The first one
is not yet very much developed. It typically produces images whose Zariski clo-
sure in some general linear group is a nonsoluble algebraic group and at the

B. H. Matzat et al. (eds.), Algorithmic Algebra and Number Theory

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
424 W. Plesken

same time it reveals infinitely many finite simple factor groups of G. This will
be discussed in Chapter 4. The second method produces an image, which is free
abelian by finite. This is discussed in Chapter 3. Since this method requires ratio-
nal representations of finite groups, methods for constructing those are surveyed
in Chapter 2, which of course is also of independent interest. Finally Chapter 5
gives some short comments on the soluble quotient algorithm, where the basic
ideas underlying the methods of this paper have been automatized in [26) and
[1), and makes some comments on possible future development.

2 Constructing Rational Representations of Finite

Groups.
There are several approaches, some of which are fairly developed, other need fur-
ther investigation. Some are limited to special classes of representations, others
to special classes of groups. Roughly speaking, at present the numerical diffi-
culties (usually in the disguise of big numbers) can just about be mastered if
one restricts to irreducible representations up to degree 100. In the course of
constructing these, representations of much bigger degrees often turn up.

a) Approach using finite extension fields of Q.

Let G be a finite group, K be a finite extension field of Q, and M a KG-

module. Denote the module obtained from M by restriction to QG by M'Qa.
The elementary, yet fundamental remark at the beginning of this approach is
the following.

Remark 1. Let X be an absolutely irreducible Frobenius character of G.

(i) Each simple QG-module having X as a constituent in its character is of the
form M'Qa for some simple KG-module M with character X and some finite
extension field K of Q.
(ii) Let M be a simple KG-module with character X for some finite extension
field K of Q. Then MQG is a multiple of a simple QG-module. It is simple
if and only if K is a splitting field of minimal degree of x.

Note, splitting fields always contain the field Q[x) of character values of x.
Moreover Q[X) is already a splitting field if and only if the rational Schur index
of X is 1. Otherwise, a minimal splitting field need not be a splitting field of
minimal degree. The question arises where to look for splitting fields of minimal
degree. By Brauer's well known theorem one knows that the the e-th cyclotomic
number field is always a splitting field, where e is the exponent of G. B. Fein
has given examples, cf. [5), [6), of finite soluble groups with characters which do
not have an abelian splitting field of minimal degree at all. Nevertheless he gives
also conditions, cf. also [23), when one has a splitting field of minimal degree as
 Presentations and Representations of Groups 425

subfield of the e-th cyclotomic number field. Even for soluble groups the degrees
of the characters seem to get rather big, when one does not have such a conve-
nient splitting field of minimal degree.

Already in the case of trivial Schur index, where the minimal splitting field
is unique, it is not always a triviality to realize the representation over this field.
Here is a corollary of Proposition 3.1 of [29), which at least shows how to retain
the minimal splitting field in the absence of a non trivial Schur index, when one
extends irreducible representations of subgroups.

Proposition 1. Let H ~ G and X an irreducible Frobenius character of G,

whose restriction to H is still irreducible. Let M be an absolutely simple K H -
module with character XIH. Define L := K[X]. Then there exists a unique LG-
module with character x. More explicitly: If Ll : KH -+ Knxn is a representation
belonging to M, then its extension r : LG -+ Lnxn is given by

n2
r(g) = L X(gbi)Ll(bi) ,
i=l

where the bi form a K -basis of the component of K H corresponding to M viewed

as K -subalgebra of the component of LG corresponding to X and the bi form the
dual basis with respect to the trace bilinear form induced from M.

In [29] the use of this result for the actual construction of representations over
splitting fields of minimal or at least almost minimal degree has been shown.

