A question on Hamilton Quaternions How does one prove that ring

Ingrid Senior

Ingrid Senior

Answered question

2022-03-01

A question on Hamilton Quaternions
How does one prove that ring of Hamilton Quaternions with coefficients coming from the field ZpZ is not a divison ring.

Answer & Explanation

Avneet Booth

Avneet Booth

Beginner2022-03-02Added 3 answers

This answer builds on damiano's comment.
Because of Wedderburn's theorem, we know that there are no finite-dimensional non-commutative division algebras over Fp. In particular, every quaternion algebra over Fp is split, i.e., isomorphic to the algebra M2(Fp) of 2×2 matrices over Fp. Can we see this directly by arguments particular to quaternion algebras?
Yes. For instance, a quaternion algebra is split iff its associated norm form
N(x)=xx=q(x1,x2,x3,x4)
is isotropic -- i.e., there exists (x1,,x4)(0,,0) such that q(x1,,x4)=0.
In the case of the Hamiltonian quaternion algebra,
N(x)=x12+x22+x32+x42
As Robin points out, one way to see that this form is isotropic over Fp is to realize that by Lagrange's Four Squares Theorem, p is a sum of four integral squares, and then reduce modulo p.
This is overkill. The fact that any quadratic form in at least three variables over a finite field is isotropic is a special case of the (easy to prove) Chevalley-Warning theorem
Even this is more than is necessary: it follows from a simple counting argument that any nondegenerate quadratic form in at least two variables over Fp is universal, i.e., represents every nonzero element of the field.
From this we get that every nondegenerate quadratic form in at least three variables over a finite field is isotropic, and in particular the norm form of any quaternion algebra over a finite field is split.
In fact the universality of binary quadratic forms over finite fields is the key to this result. Assuming the characteristic is not 2, the quaternion algebra may be represented as a,b. For a quaternion algebra Q=a,b over any field F (of characteristic not 2), a necessary and sufficient criterion for Q to be split is that b is a norm in the extension FaF. Thus the universality of the norm form of FpaFp implies that all quaternion algebras over Fp are split.
For that matter, from the perspective of Galois cohomology, Wedderburn's theorem is not especially deep or difficult to prove. Using standard properties of cohomology of cyclic groups, it comes down to showing that for any finite degree extension FqnFq of finite fields, the norm map is surjective, and this may also be proved by an elementary counting argument (or simply by a straightforward calculation).

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