Project description
Dr. Pumplün currently studies forms of higher degree over fields, i.e. homogeneous polynomials of degree d greater than two (mostly over fields of characteristic zero or greater than d). The theory of these forms is much more complex than the theory of homogeneous polynomials of degree two (also called quadratic forms). Partly this can be explained by the fact that not every form of degree greater than two can be “diagonalized”, as it is the case for quadratic forms over fields of characteristic not two. (Every quadratic form over a field of characteristic not two can be represented by a matrix which only has non-zero entries on its diagonal, i.e. is diagonal.)
A modern uniform theory for these forms like it exists for quadratic and symmetric bilinear forms (cf. the standard reference books by Scharlau or Lam) seems to be missing, or only exists to some extent. Many questions which have been settled for quadratic forms quite some time ago are still open as as soon as one looks at forms of higher degree. It would be desirable to obtain a better understanding of the behaviour of these forms. First results have been obtained. Another related problem would be if one can describe forms of higher degree over algebraic varieties, for instance over curves of genus zero or one.
Dr. Pumplün is also studying nonassociative algebras over rings, fields, or algebraic varieties. Over rings, as modules these algebras are finitely generated over the base ring. Their algebra structure, i.e. the multiplication, is given by any bilinear map, such that the distributive laws are satisfied. In other words, the multiplication is not required to be associative any more, as it is usually the case when one talks about algebras. Her techniques for investigating certain classes of nonassociative algebras (e.g. octonion algebras) include elementary algebraic geometry. One of her next projects will be the investigation of octonion algebras and of exceptional simple Jordan algebras (also called Albert algebras) over curves of genus zero or one. Results on these algebras would also imply new insights on certain algebraic groups related to them.
Another interesting area is the study of quadratic or bilinear forms over algebraic varieties. There are only few varieties of dimension greater than one where the Witt ring is known. One well-known result is due to Arason (1980). It says that the Witt ring of projective space is always isomorphic to the Witt ring of the base field.
If you want to investigate algebras or forms over algebraic varieties, this will always involve the study of vector bundles of that variety. However, even for algebraically closed base fields it is usually very rare to have an explicit classification of the vector bundles. Hence, most known results on quadratic (or symmetric bilinear) forms are about the Witt ring of quadratic forms, e.g. the Witt ring of affine space, the projective space, of elliptic or hyperelliptic curves. An explicit classification of symmetric bilinear spaces is in general impossible because it would involve an explicit classification of the corresponding vector bundles (which admit a form). There are still lots of interesting open problems in this area, both easier and very difficult ones.