Coming back to the concept of splitting fields of minimal degree in general,

it does not seem to be too restrictive in view of the results quoted above, if
one assumes that the e-th cyclotomic number field contains such a field. To per-
form the approach of 1 under this assumption, one needs an implementation
of an arithmetic of abelian number fields, which is by now available, cf. [1] or
[31]. Two very urgent practical problems remain: Constructing absolutely irre-
ducible representations over some field and with given character and secondly
finding a splitting field of minimal degree and writing the representation over
this field. Moreover one more theoretical problem remains: Verify that the final
field was not just a minimal splitting field but a splitting field of minimal degree.

For finite soluble groups the first two problems have been solved by Herbert
Bruckner in his thesis, cf. [1], more precisely, he gives an algorithm finding the
absolutely irreducible representations of a finite soluble group G over splitting
subfields of minimal degree of the e-th cyclotomic number field with e the expo-
nent of G. Often the third problem is clear, but in principle one would have to
verify that the splitting field he has found is not only of minimal degree among
the subfields of the cyclotomic field but of minimal degree among all splitting
fields. I come back to this later on. From a theoretical point of view his method
426 W. Plesken

leaves no gaps for the first two steps, however from a practical point of view, it
relies on other systems like KANT, cf. [19], to solve certain relative norm equa-
tions in abelian number fields. Here is a short outline of the method: Following
the classical approach by 1. Schur, one works one's way up a composition series of
G by extending absolutely irreducible representations whenever possible and in-
ducing them otherwise, starting with the trivial representation of the I-subgroup
ending with a set of representatives of the absolutely irreducible representations
over some cyclotomic number field. Using Galois descent one tries all possible
subfields starting with the maximal ones to find a splitting field of minimal de-
gree for each representation. The latter part can be abbreviated by remembering
at which stages in its construction history one had induced (because that are the
steps where the centers might get smaller and the Schur indices might increase).
It is also for this Galois descent where the relative norm equations come in.
Coming to the last problem of verification, one could keep track of all the local
Schur indices or at least of the global one as one constructs the representations
going up the composition series. Therefore one knows the global Schur index of
the final representations in the end and can decide whether the field was of min-
imal degree. This is not (yet) implemented, partially because it is not absolutely
necessary for the application for the soluble quotient program for which it was
mainly designed, cf. last chapter.

This is how far the approach via minimal splitting fields has been developed
so far. The advantage of the approach is that the degrees of the representations
remain as small as possible until the end, when one views the module over the
rational group algebra, i.e. inserts the regular representation of the splitting field
in the matrix representation.

b) The integral approach.

This approach was developed in [27]. It is based on the semisimplicity of the

group algebra QQ, the fact that each rational representation of a finite group
G can be realized over the integers, and the following result.

Theorem 1. {[27} Thm. 2.1) Let G be a finite group, V be a finite dimensional

CG-module, E ~ G a generating set of G containing 1. Define p : V -+ V :
far L.gEGgv to be the CG-projection of V onto the subspace FixG(V) of G-
fixed points in V and pE : V -+ V : v I-t rh
L.gEE gv. Then inside EnddV)
one has lim n -7oo p'J.: = p.

What looks like a possibility of doing approximate calculations, cf. [3], turns
into an efficient way to do precise calculations, if V is of the form C 0z M for
some 'LG lattice M, cf. [27]. Because then the G-action is written in terms of
integral matrices and the denominator for the matrix of p divides the order IGI
of the group G. In fact, convergence is good enough in many cases, that one can
guess correctly the matrix of p after a couple of iterations even without knowing
 Presentations and Representations of Groups 427

the order of G. The possible ZG-Iattices M for constructing simple QG-modules

are the following:

(1) The image of ZG in EndlQ(Q 0Z X) under a representation belonging to a

ZG-Iattice X. The fixed points consist of the image of the centre of QG and
can be used to decompose Q 0z X into homogeneous components.
(2) EndQ(Q0zX) with X as in (1). The fixed points form EnliQa (Q0zX) and
can be used to decompose Q0z X into the desired irreducible QG-modules.
(3) HomlQ(Q 0z X,Q 0z X*) with X as in (1). The fixed points consist of
the G-invariant bilinear forms on Q 0z X, which can also be used to find
submodules.
(4) H omlQ(Q 0Z X, Q 0Z Y) with X as in (1) and Y another ZG-Iattice. The
fixed points consist of H omQa (Q 0z X, Q 0z Y) and are of obvious use in
finding sub- and quotient modules of Q 0z X and Q 0z Y.

For constructing QG-modules from which to start one has the whole spec-
trum of possibilities of inducing, tensoring etc .. The crucial problem, which re-
mains, is the analysis of endomorphism rings, more precisely, deciding whether
they are division algebras and in case they are not, to produce a non-zero sin-
gular element. Tricks how to get around this in favorable cases and how to do
it in simple cases are discussed in [27]. In general one needs a p-adic analysis of
the situation, algorithmic details of which have not yet been developed.

The always present difficulty of big numbers can - up to a certain degree - be

overcome by using LLL-reduction with respect to well chosen invariant positive
definite forms computed in (3).

c) Other approaches.

I briefly mention two other approaches, none of which has been developed
far enough yet to a systematic method for finding all irreducible rational rep-
resentations in general. There is the vector enumerator method by S. Linton,
cf. [15], [16], which has also been used to construct representations of other al-
gebras than group algebras. More recently there is the integral meataxe by R.
Parker, cf. [25], adjusting the meat axe methods which were extremely successful
in positive characteristic, cf. [24], [13]. Surprisingly, it turned out that similar to
finite characteristic words in the group algebra yielding images of small corank
did not seem to be as rare as expected.

3 Constructing Free Abelian by Finite Images.

Suppose a presentation
428 W. Plesken

given. A typical conventional method of proving that G is infinite is as follows:

Use the low index subgroup procedure, cf. [34], to exhibit a subgroup of small
index and get a presentation of this subgroup. Then compute the abelianization
of the subgroup from its presentation hoping that an infinite cycle turns up.

The method to be described here was first used in [11] and refined in [29]. It
proves infiniteness, whenever the old method does so, but the use of representa-
tions of finite factor groups keeps the numerical difficulties under better control.
It supposes that one has already an epimorphism tp : G --t H onto a finite group
H. One now observes, cf. [11], if Hl(G, M) i= 0 for some (simple) QH-module,
which is viewed as QG-module via tp, then G is infinite. The method is based on
this observation and the fact that HI (G, M) can easily be computed from the
presentation by using derivations, cf. [35] or [10], where Fox derivatives are used,
for which meanwhile an efficient implementation [32] is available. Group theo-
retically the non-vanishing of the first cohomology group means that cP can be
lifted to an epimorphism of G onto an extension of a ZH-Iattice in M extended
by H. Technically speaking, this method only involves formal manipulations and
solving rational linear equations, once tp and the (irreducible) rational represen-
tations of the factor group H are known, which was discussed in the previous
section. Strictly speaking irreducibility is not necessary. One has the following
remark.

Remark 2. The abelianization kertp/(kertp)' of kertp is infinite if and only if

HI(G, M) i= 0 for at least one QH-module M with M running through a finite
set of QH-modules such that each simple QH module occurs as a constituent
of at least one of them.

But the linear equations are in n . dimQM indeterminates, where n is the

number of generators of G. So with a set of representatives of irreducible QH-
modules one has the smallest number of indeterminates. In view of the problem
of big numbers that may occur during the Gaussian elimination it might be
advantageous to work with reducible representations when they have only few
entries in their matrices, for instance permutation representations might be more
advantageous than one of their constituents when the degrees differ only by a
factor of 2 or 3 . Independently of whether or not one works with irreducible
QH-modules, one nice feature of this method is that the lattice by which H is
extended to get a bigger epimorphic image of G comes out automatically from all
the lattices which lie in the QH-module with which one works. An H-generating
set for this lattice can be obtained by evaluating defining relators for H on the
images of the Xi in the (split) extension of M by H. Note also, that the extension
of the lattice by H is not necessarily split, but comes also out of the procedure
automatically.

If one wants to compare this method with the conventional method described
above, one takes tp to be the permutation representation on the cosets of the low
 Presentations and Representations of Groups 429

index subgroup, kertp to be the core of this subgroup and M the permutation
module on the cosets. This puts it into evidence that the new method is stronger
when one is able to come up with the epimorphism and the representations. The
previous chapter dealt with the last point. For the first point we have various
alternatives to the low index subgroup program. If G / kertp is soluble, the very
successful implementation by H. Bruckner in [1] of the soluble quotient algo-
rithm developed in [26] ought to be able to find H and tp. In the nonsoluble
case, QUOTPIC, cf. [14] provides good facilities to test for simple factor groups
up to a certain order. Another method will come out of the discussion of the
next chapter.

When the finite factor group H is already big, constructing all irreducible
rational representations might be very time consuming. Therefore it is desirable
to have some less laborious device to discard most of the candidates without
constructing them. This has been successfully carried out for factor groups H "'"
L 2 (P) in [29] by using the simple lFpL2(P)-modules and computing their first
cohomology group as G-modules. For instance the group

was investigated for various parameters n ;::: 23 by this method. For n = 23 it

turned out that the group mapped onto H = L 2 (139) and that Hl(G, M) = 0
for all simple lF139 H-modules except for the 41 and 125 dimensional ones. This
left us with exactly one QH-module of dimension 2 ·138 which could be written
as Q[y'5]H-module of dimension 138 in the spirit of section a) of the previous
chapter. However, we got the representation only over the maximal real subfield
of the 20-th cyclotomic number field and the numbers for the norm equation
which had to be solved in order to perform the Galois descent got too big.
Nevertheless, our software was just about able to cope with the rational repre-
sentation of degree 4 . 138 obtained from the field of degree 4. In any case, the
epimorphism of G3,7,23 onto L 2 (139) lifted to a 276-dimensional space group,
and by the above remarks we could have computed the 276-dimensional rational
representation from a presentation of L 2 (138) afterwards (when we did not need
it anymore).

It is always a good check, before one constructs the rational representation

in question, to construct a modular representation in finite characteristic prime
to the group order, which occurs as modular constituent of the rational repre-
sentation. This modular representation is usually much easier to construct and
also the cohomology group is easier to compute, because one has no problems
with big numbers.

To conclude this chapter, I discuss two examples which were given to us for
investigation by Derek Holt. The investigations carried out by T. Schulz and
myself demonstrate some ideas how to find the right candidate for the factor
group H. The groups G are given by
430 W. Plesken

G(n) = (a, bla4 , b4 , (aW, (a 2 b)5, (a- 1 bt)

with n = 5 and 6. Let G = G(5). Then G has a map onto L3(4). This factor
group is still small enough that one can get a presentation of the kernel. The
abelianization of the kernel is still finite, but the nilpotent quotient algorithm
produced a powerful factor group, cf. [4] with an exponent-2 lower central series
with layers all of order 221. Therefore the first impulse is to look for images
in algebraic groups as to be discussed in the next chapter. However, (ker~)2
in the factor group produced by Derek Holt (consisting of 9 layers) had only
a cyclic commutator subgroup. That made the algebraic group image unlikely
and instead we tried to lift ~ : G -+ L3(4) to a 2-fold cover of L3(4) and then
tried to put a 20-dimensional lattice underneath. Of the three possibilities for
the cover, the third worked and we got as image of G an extension of Z20 by the
(not faithfully acting) exponent-2 covering group 22 . L3(4). This however could
not fully explain the repeated 221 in the central series above. But very little
extra calculations showed that one could put another copy of Z underneath the
extension one had already.

In the example G = G(6) one had an epimorphism onto the Mathieu group
M 12 , and no such detailed calculations were available. We just checked whether
the obvious guess would work: lift to the 2-fold cover of M12 and put the faithful
20-dimensional 2 . M 12 -lattice underneath, which had a symplectic invariant as
in the other case. It worked right away and proved that G(6) is also infinite.

4 Constructing Representations of Finitely Presented

Groups.
The results of the previous chapter could be interpreted by constructing a rep-
resentation of a finitely presented group

by using an epimorphism ~ : G -+ H onto a finite group H and by using

representations L1 of H such that the resulting representation is of the form
( L1 ~ ~ ~). The main tool was solving linear equations. Now we are prepared
to solve algebraic equations hoping to find more general representations for the
finitely presented group G. Of course writing an d x d-matrix with ~ indeter-
minates for each generator Xi, turns the relations into k~ algebraic equations
in n~ indeterminates. One cannot seriously hope to say much in this gener-
ality, especially if little is known about the structure of G. However, there are
various ideas developed in [11] Chapter 5, [28] and [12], which produce realistic
assumptions and methods working under these assumptions. For instance, of-
ten one can read off from the presentation that some subset of the generators
 Presentations and Representations of Groups 431

can only generate a finite subgroup. Then one can use the representations of
this subgroups to reduce the number of indeterminates drastically as well as the
degree of the equations. One can then use both resultant techniques as well as
Grabner basis techniques. If one has many equations, it is advantageous to do
the actual computations over Z, so that the final resultants give a very short
list of primes, which are the possible characteristics of the fields, where one can
expect solutions. This method is especially useful to find all primes p for which
one has an epimorphism onto L 2 (P), cr. [11] for examples and [33) for other gen-
eral techniques for computations in PGL2(k). Beyond that these methods are
rather limited indeed, though we had some open examples, whose infiniteness we
could prove by this method in [28), because suitable solutions in characteristic
zero existed.

Another realistic assumption is that one has an epimorphism r.p : G -+ H

onto a finite group H, for instance by the method just sketched or by one of
the methods mentioned in the last chapter. If H is small enough that one is
able to produce a presentation of kerr.p, on which one can still run an abelian
and nilpotent quotient program, then one often gets information, which can be
turned into a good guess for the degree d. Define the lower p-central series of
a group X by ~1 (X) := X and ~i+l (X) := [X, ~i(X)]~i(X)P for i 2: 1. Tradi-
tionally, one has a criterion, cr. [7), which yields the infiniteness of G via kerr.p,
because the size of the layers ~i (kerr.p) / ~i+1 (kerr.p) of the lower p-central series
of ker r.p grows fast enough for some prime p. In more subtle cases this size seems
to be bounded. This we take as a hint that there might be a representation
15 : H -+ GLn(lFq) for some n E N and some p-power q which can be lifted to
a representation .:1 : G -+ GLn(R) for some complete discrete valuation ring
R with residue class field lFq • For the problem of finding nand R, the lower p-
central series of kerr.p can give good hints. For instance, whether or not the inverse
limit limf- kerr.p / ~i (kerr.p) is a powerful pro-p group can already be seen from
kerr.p/ ~3(kerr.p). If it is, one expects R to be of characteristic zero, and the power
structure of kerr.p / ~i (kerr.p) for a sufficiently big i tells one the ramification index
of Zp in R. The ultimate lFp-dimension of ~i(kerr.p)/~i(kerr.p)P for a sufficiently
big i tells one the dimension of the Lie algebra attached to limf- kerr.p / ~i (kerr.p)
regarded as an analytic pro-p group. In the relevant semisimple case, this should
agree with the Lie algebra of a certain algebraic subgroup of GLn(K) defined
by .:1 (G) , where K is the field of fractions of R. In [20] first steps towards an
automatic recognition of the Lie algebras are taken. In any case, once a good
guess is made, one gets 15 and R and can start to lift 15 to a representations
.:1; : G -+ GLn(R/rad(R)i) for i = 2,3 etc .. Each step of this lifting procedure
amounts to solving linear equations over lFq • Various tricks, how-to avoid dead
ends, are given in [28]. However, even if it seems to work, one cannot repeat the
process infinitely often. There are rather laborious conditions under which one
knows that one can keep lifting. What is more rewarding is to lift in such a way,
that the matrix entries approximate algebraic numbers (of small degree) rather
than transcendental numbers. Using LLL the minimum polynomials of these
432 W. Plesken

numbers can be computed and one gets a representation over some algebraic
number field. Taking things modulo prime ideals, in which none of the denom-
inators of the matrix entries lie, yields usually infinitely many finite images of G.

The reader is referred to [12], where the up to now biggest example of this
kind is treated: G := (2,3,7; 11), where

(2,3,7;m):= (x,ylx 2 ,y3,(xy?,[x,y]m).

This G maps onto H := L 2 (43) and the first four layers of the 43-lower cen-
tral series of the kernel are of dimensions 11,14,14,14 over lF43 , suggesting that
the simple Lie algebra of type G 2 is involved. The power structure suggested a
completely ramified extension of degree 2 of Z43, for which one has the choice
of two. This resulted in an approximate representation of G of degree 7 over
Z43[.J-43)' which by careful choice of the module bases could be turned via
LLL into a degree 7 representation of G over a non-abelian number field of de-
gree 10 over Q. After this infinitely many factor groups of the form G 2 (q) for
certain prime powers q could be exhibited, none of which is in computational
reach by other methods.

5 The Soluble Quotient Algorithm and General

Comments.
Only in the case of the soluble quotient algorithm, developed in [26] and very suc-
cessfully implemented in [1], the general underlying ideas of the present paper
have been developed to the level of automatic rather than interactive perfor-
mance. The basic idea of the soluble quotient algorithm is to test for a given
finite soluble epimorphic image H of the finitely presented group

G = (Xl, ... , xnh (Xl,' .. , Xn) = 1, ... , rk (Xl, ... , Xn) = 1)

whether the epimorphism r.p : G -t H can be lifted to an extension of a simple
H-module by H. This requires to know the possible characteristics in which the
module can live. This is dealt with by use of the rational representations of H. It
also requires to compute the possible extensions and finally to compute the lifts.
These two steps are basically done in one go in [1], which is an improvement
over the original suggestion in [26]. Knowing the irreducible rational represen-
tations, or at least enough rational representations that contain all irreducibles
as constituents, makes it also possible to test for space group epimorphic images
of G, thus sometimes proving infiniteness of G. There is an alternative soluble
quotient algorithm implemented, which can even proceed after it has found an
infinite polycyclic factor group, cf. [22]. It would be interesting to see whether
both approaches can be combined. To demonstrate the strength and limit of
the present soluble quotient discussed here, the Heineken group quoted in the
introduction might serve as an example: The biggest finite factor group know
 Presentations and Representations of Groups 433

is an extension of a 2-group of order 224 by A 5 • Starting with a subgroup of

index 5 the soluble quotient algorithm is able to prove that a certain subgroup
of index 60 . 212 has a finite 2-group as abelianization, i. e. no new primes show
up. At present there does not seem to be any other program that can go that far.

The other question is in how far the construction ideas of representations

both for finite groups and for finitely presented groups could be developed fur-
ther to be used by non experts. In the finite group realm one might be optimistic.
The main problem on the theoretical side is the recognition problem for rational
finite dimensional algebras. On the practical side it is the problem of keeping
numbers small, for which [21) seems to be the best answer up to now. One inter-
esting line of investigation would be to use p-adic methods for the finite group
representation problem. The difficulties one expects are the same as with the
general p-adic lifting of representations that one has to make sure that one ap-
proximates algebraic and not transcendental numbers in the matrices. Finally it
would be highly desirable to automatize the ideas of the previous chapter. These
ideas have mainly been tested on examples, where all other methods failed or
produced results hard to check. If automatized these methods might turn out to
be faster than the traditional methods, in the range where both methods can be
applied. A nice problem is also to decide whether the finitely presented group
has free subgroups of rank at least 2. This cannot be decided by the space group
approach, but the approach of the previous chapter might produce a positive
answer.

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 Algorithms and Computation
in Mathematics

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Algebr. Volume J
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Symbolic Integration I
Transcendental Functions
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 Algorithms and (omputation
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